Eye in the Sky

The use of military drones is paradoxical, to be sure. It’s made warfare simpler and more impersonal (or so you think; Eye in the Sky isn’t so sure about that). And yet, the morality and human cost of such operations, in the micro and the macro sense, are so tangled and complicated that it’s hard to comprehend how any person can make such a decision.

Gavin Hood’s film shows us how the process isn’t so easy. Its narrative is enclosed within a single mission, a terrorist surveillance operation in Kenya that turns into a potential threat. The audience witnesses the mission from every angle, from the agent staking things out on the ground (Barkhad Abdi), to the British colonel running the mission (Helen Mirren) and American drone pilots (Aaron Paul and Phoebe Fox) who are all thousands of miles away from the action (and each other), to the general (Alan Rickman) and pols in London and elsewhere squabbling over the legality and optics of it all. Also, the Kenyan civilians in the vicinity who don’t suspect a thing.

The movie’s not tense like a thriller might be, but agonizing. None of the major players are callous or bloodthirsty types so easy to condemn. The military officers and agents writhe over their actions and decisions right with the audience. The politicians, on the contrary, keep passing the buck further and further up the chain of command, and sometimes down it, to a degree that would be almost comical if the film weren’t so sober and dead serious. But this never comes off as political cowardice or incompetent decision-making; it’s out of a true reluctance to take innocent life with which one can strongly empathize. At some point, though, someone has to make a terrible decision no one feels good about. And yet, for all the time the viewer hopes for an unlikely happy ending, there are undeniably moments where they want the strike to be made. Literally from scene-to-scene, their opinion can change.

The debate presented on the issue consists mostly of the simple points you’ve probably heard in media soundbites. But while simplicity could have faulted a more ponderous and polemical production, here it serves the picture well in two ways. One is because the mission storyline has an immediacy that doesn’t allow for the long and hard debate that such an issue requires. Which could implicitly suggest that drone warfare is justified, or that it’s part of a repeating cycle in the War on Terror with an inertia too great to stop. Indeed, while the majority of the film focuses on the in-the-moment morality of drones, the conclusion says tiny but telling things about the larger picture.

The second way is that it leaves the viewer thinking about the issue, instead of wrapping things in a neat package that tells them how to think. And as a well-shot, well-acted, smart, and empathetic work, it’ll stick with them long enough that they will think about. That’s probably the highest praise you can give to an issue movie.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Well, I’ll give Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice this much: it’s better than director Zack Snyder’s preceding film Man of Steel (my dislike for which has grown since my initial reaction). And the distinction of making the worst Batman to ever hit the silver screen still probably belongs to Joel Schumacher. If that praise isn’t faint enough already, I’ll add that that’s strictly on a filmmaking level. As bad as Schumacher’s two gaudy, nipply incarnations were, there’s still arguably fun to be had watching them and laughing at their total goofiness. Fun is a quality mostly absent from Dawn of Justice, what bit there is mostly getting suffocated. Not by relentless darkness and grimness—despite its gloomy aesthetic and what you might have heard, it’s not as dark as Christopher Nolan’s recent take on the character (it even has some humorous quips that would have been out of place in the Nolanverse)—but by tedium.

Like too many blockbusters these days, the movie is less a full, proper narrative than a franchise primer. It’s no secret Warner Brothers wants to build a film universe with its DC characters to compete with Disney’s Marvel juggernaut. Instead of playing Marvel’s long game by building that universe through single-character films, however, Dawn of Justice attempts to instantly jump-start the DC franchise all by itself. Packaging that with the prospect of finally filming the big Batman-Superman fight from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns seems like little more than a transparent attempt to get butts in seats, and maybe steal a little thunder from Marvel before their characters turn on each other six weeks from now.

The film is set a year-and-a-half after the destruction of Metropolis in Man of Steel. Superman (Henry Cavill) is a figure of controversy over whether he’s a hero or a threat. An older, more unhinged Batman (Ben Affleck), whose alter-ego Bruce Wayne witnesses the Metropolis carnage in a prologue, is firmly in the latter camp. Billionaire Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), obsessed with destroying Superman for reasons unexplained, plays the two against each other, while also using Kryptonian technology to resurrect the deceased General Zod (Michael Shannon) as the monster Doomsday, just in case the Dark Knight fails to bring down the Last Son of Krypton.

Oh, there’s more than that. In an attempt to unilaterally build universe continuity, the film introduces so many conflicting storylines that it plays like the filmmakers badly stitched together scenes from several different movies. Some of which are pretty good in and of themselves (a few Batman sequences would have been awesome in a solo film if the material hadn’t been so thoroughly mined already), but none of them get a chance to go anywhere, and few of them intersect. There are also several attempts to relate what we’re seeing to the real world (the 9/11 imagery is, again, quite apparent), but in very simplistic ways that are empty beyond the surface level. There’s a lot of heavy-handed talk of hero roles and responsibility that goes past subtle meditation to self-important lecturing (and awkward insertions of Miller’s DKR dialogue). Even if you know the DC universe enough to not get completely confused, it’s rather boring. As for future film teasers, there’s literally a clip show of the rest of the Justice League instead of any attempt to tie them in naturally.

The whole cast is pretty stiff, but this at least suits Affleck’s portrayal of the Caped Crusader. Where everyone else merely slogs, he seethes. It’s a fresh and interesting take on the character, more realistically depicting Batman as obsessive, mentally unstable, and cruel instead of heroic. But like every other germ of an idea in this thing, there’s little time to explore this angle. Also, he conveniently has an abrupt change of heart late in the action, lest the Justice League get started on a less-than-sympathetic foot.

Cavill, on the other hand, still doesn’t seem like Superman at all. When the film has him doing classic Superman things, he looks disinterested and uncomfortable, and the mood is dour instead of hopeful. In fact, the ultimate outcome feels like an admission from Snyder that he doesn’t get the character and won’t even bother trying anymore.

Eisenberg’s Luthor lacks any clear motive or menace, an annoying retread of his Mark Zuckerberg portrayal with none of the sad, sympathetic depth and many times the self-satisfied superiority. Other supporting players, like so much else in the picture, aren’t given enough time to be anything besides functions to the plot. And Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is only worked in so her appearance during the finale isn’t completely out of nowhere. That said, placing her front and center in the final battle works. Well enough that the viewer briefly forgets her role here is little more than blatant advertising for her solo film next year.

In spite of all this, Dawn of Justice stands as a net improvement over Man of Steel. I can’t explain it. Maybe the bar was just really low. Maybe its problem is comprehension (it has potentially good ideas, just too many at once) instead of incompetence. Maybe it’s just that the action sequences aren’t as totally indecipherable and skull-shattering loud as Man of Steel’s. They’re still far from spectacular or out of the ordinary, but they seem enough like dumb fun after a slogging 90 minutes or so (even though the big fight between the two leads is ultimately underwhelming and secondary). Or maybe it’s just that while the film is indeed quite flawed, it’s averagely unexceptional, not the once-in-a-decade, franchise-killing kind of bad that it was christened by the Internet at every point in its production.

So, the DC film universe begins with a big, gaping yawn. But I suppose that’s better than loudly running the characters into the ground at the speed of sound. So….success?

Thoughts on the Oscars

Best Picture: Spotlight

This is somewhat a surprise. Spotlight was pegged as an Oscar contender early on after great critical acclaim. But the glut of nominations for The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road suggested they had jumped way out in front of the rest of the Best Picture contenders, and the former's pre-show buzz and wins in other major categories seemed to lock it in. It's a solid choice for the top prize, though. While it may not be the exhilarating work of entertainment those other two films are (both because of its subject matter and its unadorned style), Spotlight is a superbly acted and endlessly captivating piece of work, at once palpably outraging and also a restrained depiction of journalism as a public good.

Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant

This epitomized the battle of the two big, thrilling, eye-popping spectacles, The Revenant and Mad Max. The Revenant had the advantage of being a more "safe" picture for the Academy. It's a vivd historical re-creation shot in the elements, much more the Academy's forte than Fury Road's grungy sci-fi setting. It had one of the biggest and most acclaimed actors today practically killing himself in the lead role (seriously, it looked like it). And it had a past winner known for eclectic and ambitious stuff in the director's chair (although, Fury Road's George Miller is actually an Oscar-winner, for 2006's dancing penguin flick Happy Feet). So I'm not surprised Iñárritu took this one. I enjoyed Fury Road more out of these two films (and all films in 2015), so I was rooting for Miller (as well as for it to take Best Picture). But The Revenant was amazing, exciting, and beautiful to look at, so I can't find a whole lot of fault here.

Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

 

Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room

I haven’t seen Room. Or for that matter, any of the nominated films. But still, no nomination for Charlize Theron as Furiosa?

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies

Sylvester Stallone was the sentimental favorite for this one, and I almost found myself rooting for him like the final fight in a Rocky movie. But honestly, an award this late in his career for his seventh time playing the same character seems like an excuse to give Sly an unofficial lifetime achievement award (à la John Wayne in True Grit) instead of truly deserved. This would have been all the more underlined by the fact that Creed received no other nominations. Mark Rylance winning isn’t terribly surprising, as he’s a distinguished serious actor in a historical feature right up the Academy’s alley. He was solid in Bridge of Spies, but the best nominee here was Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight. Struggling to maintain his journalistic composure and detachment, something that becomes harder and harder as more heinous truths come out about the story he's investigating, Ruffalo was as good as any of his co-stars, but also the audience’s main emotional vessel. It was arguably more of a co-lead performance than supporting, but I guess it’s hard to single out any one lead above the rest in an ensemble work like this.

Best supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

I haven't seen The Danish Girl. Of the two nominees here I've seen, Jennifer Jason Leigh was about the fifth most interesting character in The Hateful Eight, while Rachel McAdams was as strong as the rest of the team in Spotlight.

Snubs:

In regards to the controversy about the lack of diversity among the nominees, I offer my opinions of some of the films that became points of contention for their snubs.

I liked Creed, but I wouldn't put it among the best films of 2015. It was an entertaining feelgood piece of Hollywood underdog comfort food. But underneath Ryan Coogler's new touches, it was still the old Rocky formula, and it takes more than that to really move me.

Concussion, I did not think was very good.

I really enjoyed Straight Outta Compton. It was well within the standard biopic parameters, to be sure. But the thing is, the Academy loves biopics. Look through lists of nominees going back decades and you'll find plenty of biopics up for at least acting categories, if not other top awards. So, why would the Academy mostly ignore one of the better ones in a while, one with some of the best musical sequences ever filmed and some still-timely cultural relevance, while showering awards on dry, blatant awards bait like The King's Speech? Some may point to race, but maybe it is just that Oscar voters are an old bunch with tastes out of step with current culture. In which case, this controversy did some good by pushing the Academy to clean house and bring in some new members (not to mention made for some very sharp and entertaining stuff from Chis Rock as host).

As for the films that were nominated, the Academy seems to have finally figured out this expanded Best Picture category. All eight films were also nominated for acting, directing, or writing, instead of one or two nominees who were there purely as an unspoken honorable mention with no shot of winning. Of the six I've seen, I can't argue against them being up there. However, some of their acting nominees I might have done differently. I think Mark Ruffalo was very good in Spotlight, but they could have just as easily swapped him for Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, or Stanley Tucci. Such is the conundrum of such a great ensemble effort. The Big Short similarly had a strong group of equal players, but Steve Carell is the one who really stood out more so than Christian Bale. His performance, alternately his usual awkwardness and righteous, polemical rage, showed his range is far greater than comedy (people said that about his turn in Foxcatcher last year, but I disagreed).

I was also kind of hoping Ridley Scott would get a Best Director nomination for The Martian, and then finally take home the prize that has eluded him. I realize I just sort of argued against giving out unofficial "career" awards, but you could argue he deserved it for The Martian solely on its own merits. It's a very good film.

Where to Invade Next

People probably make up their mind about a Michael Moore movie before they even see it. He appears to have taken that to heart with his newest doc Where to Invade Next.  Viewers might be surprised to find little of the anger, sardonicism, and clear, firm political stance of his films like Roger & Me or Fahrenheit 9/11. On the contrary, Moore displays an uncharacteristic restraint so as to engage, not enrage, about the subjects at hand. This works in favor of the points he presents, even though the presentation is a little staler than usual.

The picture sees the professional muckraker take his film crew abroad under the pretext of "invading" other countries to steal their best policy ideas and take them back to America (but really, he just talks to people about them). Some of the ideas he encounters are already well-known to most Americans, such as how other countries have way better schools (better curriculum, better coursework, a better deal for college-goers, even better school lunches). Or how the U.S. is the only country without mandatory paid vacation days. Or how the country of Iceland, which went bankrupt in the 2008 financial crisis, clawed itself out of the economic abyss by taking a decidedly different approach than the U.S. 

Other things he finds are quite eye-opening. One example is a visit to a Norwegian prison, the surprises in which are simply hilariously stunning. Another is how the North African country Tunisia, only a few years removed from gaining democracy in the Arab Spring, already has constitutionally guaranteed equality for women, which the U.S. does not. That turns out to be a recurring theme, the fact that the U.S. is not only behind on representation of women, but that countries with women in positions of business or government power seem to function pretty well.

Through all these travels, the attention-getting stunts and guerilla ambush interviews that are Moore’s forte are nowhere in sight, and his sarcastic comedic bent is kept to a minimum. Yes, he injects some humor into his discussions (there’s a jab at the last President that still lands nearly eight years later), and the usual suspects (i.e., Fox News talking heads) appear in snippets as the face of ineffective American policy. But Moore himself is pretty subdued. Instead, he lets his subjects do most of the talking, which makes a stronger case.

That also accounts for the movie’s relative weakness in form. The tricks and techniques Moore usually employs may be ammunition for his detractors, but they’re frankly what make his movies entertaining for the rest of us. Without them, Where to Invade Next seems a bit like his amateur vacation videos roughly tacked together into a travelogue.

Still, the central question it asks is very good. Why is the United States, the richest and most powerful country in the world, outranked by other nations in so many things? The answers Moore presents aren’t exactly ones that can be simply shrugged off.

Vinyl, "Pilot"

One of the many great skills of director Martin Scorsese is his unnaturally gifted ear for music, often popular or classic rock ‘n’ roll that fits the scene with a sublime perfection. There couldn’t be a better candidate to tackle the music biz, especially that of the era which birthed both his career and so many of his scoring choices, the era which Vinyl covers. And as director of last night’s premiere, his musical ear is there in spades, as is his skillful technical direction maybe a little less so. As for his knack for highlighting the character of immoral people in an environment where morals are few? That’s not clear, yet, though the immorality is front and center: this is a world of coked-up, backstabbing sex fiends, and it almost plays those qualities as positives.

Our guide through this world is Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale), the founder and head of the New York City-based record label American Century. Once a titan of the industry, the label has fallen on hard times by the series date of 1973, and is about to be sold to a German conglomerate. The pilot mostly follows Richie as he gets his house in order before the sale, amidst the beginning of New York’s punk rock scene, as well as hinting at a few other musical movements that would arise from the same time and place.

The episode is two hours long and still feels overstuffed. Richie’s workday entails quite a lot, meeting so many characters in so many places and seemingly eating up half the running time or more. There are also plenty beginnings of subplots, such as a relatively underused Olivia Wilde as Richie’s bored and melancholy wife he has little time for, and a great Juno Temple playing a label secretary determined to sign a wild young punk rocker (James Jagger, son of co-creator and executive producer Mick) and move up in the world. These smaller story threads are more interesting than the stuff following Richie. Affable and capable as Cannavale is, his demeanor is that of a hardened guy who's unfazed by any of the excesses around him. As high-energy and flashy as the show is, his disinterest is frankly a bit of a buzzkill. Also better are the flashbacks to his earliest job in the business, where his management of a blues artist (Ato Essandoh) takes a tragic turn. Oh, and there are also outside-of-time musical numbers that appear as interludes.

But, nostalgia is more the order of the day, and not just the music. The scuzzy New York Scorsese depicted as an urban hell in Taxi Driver is shown longingly here. With few exceptions, the consumption of piles and piles of drugs are depicted as a pretty good time. The industry characters Richie encounters are almost like parodies of sleazy exec archetypes played to the absolute hilt. It’s generally a lively, often funny time, and it’s kind of fun seeing real rock icons as bit players. But about three-quarters in, the pilot takes a sharp turn into GoodFellas territory, such a rough fit that the whole show nearly crosses the line from somewhat lightweight musical ear candy to kitschy popcorn cheese.

The small tad of depth beyond the surface sleaze comes at the very beginning, in the opening moment of the great sequence that bookends the whole thing. Here, a despondent Richie pathetically snorts cocaine and seems to be hit with the reality that he’s clinging to a part of his life that’s passed, that it’s time to move on. The events of the episode leading to this point reveal this is not exactly what's going on, but still, kind of an ironic note to kick off a project so dripping with nostalgia.

It’s pretty fleeting, as he happens upon a rowdy New York Dolls show that literally brings the house down. It’s a fantastically staged sequence, with the expert editing and variation of camera techniques Scorsese employs to heighten the state. It all leads to a conclusion that is at once a corny piece of rock ‘n’ roll movie embellishment, and absolutely perfect and fitting after the nearly two hours that preceded it. Best of all, it finally loosens Richie up a bit. It remains to be seen if he or his fellow travelers turn out to be strong characters under those drug-fueled 70s shells, but the prospect of more thrilling sequences like that is enough to give this show a chance. 

Deadpool

Spend a little time on the web and it’s clear everyone agrees the 1990s were a pretty bad time for comic books. But if that uber-macho, uber-gritty, uber-‘roid-y artwork-filled era was good for anything, it was that it gave the world Deadpool. Marvel’s cocky, fourth wall-breaking mutated mercenary came around at the right time, humorously tearing down the decade’s aesthetic that had become fodder for mocking, while also getting to participate in it. Likewise, this moment, with the market for comic book movies saturated to near-critical mass, is absolutely perfect for the character to give the genre onscreen the same drubbing. And he certainly does, in a film as endlessly fun as it is filthy.

One might recall Ryan Reynolds played the character before in that much-hated Wolverine prequel everyone has apparently agreed to forget. Having learned from their mistakes in that film (sewing his mouth shut is like taking Wolverine’s claws away), the studio lets him be to play the character to the fullest this time. It’s a case of note-perfect casting if there ever was one; Reynolds’ charming smart mouthy act has been perfected by this point and fits Deadpool like his costume, the particulars of which he oh-so-vulgarly describes early in the flick (which is to say, quite well). This time, though, they bothered to make the right movie around him. His persona doesn’t clash with everything else like in Blade: Trinity, or get anchored down by an unsure half-seriousness like Green Lantern (the butt of more than one joke here). Everything in Deadpool is built around him, and just as committed to getting laughs above all else.

And it succeeds splendidly, most often. The jokes are great, and the verbal rapport swift and sharp. The action scenes are frantic and goofy takedowns of industry standard CGI (but no less thrilling, and honestly maybe a little better and more coherent than the real thing). T.J. Miller is really funny as Pool’s deadpanning pal Weasel, as are the liaisons from the X-Men: a hilariously do-gooder Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) and sullen, unimpressed Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). Even some of the most basic movie elements are presented in funny ways. And the complete lack of a fourth wall is a huge plus, not only presenting some good gags and self-aware pop culture digs, but making the title figure seem sort of like a pleasant buddy watching the film alongside the viewer and wisecracking the whole time, while simultaneously acting in it.

But, as much as it plays like a parody of comic adaptations, a few scenes pull it off for real. The one-on-one fights between Deadpool and his nemesis Ajax (Ed Skrein) are bloody and intense, and more effective for that. And when comedic touches seep into these sequences, it all fits together seamlessly. That, as well as Reynolds selling it well in both physique and attitude, suggests that the character might work just as well if he he managed to sneak into a property playing it straight. More surprisingly, the highly raunchy scenes between Reynolds and love interest Morena Baccarin, played more for humor, are nevertheless sweet and sexy in a way that’ll appeal to the dirty-minded horny teen in everyone.

This one’s kind of a narrative featherweight (in a nutshell: mercenary gets cancer, gains superhuman healing in an experiment but also gets disfigured, seeks revenge on man responsible), but it’s many times more fun than comic book films with greater ambitions. In fact, that leads me to the only complaint I have: the fact that character ownership rights will likely limit Deadpool to his own movies (and maybe further X-Men pictures if we’re lucky). That’s a damn shame. I love Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. I want to see him do to every self-serious comic movie out there what he did to the genre’s broad strokes here.

The Revenant

At this point, if Leonardo DiCaprio is in a movie, you know you’re in for a strong performance. If Emmanuel Lubezki is doing cinematography, you know there will be some awesome long takes, taking the audience from the most intimate view of the action to expansive shots of the whole canvas, and then back again. And if Alejandro G. Iñárritu is in the director’s chair, you can expect a film of heavy subject matter with artful touches of the surreal. The Revenant is probably Iñárritu’s most straightforward picture, despite some attempts to insert a deeper meaning into what’s, at its base, a simple man-in-the-wilderness story. Still, holy hell! Even by the standards of these three major talents, the film is a transcendent masterwork.

The movie opens in 1823 in the untamed Dakota territory, where a fur trapping expedition is suddenly ambushed by an Arikara war party. It’s an incredible sequence, practically equal to the famous Omaha Beach assault in Saving Private Ryan in both scope and the feeling of being in the battle, not merely watching. It sets the tone well: this a bloody, unforgiving frontier, one where tropes of the pioneer genre aren’t so much subverted as ripped to shreds. It’s also positively stunning in its beauty. The film has the odd effect of making the gore (of which there is quite a bit) not off-putting, but just another color in a lush, rustic palette.

Among the survivors of the opening attack is Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a guide hired to lead the company through the harsh wilderness. While scouting ahead of the group, he accidentally strays too close to some grizzly cubs and is attacked by their mother, and wounded seemingly mortally. While the rest of the party moves on, a fellow explorer (Tom Hardy) is charged with guarding Glass until he succumbs to his injuries, but instead leaves him for dead and murders his half-Pawnee son (Forrest Goodluck). And yet, Glass manages to recover enough from his wounds and survive the brutal winter with no supplies and the Arikara on his trail.

The best compliment one can pay DiCaprio’s performance is that eating real raw animal flesh might be the least impressive (or rather, insane) thing he does in the movie. He’s far beyond merely convincing; it’s hard to tell how much he’s really in anguish and braving the elements, and what’s just acting. On at least two occasions, he turns a blueish hue and looks like he’s about to expire for real. And Lubezki’s camera follows every excruciating detail with such closeness that the viewer nearly feels it, too.

On the other end of the spectrum, Lubezki’s signature unbroken shots augment one thrilling sequence after another. The bear attack is absolutely petrifying, with such an intimacy that you can feel the animal’s breath on your neck. Even short, fleeting escapes are meticulous works of editing and constructed chaos. And while the inevitable final chase and showdown at first seems tacked-on and superfluous, it’s revealed in execution to be perfect in its brutality and catharsis.

The picture often moves quite slowly between its impressive peril and bloodshed (to a literal crawl in a few cases). But this seems less like a loose grasp of pacing than a conscious choice to pause and take in the incredible Alberta scenery. And that’s just fine. Nearly every single frame is absolutely gorgeous, always a sight to behold even when not much is happening on the screen (this, more so than The Hateful Eight, would be something see on 70 mm).

A few of the more mystical sequences the film could have taken or left. Some are somewhat haunting and pretty to look at. Some are just trying to be haunting and artistic and weird, but come off as passé. None of these do harm to the final product, but honestly, omitting them would have resulted in a leaner picture of no lower quality. The portions spent in the real earthbound realm, whether breakneck and ruthless or leisurely and awed, more than suffice.