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.

Television Review: True Detective - Season One

True Detective

Season One

2014

Drama/Crime

3.5 stars out of 5

In 1899, Joseph Conrad published “Heart of Darkness”. This seminal book excels in language (all the more amazing when you explore Conrad’s personal history), but it exceeds almost all other books in describing a literary motif and metaphor that has become a near standard for serious writing in English language fiction: the physical and spiritual core of evil. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 “Apocalypse Now” may be the best use of Conrad’s metaphor, but True Detective, Season One makes good use of it, too.

In the full season 1 story arc of True Detective, we are exposed to a crime, criminals and a crime scene that seem designed by program creator/writer Nic Pizzolato to evoke the basest actions humans are capable of, and to do it in the midst of the swamp-like interior of various Louisiana bayeux. The season-long arc makes typical use of the Three Act Play: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Although in True Detective, we watch Detective gets partner, Detective loses partner, Detective gets partner back (and solves crime) – not exactly original, but entertaining.

As noted in my review below for episode one, our Detectives are superbly played by Matthew McConaughey as Rust Cohle, and in a very mediocre fashion by Woody Harrelson as Marty Hart. A woman has been killed, others are missing (and in many cases, not even reported as being missing), and our two heroes are on a quest to find the murderer or murderers. As they dig into the crime, they find evidence that the crime is only part of a series of crimes, and that there is some evidence of a cover-up and of links to people in power. When the apparent leader is finally found, he is living in conditions that are so disgusting, so revolting, it makes one question whether he is even human; he clearly thinks he has evolved upward from such a state.

To Pizzolato’s credit, he has introduced (or re-introduced, if you want to consider the Marquis de Sade amongst others) the idea that there is a kind of ethno-centricity to pain and murder. That is to say, murder with a purpose is crime to some, but an act of art/religion/what-exactly to others? The person central to the crimes in this story is living in what to outsiders seems a nightmare, but to him, is the last stair-step to his vision of Heaven. Pizzolato adds further to the complexity and the horror of the crime by suggesting as some Eastern religions also assert that time is circular. We’ve all been here before, we’ll be here again; and worse, the crimes and sufferings of the past will come to haunt us once again. These are complex thoughts for a crime drama.

The program can be watched and enjoyed by adults for the depiction and resolution of the basic crimes, or by anyone interested in the cinematic splendors of the Louisiana backwoods. But, I think this is a rare television story line with deeper undercurrents. They can be read, and perhaps over-interpreted, but it is still fun to look for deeper meaning in a story that is seemingly so prosaic.

True Detective

Season One, Episode One

2014

Drama/Crime

3.0 stars out of 5

When I first learned a Woody Harrelson/Mathew McConaughey crime drama with gothic and perhaps metaphysical elements would be coming out on HBO, I was quite enthusiastic. Working forward in time from Carnivale and Deadwood to the best written program in television history, “The Wire”, HBO has shown they can produce and air drama that is not excelled anywhere, including the silver screen. In this case though, I was disappointed. There is some good acting by McConaughey but there are problems with writing, directing and editing.

Mathew McConaughey as Detective Rust Cohle is very effective playing a severely disconnected but brilliant detective. He is initially taciturn as befits his character’s stereotype, but then starts philosophizing in so thoroughly a misanthropic manner that his partner, Martin Hart must tell him repeatedly to return to his reticence. Hart is played by Woody Harrelson. Harrelson plays Hart in a very inconsistent manner: at first he is morosely mirroring the Cohle character, then he goes upbeat and tries to be Cohle’s friend, later back down again as he tells Cohle to “stop sayin’ odd sh*t”, then up again as a family man that’s worried about Cohle.  At times you can hardly tell the two characters apart, but then depending on script requirements, the Hart character veers off in some new direction. Is this bad acting, bad directing, bad writing or all three – I’m inclined to believe all three. Just consider the simplistic way both characters are named: “Cohle” is the sad, dark character, while the family man who thinks he isn’t also another misanthrope is named “Hart”.

There are multiple technical problems with this first episode. The pacing is the most problematic issue. The pacing drags all too frequently. Camera framing was also a problem, with various angles ranging from good to incomprehensible. Initially, the editing is confusing, but as the rhythm slowly develops, it does become better. The story is told with flashbacks and to some degree this works reasonably well – in fact, it is the best part of the writing.

The basis of this first episode is that Cohle and Hart in flashback mode investigate a gruesome murder of a part-time prostitute (a pross according to True Detective). The clever part is that a similar crime occurs 17 years later, and our two former detectives (now in a completely new incarnation in the case of Cohle) are asked by contemporary detectives to not only help them understand the new crime but help them explain it in the context of the older crime – committed by someone evidently no longer free to re-commit it. Well, that is an interesting premise. And on that note, I will bide my time with respect to this series, and hope that episode 2 and later episodes will improve in quality with respect to the writing and directing.

 

Movie Review: Dallas Buyers Club

Dallas Buyers Club

2013

Drama

4.0 stars out of 5

Science and reason live in an uncomfortable balance with mainstream American thought. Americans from the Left and the Right both profess to believe in the scientific method, but in truth only do so as long as it does not disturb some cherished belief or Party line. The Right refuse the overwhelming voice from the environmental and climate scientists as regards climate change;meanwhile the Left do the same as regards GMO and drug regulation. There have been various polemics out of Hollywood before on any number of topics, some of have been excellent movies no matter how tendentious their story line (e.g. Star Wars IV-VI as examples of an anti-science POV, or Platoon as an example of anti-war POV). While with many such movies I may enjoy the acting or directing, I will often cringe as I watch the completely predictable play out before my eyes.

Dallas Buyers Club is one such movie. It has a dialog than snaps and slashes at homophobia, and acting by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto that very justly won them Oscars. And yet the very same writers for whom I have great respect for what they did with the dialog have written a story arc and directed a broadside at the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry that cannot be justified, and from an artistic point of view is quite cliché-ridden.

The movie concerns a Good ‘Ole Boy, Ron Woodruf (McConaughey): a bull-riding, oil field womanizer homophobe living in the deepest (metaphorically) part of Texas. He learns early on in the movie that he has HIV, which later develops into AIDs. He then watches his Cracker friends abandon him and throw him to the curb. Ron initially meets an establishment doctor in Dallas who tells him he has thirty days to live. Eventually he ends up in Mexico where he finds an iconoclastic American ex-pat doctor that gets him on a path to better nutrition and as the movie protrays it, a much longer and happier life. His path to a longer life leads him into establishing a vitamin and medicine system alternative to the FDA’s approach with AZT. In order to sell his alternatives he sets up the Dallas Buyers Club with new friend Rayon (Leto).

The major story arc of his fight with the FDA is comletely predictable: they’re bad, Woodruf is good; double blind tests are bad, anectotal stories of success are good; multi-year tests are bad, one month in Mexico is good. Really? To go back to my opening thoughts, does anyone understand in Hollywood what it takes to develop and test a drug? Do they know or care about the value of double-blind tests? Does anyone in Hollywood remember Thalidomide? Who would scream the loudest if Woodruf’s Protein T had such a problem?

The acting is absolutely first rate, and in my opinion the only reason to see this movie. It is unfortuntely just one more example of the dumbing down of America. It is so much easier to believe in Miracles than the hard work that Science and Engineering require to produce a new drug that works and oh-by-the-way, does no harm. Dialog is also first rate: there are many memorable lines in the movie that I truly enjoyed (Jennifer Garner as Dr. Eve responding to Woodruf’s question to her when he thought she was a nurse: “Are you f’ing deaf?”; her reply, “I’m a f’ing doctor”.) But my favorite (and I am being cynical) is the small footnote at the end of two  hours of hearing that AZT is poison that describes AZT being part of the sucessful “cocktail” of drugs currently in use to dramatically extend the lives of those with AIDs.

The movie is worth seeing for adults, and I do recommend it; but I do so wish a belief in rationality was ascendent in America, rather than the philosophy summarized on all too many bumpers: “I believe it, that settles it”.

Book Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

 

Book Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

1987

Drama

4.0 stars out of 5

Tom Wolfe’s book from the late eighties about life in New York City in the late eighties is a very hard book to read. Not because it is poorly written – it is superbly written; but rather because it is about a time in American history and about a group of people that are painful to read about.

The book explores many themes besides the tenor, the zeitgeist of the times. To be sure, the violence and racism of the late eighties in America are a compelling topic. But Wolfe uses this theme as a framework to explore human nature across many of societies strata; an exploration with a very jaundiced point of view.

We meet Sherman McCoy as a seemingly very succesful  Wall Street bond salesman;  in his own self description, a Master of the Universe. Sherman’s vanities do not stop with his success at work, he is equally or even more vain of his Knickerbocker family history, and even of the size and nature of his chin. Sherman being a Master of the Universe needs of course the perfect mate, and since his wife Judy has started to age, Sherman takes a mistress, Maria Ruskin. Maria is of course vain about her beauty and ability to control men to get what she wants.

The story arc of the book follows Sherman and Maria on an ill-fated trip into the Bronx where they accidently run down a young African-American youth, who later dies from his injuries. A consequence of this accident, permits Wolf to introduce an English ex-patriot/alcoholic newspaperman (Peter Fallow)  to start the drum beat of public opinion to find the “hit and run” Sherman and Maria. Exhorting the local populace is the “Reverend” Bacon, while the assistant DA assigned to the case (Larry Kramer) flexes his neck muscles. Kramer simultaneously tries to convict Sherman once he’s been found and to seduce each attractive young woman he meets on the jury.

Part of the humor of the book is to view the various vanities of each character through the eyes of the other characters: Larry continously flexes his muscles and Sherman frequently juts his jaws to the bemusement of various on-lookers – meanwhile, both Larry and Sherman believe most intently that they are impressing rather entertaining their audience.

The reader could read the book with a view to the big story arc of Sherman’s fall in order to see how the climax and its resolution are treated. But I think a far better view to this book is to carefully explore with Wolfe the various characters and their vanities, and then watch how Wolfe destroys each one. To his credit, by the book’s end, I think Sherman is the only one who ever puzzles this out. And for me, this is what made reading the book worth the effort. Truly, this is a book of characters that I found myself endlessly hating, and hating for their vanties. By the book’s end though, I was forced to face my own vanities (they are multiform) and wonder how I would have functioned had I been one of the characters in the book. In fact, this book like many great books is a useful tool for self-exploration.

Note to the Reader: I had read this book in an effort to start a pet project that compares good books to the bad movies made from them. The DePalma movie Bonfire of the Vanities incomprehensively starring Tom Hanks as Sherman and Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow (not to mention several other very odd casting choices)has been widely panned. I thought then to compare the two in a later review. But having read this book, I may re-aim myself to compare bad books made into good movies. Two of my favorites being “Bridges Of Madison County” and “A River Runs Through It”: two pretty mediocre books made by Eastwood and Redford into profoundly good movies.

House of Cards, Season Two

House of Cards

Season two

2014

Drama

4.5 stars out of 5

The second season of “House of Cards” continues the story of former congressman/now vice-president Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his wife Claire (Robin Wright), and of their no holds barred drive to the top of Washington DC. It is marvelously written, directed, and acted. One of the best TV shows I have ever seen, nearly as well-done as “Breaking Bad” or “The Wire”.

Like Walter White in “Breaking Bad” the story explores just how far a writer can go in terms of creating an anti-hero without losing the interest and sympathy of the viewer. Frank is a non-stop lying, scheming, back-stabbing Vice President in Season Two, episode One. One continually wonders why anyone would trust him or believe him on any topic whatsoever. At yet, he practices his southern charm also on a non-stop basis, and he is able to use this ability plus his cunning to disassemble one administration while covertly building the basis for a successive one.

One very clever aspect of season two is the juxtaposition of Frank with an equally Machiavellian character, billionaire Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney). Both men are vying for the attention of and influence over President Garret Walker (Michael Gill). It is the season long story arc as Raymond and Frank contend over the President. Again, it is amazing how this story can maintain interest and concern over Frank and Clair despite their complete lack of morality. It is equally amazing in a problematic sense that President Walker and wife, Trisha (Joanna Going) are so easily influenced by Raymond, Frank and Claire – how on Earth did Walker ever achieve the White House?

There are other plot problems that are all too common to fiction: the convenient overhearing of confidential information, the open shades as two people secretly make love, etc. But really the biggest problem is also paradoxically the show’s most dominant theme: Frank Underwood’s complete and total amorality. He will literally do anything (e.g. Peter Russo’s exit in Season One) to achieve his ends. He will build up and then throw under the bus absolutely anyone to achieve his ends. Are there really people like that running our government? The cynic in me says, yes; but the idealist and movie critic says, it is a little over the top – there appears no law at all that Frank won’t break; I struggle with this a little.

So, where does this all end up? Is this merely a witty and clever story about the world’s worst people climbing to the top of the US government? Is it a Jonathan Swift style parable of how counter-intuitively, the bad do some times win? Or is it a thinly veiled attack on a certain southern former president and his now ascendant wife? I think the story can be viewed and watched, and enjoyed for all of these interpretations; and in my opinion, despite the various plot holes and occasionally pointless and gratuitous sex scenes, most adults will enjoy Season Two even more than Season One.

I’m sitting here wondering where they’ll go in the recently optioned Season three: Frank’s descent into the lowest levels of Dante’s Inferno? As my wife, Sandy commented, Frank has few new directions left to explore.