There are lots of movies about cancer and cancer survivors on Lifetime Network and Oprah's new station. But what elevates a film out of cheap soap opera manipulation into one that operates on a more honest and daring level? Two things: script and cast.
It's hard to make a feel-good movie about a cancer diagnosis. The right approach is to make an honest film that has dignity and humor. Bingo. That's what happened here. The film is written by Will Reiser. At a young age, Reiser was diagnosed with a tumor of the same type as 50/50's protagonist. It's the kind of research you would wish on no one. But having lived through it, Reiser is able to dramatize the situation with authority and insight. Well done.
Adam, played with a gentle dignity by Joseph Gordon Levitt, has back pain that is found to be a malignant tumor on his spine. The science of this is conveyed by a jackass of an oncologist who understands lots about cancer and nothing of humanity. The rest of the film is about how the people in Adam's life deal with the disease. His best friend (Seth Rogan) sees an opportunity to use the diagnosis as a tool to get him laid. His mother (a brilliant Angelica Huston) is overwhelmed. His girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) gives the supportive thing the old college try but is incapable of that kind of unselfish behavior. Anna Kendrick plays a young therapist struggling to apply her book-learned sympathy in a real-life situation.
And of course Adam himself must learn to overcome a soul-sucking numbness and deal with his own mortality at a far-too-young age. The antagonist in this film is cancer, or more specifically, what we all think of cancer. It's a movie about overcoming fear.
Let me list out the other thing that makes this film pretty terrific. Joseph Gordon Levitt, Angelica Huston, Anna Kendrick, Philip Baker Hall, Bryce Dallas Howard. It's an all-star list and each of these fine actors bring it, and I mean they bring it in spades. Not a weak link in the chain. (Sag voters take note-Best Ensemble?).
Don't let the heavy subject matter deter you. 50/50 is a story well-told, a script well-written and a film well-acted.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Moneyball
Most movies that involve baseball can be watched and enjoyed by fans and non-fans alike. "Field of Dreams" has family struggle at it's heart and who doesn't want a kid to have a catch with his dead Dad. "The Natural" taps into the mythic side, a Homeric journey and return to what is good and right in the world. Baseball is often used to frame what is quintessentially American. "Moneyball" is about none of that. It is a peek behind the curtain at the ugly sausage-making side of a modern team. It is as much about payroll as it is about play-making. It does not shy away from the stats that make modern baseball a matter of math. You have to be a fan of the game to care about On Base Percentage and hits with men in scoring position. I am such a fan. Baseball, old and new, is in my DNA. I come from generations of Embardo Red Sox fans that date back to the early 1900's, the very roots of the modern game. I loved this movie. Of course it doesn't hurt that the film was penned by two of the best screenwriters of the past three decades, Steve Zallian (Schindler's List, Searching for Bobby Fischer) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network). There's Oscar gold on them thar mantles.
Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, a washed out player-turned-general manager for the Oakland A's in the early 2000's. He has a small market budget in a big market world and teams like the Red Sox and Yankees have picked him clean. His challenge is to put together a winning team without a lot of cash. Enter Peter Brand (an admirable Jonah Hill) who has a modern take on stats and player selection, finding undervalued players by running their numbers on his PC. The old guard scouts and coaches HATE this newfangled reliance on statistics. They prefer relying on their gut. Problem is their guts aren't winning games. This is the central conflict of the film. If Beane succeeds, it'll change the nature of the game.
"Moneyball" is a baseball movie of ideas, and like "The Social Network" it's about the nature of societal change in the face of entrenched interests. It is not as compelling as "The Social Network', nor is it as crisply written. Like baseball itself, it is often slow to get to the point, laconic. And at 2 hours and 10 minutes it is perhaps a little overlong. Pitt's performance is terrific, mixing bravado with humor and a touch of worried uncertainty. Jonah Hill is perfect in his role as front office rookie, learning the ropes and all the while changing the very nature of those ropes. Hill is an enigma to me, a character actor who doesn't really have a fundamental grasp of how to change character. But he does play the naive neophyte to perfection and here it serves him well.
This film may be too much baseball for the non-baseball fan but for me it was like a good pitcher's duel, a bit long and understated, but a thing of beauty to watch.
Side note: This movie opened during what may be a real-life historic collapse by my Red Sox. Perfect timing to point up the timeless appeal of baseball even when the circumstances are painful (and boy are they painful right now). As a long-time Sox fan, it's something I'm used to, trust me. It's just another example of how baseball provides the markers on the timeline of my life. I just hope that before it's too late, the Red Sox pitching staff sees this film. They need the inspiration.
Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, a washed out player-turned-general manager for the Oakland A's in the early 2000's. He has a small market budget in a big market world and teams like the Red Sox and Yankees have picked him clean. His challenge is to put together a winning team without a lot of cash. Enter Peter Brand (an admirable Jonah Hill) who has a modern take on stats and player selection, finding undervalued players by running their numbers on his PC. The old guard scouts and coaches HATE this newfangled reliance on statistics. They prefer relying on their gut. Problem is their guts aren't winning games. This is the central conflict of the film. If Beane succeeds, it'll change the nature of the game.
"Moneyball" is a baseball movie of ideas, and like "The Social Network" it's about the nature of societal change in the face of entrenched interests. It is not as compelling as "The Social Network', nor is it as crisply written. Like baseball itself, it is often slow to get to the point, laconic. And at 2 hours and 10 minutes it is perhaps a little overlong. Pitt's performance is terrific, mixing bravado with humor and a touch of worried uncertainty. Jonah Hill is perfect in his role as front office rookie, learning the ropes and all the while changing the very nature of those ropes. Hill is an enigma to me, a character actor who doesn't really have a fundamental grasp of how to change character. But he does play the naive neophyte to perfection and here it serves him well.
This film may be too much baseball for the non-baseball fan but for me it was like a good pitcher's duel, a bit long and understated, but a thing of beauty to watch.
Side note: This movie opened during what may be a real-life historic collapse by my Red Sox. Perfect timing to point up the timeless appeal of baseball even when the circumstances are painful (and boy are they painful right now). As a long-time Sox fan, it's something I'm used to, trust me. It's just another example of how baseball provides the markers on the timeline of my life. I just hope that before it's too late, the Red Sox pitching staff sees this film. They need the inspiration.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Win Win
Director Thomas McCarthy is known for directing intensely personal films about lonely, isolated people and the situations that break through that isolation. His two other films as director (The Station Agent, The Visitor) are masterful films about finding human connection. Win Win is a fitting and wonderful addition to that legacy. It may not be the best of the three but that's fine. Taken as a whole, a resume with these three films would be something to be proud of.
Paul Giamatti is a low level lawyer and a wrestling coach in small town New Jersey. He has screwed over an elderly client, taking on the paid responsibility of guardianship but placing the client in a nursing home anyway. A slimy move but he is desperate for the fifteen hundred bucks a month to keep his family above water.
Enter Kyle, the client's grandson, on the run from his own bad family situation. Giamatti's character finds Kyle perched on his granddad's porch and ends up taking him home to stay with his family. How Kyle comes to be an accepted member of the family is the first half of the story. Kyle also happens to be top notch wrestler (ok that may be a smidge convenient but go with it). The team that Giamatti coaches is, well, let's just say they aren't a top notch team. Voila! The birth of the major subplot. Things get complicated when Kyle's real Mom, fresh out of rehab, shows up. Betrayals are exposed and things get bumpy. Some may say the ending is a bit predictable but I'm going with inevitable as my adjective of choice.
A word about the script and the acting: honest stories with honest dialogue make for honest moments in honest scenes. Giamatti is excellent. Bobby Cannivale is excellent, Jeffrey Tambor-excelent. And Amy Ryan-excellent. Ryan may even be awards consideration excellent. And the kid-they went with a kid named Alex Shaffer who could wrestle and hoped he could act. That is a dangerous move. They got lucky.
Young Alex is excellent. This is all probably directly attributable to the writing and direction of Thomas McCarthy. "Win Win" lives up to its billing. It's a winner.
Paul Giamatti is a low level lawyer and a wrestling coach in small town New Jersey. He has screwed over an elderly client, taking on the paid responsibility of guardianship but placing the client in a nursing home anyway. A slimy move but he is desperate for the fifteen hundred bucks a month to keep his family above water.
Enter Kyle, the client's grandson, on the run from his own bad family situation. Giamatti's character finds Kyle perched on his granddad's porch and ends up taking him home to stay with his family. How Kyle comes to be an accepted member of the family is the first half of the story. Kyle also happens to be top notch wrestler (ok that may be a smidge convenient but go with it). The team that Giamatti coaches is, well, let's just say they aren't a top notch team. Voila! The birth of the major subplot. Things get complicated when Kyle's real Mom, fresh out of rehab, shows up. Betrayals are exposed and things get bumpy. Some may say the ending is a bit predictable but I'm going with inevitable as my adjective of choice.
A word about the script and the acting: honest stories with honest dialogue make for honest moments in honest scenes. Giamatti is excellent. Bobby Cannivale is excellent, Jeffrey Tambor-excelent. And Amy Ryan-excellent. Ryan may even be awards consideration excellent. And the kid-they went with a kid named Alex Shaffer who could wrestle and hoped he could act. That is a dangerous move. They got lucky.
Young Alex is excellent. This is all probably directly attributable to the writing and direction of Thomas McCarthy. "Win Win" lives up to its billing. It's a winner.
Kaboom
Director Gregg Araki had been moving from a camp/cult status gay filmmaker to a rather interesting chronicler of the gay experience as told with offbeat flare and raw honesty. His film "Mysterious Skin" starring Joseph Gordon Levitt represented a giant leap forward in his approach to film and his storytelling skill. "Kaboom" is a giant step backward. This film takes us to college with a confused young man of ambivalent sexuality. He's having dreams of weird abductions and strange sex and mysterious men in masks. I went with it for a while. Then the story degenerates in to a psychotic nonsensical nightmare involving a lost relative, outer space and the end of the world. I was less concerned with the end of the world than I was with the end of the movie. It seems like this film was constructed by a half dozen frat boy film students on a tequila bender. It's that silly. There are very few talented gay filmmakers that have the kind of platform that Araki has. Squandering that opportunity is shameful. Araki should re-watch "Mysterious Skin", grow up and make better films about gay people and gay culture.
The Conspirator
Okay, so last year my writing partner and I wrote a historically-based script and got some producers interested in it. Don't sweat it--I haven't made a nickel yet. But those producers suggested I watch this film, "The Conspirator" directed by Robert Redford. History interests me. Movies interest me. Unfortunately, this film did not interest me. Mainly because it was uninteresting. And I know why. I'll get to that.
This film tells the story of the Lincoln assassination and the conspiracy that surrounded the murder and the attempted murder of other government officials by Confederate loyalists. Everybody knows the infamous John Wilkes Booth and the tragedy at Ford's Theater but there were others involved. One of these was Mary Serratt, who ran a boarding house where the conspirators did their conspiring. One of these conspirators was her young son. It was the government's contention that she knew what was going on and was thus part of the conspiracy. This film concerns itself with her story and that of her lawyer (James MacAvoy). It is the script's contention that the government had no real proof (or at best sketchy proof) and that she was railroaded on to the gallows. The script carefully constructs parallels between this injustice and situations that have been a part of our own recent history--Guantanamo Bay for example and the post 9/11 legislation that trampled on a bunch of civil rights. Remember, I told you Robert Redford directed it.
It makes for fascinating discussion and an interesting and relevant argument.
And that's the problem. This would have been a memorable history lecture back at USC or an interesting debate on Point/Counterpoint. Here the actors think and brood and debate and wring their hands. It makes for some crappy drama. The performances albeit by some outstanding actors (MacAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Evan Rachel Wood) are stiff and lifeless, more like a historical recreation on the History Channel than a flesh and blood feature. And the direction doesn't help. It's almost as stodgy as the script. Too bad. It's really a great story. A great story that needed Jeff and me to write it.
This film tells the story of the Lincoln assassination and the conspiracy that surrounded the murder and the attempted murder of other government officials by Confederate loyalists. Everybody knows the infamous John Wilkes Booth and the tragedy at Ford's Theater but there were others involved. One of these was Mary Serratt, who ran a boarding house where the conspirators did their conspiring. One of these conspirators was her young son. It was the government's contention that she knew what was going on and was thus part of the conspiracy. This film concerns itself with her story and that of her lawyer (James MacAvoy). It is the script's contention that the government had no real proof (or at best sketchy proof) and that she was railroaded on to the gallows. The script carefully constructs parallels between this injustice and situations that have been a part of our own recent history--Guantanamo Bay for example and the post 9/11 legislation that trampled on a bunch of civil rights. Remember, I told you Robert Redford directed it.
It makes for fascinating discussion and an interesting and relevant argument.
And that's the problem. This would have been a memorable history lecture back at USC or an interesting debate on Point/Counterpoint. Here the actors think and brood and debate and wring their hands. It makes for some crappy drama. The performances albeit by some outstanding actors (MacAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Evan Rachel Wood) are stiff and lifeless, more like a historical recreation on the History Channel than a flesh and blood feature. And the direction doesn't help. It's almost as stodgy as the script. Too bad. It's really a great story. A great story that needed Jeff and me to write it.
The Lincoln Lawyer
This film is not set in the mid 1800's and the afore mentioned Lincoln refers to a car not a President. Okay now that we have the genres straightened out I can tell you that this film is a court room/private eye/low-level lawyer-type pot boiler in the tradition of Elmore Leonard. Remember "Out of Sight? It's actually based on a novel by well-known mystery writer Michael Connelly, if you're a mystery fan.
The lawyer in question here is Matthew McConaughey who gets tangled up with a scheming serial rapist and murderer and can't seem to extricate himself. The mystery here isn't really a "whodunit" it's more of a "howdoweproveit" and the puzzle box of the plot is sufficiently complicated to keep us guessing. It holds your interest pretty well and the quality of the supporting cast is fun to watch (Marissa Tomei and William H. Macy aren't in this film nearly long enough).
The problem with this film may be personal. Matthew McConaughey is meant to carry this film and I am not a big fan of Matthew McConaughey. He's a lazy actor when it comes to character work and relies on a shit-eating grin and six pack abs to do the heavy lifting. Every film he does he seems to be doing for the money. Here's the good news: His real-life persona and his on-screen character have a lot of cross-over----in this instance.
"The Lincoln Lawyer" is a pretty good pot-boiler and that translates to a good time with a box of popcorn and a Netflix rental, especially if you're a fan of the genre. Too bad they didn't find a lead that could elevate the material. They might have really had something special.
The lawyer in question here is Matthew McConaughey who gets tangled up with a scheming serial rapist and murderer and can't seem to extricate himself. The mystery here isn't really a "whodunit" it's more of a "howdoweproveit" and the puzzle box of the plot is sufficiently complicated to keep us guessing. It holds your interest pretty well and the quality of the supporting cast is fun to watch (Marissa Tomei and William H. Macy aren't in this film nearly long enough).
The problem with this film may be personal. Matthew McConaughey is meant to carry this film and I am not a big fan of Matthew McConaughey. He's a lazy actor when it comes to character work and relies on a shit-eating grin and six pack abs to do the heavy lifting. Every film he does he seems to be doing for the money. Here's the good news: His real-life persona and his on-screen character have a lot of cross-over----in this instance.
"The Lincoln Lawyer" is a pretty good pot-boiler and that translates to a good time with a box of popcorn and a Netflix rental, especially if you're a fan of the genre. Too bad they didn't find a lead that could elevate the material. They might have really had something special.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Midnight In Paris
How can I talk about this film without spoiling a lot of wonderful surprises? I can't, so all I'm going to say about Woody Allen's latest film is that it's a romantic love letter to Paris of both past and present. That's all the plot I'm going to reveal. And that's okay. I'm hoping that it'll be enough to get you to see this wonderfully funny and sentimental film. Go Woody.
Now if you check back in this blog to last year and the year before, you might notice that I disliked Woody's last two films. Well, that may be an understatement. I lambasted both of them as cheap knock-offs of his own work; lecherous drivel and the redundant ravings of a horny old man. I TOLD ya I didn't like 'em. Well, I am happy to report that "Midnight in Paris" is none of that. What it is is fresh, joyous, original and delightful. I'm a happy movie goer. I'm a restored Woody Allen fan.
Paris is a character in this film the way New York was a character in Allen's "Manhattan" and just like any good character, Allen fleshes out Paris by capturing both the ambiance and the mythology of that beautiful city. There is everything that was missing from his last few films....charm, humor, insight and honesty (especially in the dialogue which isn't stilted or forced at all this time out). It is an original and you should see it with someone you love (or someone you like) and share the experience. It's that good. I'm so happy.
I know I said I wasn't going to spoil anything but there is a scene with Owen Wilson and three surrealists (they talk about a Rhino) that is classic Woody Allen. Worth twice the price of admission for that scene alone.
Now if you check back in this blog to last year and the year before, you might notice that I disliked Woody's last two films. Well, that may be an understatement. I lambasted both of them as cheap knock-offs of his own work; lecherous drivel and the redundant ravings of a horny old man. I TOLD ya I didn't like 'em. Well, I am happy to report that "Midnight in Paris" is none of that. What it is is fresh, joyous, original and delightful. I'm a happy movie goer. I'm a restored Woody Allen fan.
Paris is a character in this film the way New York was a character in Allen's "Manhattan" and just like any good character, Allen fleshes out Paris by capturing both the ambiance and the mythology of that beautiful city. There is everything that was missing from his last few films....charm, humor, insight and honesty (especially in the dialogue which isn't stilted or forced at all this time out). It is an original and you should see it with someone you love (or someone you like) and share the experience. It's that good. I'm so happy.
I know I said I wasn't going to spoil anything but there is a scene with Owen Wilson and three surrealists (they talk about a Rhino) that is classic Woody Allen. Worth twice the price of admission for that scene alone.
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