Inferno (2016) * * *

Directed by:  Ron Howard

Starring:  Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babbett Knudsen

If you thought The DaVinci Code (2006) and Angels and Demons (2009), Ron Howard's first two adaptations of Dan Brown bestsellers, were preposterous, then you will be happy to learn Inferno makes the previous films seem plausible in comparison.      This doesn't make it a bad film.    Thanks to a great cast and director Ron Howard's ability to move things along, Inferno turns into a workable thriller.   

The suspension of disbelief required to enjoy Inferno is quite heavy.   You wonder why a lunatic intent on spreading a plague which will wipe out at least of the world's population would make it so hard on his cohort to find where the plague is stored.    Why not just tell the cohort where it is so it would be harder to trace?    Why leave clues and riddles buried in Dante's death mask and other places all over Florence and Venice which could easily be missed?     So Professor Robert Langdon (Hanks) can be called on to find them and decipher them in a matter of seconds.    Langdon probably thinks Sherlock Holmes and Ben Gates from the National Treasure movies are slow to catch on to things.   

In Inferno, Professor Langdon awakes in a Florence hospital bed with hallucinations and visions of plague and doom dancing around his brain.    He has short term amnesia, according to ER doctor Sienna Brooks (Jones), and soon the two are on the fun from assassins and others who want to know the whereabouts of Inferno, the deadly plague soon to be released to the masses by billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Foster).    Zobrist warns the world of the devastating effects of overpopulation and promises "Inferno is the cure".    Zobrist is out of the picture for most of the movie since he jumps to his death before the opening credits finish.     We learn of his plan through flashbacks.     But there are others who believe in his cause and will carry out the mission.    I will bet these minions said to themselves, "Damn, why couldn't this guy tell me where this thing is before he decided to take a header from six stories up?"

Langdon may not be able to remember the exact word for coffee, but can easily notice a schematic of Dante's Inferno is out of whack.    He is suffering from movie amnesia, in which he can recall the events and revelations crucial to the plot at the exact time he needs them.     Sienna and Langdon manage to crawl around an art museum on lockdown and escape, but not before figuring out a series of clues.    The villains in each of these movies make it simple for Langdon to detect them since they play their games in subjects that are in Langdon's wheelhouse.     If these villains were so brilliant, they would find out what Langdon isn't familiar with and work from there.    Judging from these movies, there isn't much Langdon doesn't know.    He is the intellectual James Bond.  

There are plenty of shadowy people in Inferno and we don't know where their allegiances lie.    I enjoyed the work of Omar Sy as a World Health Organization agent and Irrfan Khan as a security expert who may be pulling the strings from behind his desk.    I was reminded of Joe Pesci's line in JFK: "Everyone is switching sides all the time.   It's fun and games, man.   Fun and games."     The suspense in Inferno lies here.    Whose side is everybody on?    Another major character is introduced from Langdon's past who sheds light on his past love life.    Is it entirely necessary to have this backstory?    No, but Hanks' scenes with her are touching with a hint of regret.     We see Langdon isn't just a crime solving machine.

I wouldn't dream of giving away the twists and turns the plot takes.    Some are absurd, some work just right within the framework of such thrillers.     Does the cable on the suspension of disbelief snap?    In some cases, yes, but that doesn't spoil the fun.     We are not in for anything unusual.   Ron Howard's job is not to make anything deep, but to execute the plot within the rulebook of these types of movies.     Howard is too good a director not to make such a film like Inferno work.     Tom Hanks once again employs his dogged, everyman charm.    It is his trademark and he allows us to kind of, sort of believe he can decipher everything within seconds of looking at it.    The other actors play smart foils for him, so they don't stand around awestruck while Langdon does his thing. 

I know this review sounds like I should be awarding the film two stars or less, but despite the absurdities, I enjoyed Inferno.    Maybe I even liked it because of them. 

The Big Lebowski (1998) * * *

Directed by:  Joel Coen

Starring:  Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Sam Elliott, Peter Stormare, David Huddleston, Tara Reid

The Big Lebowski is the type of insane comedy that grows on you.    It is as far from formula as you can get.    Its protagonist, Jeff Lebowski (aka "The Dude"), is a guy who defies easy description.     He is a dope-smoking, White Russian-guzzling, unemployed bowler who is caught up in the most ludicrous series of events in many a moon.     Compared to most of the people in this movie, he is relatively sane and totally ill-equipped to handle the other nuts who seemingly occupy this universe with greater ease.     A narrator (Elliott) attempts to make sense of things for the viewer, but loses his own train of thought.    He realizes, as we do, trying to make sense of all of this will be a fool's errand.    But, like us, he tries mightily anyway.

How The Dude (Bridges) is ensnared into paying a ransom on behalf of wheelchair-bound Big Lebowski (Huddleston) is something he never anticipated.     Seems some goons broke into his home and soiled his prized Oriental rug, which may be the only thing of value The Dude owns.    The goons were looking for the other Lebowski, but The Dude goes to The Big Lebowski demanding restoration of his rug.    He steals another one and assumes that will be it.     But then, The Big Lebowski asks The Dude to deliver the ransom for his kidnapped trophy wife.     The Dude, along with his bowling teammate and best friend Walter Sobchak (Goodman), manage to screw this up and away we go.

Walter is as intense and loony as The Dude is laid back.    Both performances, as well as the others, all fit just right.    The actors may have been puzzled by what they read on the script, but they jump fearlessly in their roles.    Bridges is a symbol of Dudeness, which means live and let live as long as he can just lay about and bowl at night.    For The Dude, this kidnapping business is all such a hassle, while Walter itches for the opportunity to fight with someone.    Their third bowling teammate is Donny (Buscemi), who is rarely allowed to get a word in edgewise.     Also, entering the picture is Jackie Treehorn (Stormare), a porn director who may or may not have kidnapped Mrs. Lebowski.    Throw in The Big Lebowski's artist daughter Maude (Moore), who creates Pollock-like paintings while flying naked in a harness.     It is enough to make you lose your own train of thought.

The plot of the movie isn't necessarily as important as the goofy, unique atmosphere created by The Coens, who followed up Fargo by going in a somewhat different direction with this film.     Like Fargo, there is a kidnapping and ransom drop gone bad, but that is where the similarities end.    The Coens love creating oddball characters and meshing them with seemingly ordinary plots.     Many of their characters are unforgettable.    Years later, they would re-team with Bridges in True Grit (2010) and it was a less successful teaming.     Why would they all stake their claim to a remake with already established characters?     It stunted their inventiveness.

I admit I didn't get The Big Lebowski upon first viewing.    Many people I knew praised it, but I dismissed it as a comedy only stoners would enjoy.     After subsequent viewings, I can say I enjoyed its crazy world and I'm not a stoner.     There is something to be said for a movie where The Dude hallucinates about being in a porno and the most exciting thing to him is a tower of bowling shoes.    That tells you all you need to know about where his priorities lie.     He probably wishes he didn't make a stink about his rug. 

The Accountant (2016) * * * 1/2

Directed by: Gavin O' Connor

Starring:  Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, JK Simmons, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert C. Treveiler

Christian Wolff (Affleck) is an autistic accountant with clients ranging from mobsters to drug cartels to ordinary farmers looking for tax breaks.    He is a brilliant analyst who finds it difficult to interact with other people due to his autism.    He also is an expert in hand-to-hand combat and hitting targets with his rifle from one mile away.    Christian is so bad ass, I was halfway expecting a disclaimer in the closing credits stating, "This film is not an accurate depiction of autism," in order to quell any potential protests from autism advocates who cringe at how coldly violent Christian can be.  

Perhaps I'm looking too deeply into that aspect of The Accountant, which is an above-average action thriller containing some thought-provoking twists that aren't just thrown in for a cheap surprise.    We learn the true nature of Wolff's activities.    We understand why he chooses to live a life of changing identities and why he keeps his belongings in a mobile storage unit he can hitch to a pickup truck at a moment's notice and light out for other towns.     We also see him connect in a more meaningful way than before to Dana Cummings (Kendrick), an accountant for an Illinois robotics lab run by Lamar Black (Lithgow) and discovers millions missing from the books.     Wolff is brought in to find out who stole the money and how.    He then discovers his caring side for others when Dana's life is threatened by hired goons who want to kill her.     Knowing years of effective Lithgow villain performances, we know there is more to him than meets the eye. 

Another subplot involves FBI agent Ray King (Simmons), who is soon to retire, but wants to find out the identity of this mysterious accountant who looks into the books of the world's most notorious people and lives to tell about it.    The guns and the martial arts surely help with that.     King enlists (more like blackmails) analyst Marybeth Medina (Addai-Robinson) with a hidden past to find out who the accountant is.    It is not for reasons you may expect.    Turns out there is a back story between King and Christian.

The goons after Dana (and ultimately Christian) are led by Brax (Bernthal) who is as talkative as Christian is not.    Yet, he is lethal and skilled.    His final showdown with Christian unfolds in an unexpected way as well, making it more inspired than inevitable.     The Accountant is very skillful at confounding viewer expectations.     What seems pedestrian is anything but.    The pieces of the plot fit together like a jigsaw puzzle Christian quickly puts together in the beginning, when Christian's parents take him to an expert on autism who knows all too well about its limitations on people afflicted with it.

The Accountant is no more about autism than Superman is about interstellar aliens.    It presents us with an unusual character who does what he is trained to do (accounting and thrashing bad guys) and manages to somehow grow a little at a time.     He is willing to jeopardize his own existence which is dominated by routine and rituals to save Dana.     "I have trouble interacting socially with others, but I want to," he tells Dana in a rare moment when he lets his guard down.     The role plays to Affleck's strengths and allows him some wiggle room within a seemingly rigid person.     JK Simmons takes a character we think we have figured out and shows us some depth we didn't anticipate.    Ditto for Bernthal, who is far from a typical villain.     Anna Kendrick once again shows us the same lovable, vulnerable charm we saw in Up in the Air (2009).     Maybe her lack of guile is what causes Christian to want to protect her.   

So what I got from The Accountant is a movie not content with simply being a routine thriller.     Gavin O'Connor, who directed Miracle and Warrior, shows us once again what an adept action director he is.     He has a nice sense of pacing.    The Accountant could have easily been a movie made to rake in a Number One opening weekend and soon disappear after a couple of profitable weeks.     But, it is more complex than that and delights in showing us the tricks it has up its sleeve. 










  

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) * 1/2

Directed by:  Richard Linklater

Starring:  Blake Jenner, Wyatt Russell, Zoey Deutch, Glen Powell

This film is only marginally better than Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), which is the faintest praise I can think of.     While Dazed and Confused had no memorable scenes, Everybody Wants Some!! (yes, there are two exclamation points in the title) at least has one involving a character's use of a mechanical bridge (or as another guy puts it, 'Bitch Stick') in a game of pool.     That was funny.   Nothing else in the movie is. 

Everybody Wants Some!! is essentially the same movie as Dazed and Confused, in which young people sit around, talk, drink, dance, and smoke weed.    And yes there is a dangerous hazing ritual in which guys are duct taped to the outfield wall while teammates attempt to hit them with batted balls.    There is nothing funnier than whacking a poor guy in the eye with a ball.    How much duct tape does it take to secure one roughly 185 pound man to a wall?     You could say Everybody Wants Some!! is the film sibling of Dazed and Confused.     The sibling whom no one talks to. 

Everybody Wants Some!! takes place in 1980 on the University of Texas campus and surrounds the antics of the college's baseball team.     Practice begins in two days which gives the team enough time to bond and check out local nightlife.     They visit a disco, a country/western bar, and then a punk club with lots of moshing going on.     Linklater didn't want to leave anything out.

Conversations drone on endlessly.    I admire realistic dialogue in movies when it helps a scene gain credibility.     I don't necessarily admire an entire movie of it.     "Real" conversations are boring.    I could have a real, honest conversation with a friend and nobody would want to film it and distribute it to theaters.     The movie sets up titles such as "Class begins in 1 day, 22 hours" as if all of this chatter and social interaction is leading somewhere.     I see it as the ending to the endless droning about life's philosophies, music preferences, cultural references, blah, blah, blah.    

The actors play characters with different names and look different from one another, but they all serve the same purpose, which is to babble.    There are no plots or subplots.    Everyone's function is to speak and then wait for others to stop speaking so he can speak again.    Their names are hours away from being forgotten all together.    As will the movie.    Dazed and Confused had the same effect on me.     Others tell me I'm wrong about that one, but I've seen it twice and I will be damned if I can remember anything about it.   

The soundtrack is full of pop and rock hits from the era, including of course Van Halen's Everybody Wants Some (no exclamation points there).     In that respect, I felt like I was watching American Graffiti set 17 years later, but that is where the similarities end.   

Sleeper (1973) * * * *

 

Directed by:  Woody Allen

 

Starring:  Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory

 

Sleeper is a futuristic comedy which functions as a satire of early 1970s society.    Miles Monroe (Allen) wakes up from a cryogenic freeze 200 years after going into the hospital for a minor operation.     He is shocked (and who wouldn't be) to learn America is a police state ruled by an elderly, wheelchair bound leader known only as "Our Leader".    The underground rebellion gets a hold of Miles and uses him to discover the government's secret mission known as the Aires Project.    The government refers to as "the alien" who is considered dangerous.    Miles himself would not agree.   ("I was beaten up by Quakers"). 

 

What transpires is inspired slapstick with hilarious visuals (such as giant hydroponic fruits and even larger chickens) and Allen's trademark verbal humor, plus a shot or two at contemporary 1970's culture.     After being thawed, Miles is shown a film of Howard Cosell.     The underground's theory is:  "When people committed great crimes against the state, they were forced to watch this."    Allen readily agrees.     Allen fans may remember Cosell did play-by-play of Allen's wedding night in Bananas (1971).   

 

The underground is after Miles, who poses as a robot servant for Luna (Keaton), a blissfully unaware poet who doesn't find it strange her robot wears glasses.     We see some futuristic innovations such as a large orb which people rub to get high and instant pudding which, if not properly prepared, can turn into a giant lifelike blob which Miles has to bash away with a broom.     Luna soon discovers Miles' true identity and after some hostility, she joins Miles' quest, which encounters several hiccups including Miles being chased by the giant chicken.    ("What a way to go, to be pecked to death")

 

The Aires Project itself turns into a brilliant opportunity for Allen to showcase his love of slapstick humor.     Turns out Our Leader was involved in a mishap nine months ago and all that is left of him is his nose, which is kept alive so the Leader can be cloned into a person again.     Miles and Luna kidnap the nose and it is really funny to see Miles threaten to blow it away with his gun.     Allen and Keaton co-starred previously in Play It Again, Sam (1972) and would team up again in Love and Death (1975) and Annie Hall (1977).    They have impeccable comic timing and chemistry.    Miles falls for Luna and his jealousy over her affair with the underground leader Erno (Beck) is amusing and touching.     ("He couldn't be here.   He had to go and take his handsome lessons.")

 

Sleeper finds ways for Allen to maximize his creativity in ways only he can.     His ideas for plots are only the beginning.     He mines the idea and the plot developments for all they are worth...and then goes further.    Does Allen become a gun-toting hero who helps overthrow the government?    No, he simply and miraculously does his small part.     He is happier to be left alone and get the girl at the end.      He also warns us in a telling, cynical observation to Luna, "This revolution stuff doesn't work.    In six months, we will be stealing Erno's nose."   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Natural (1984) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Barry Levinson

 

Starring:  Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Wilford Brimley, Richard Farnsworth, Kim Basinger, Darren McGavin, Robert Prosky, Barbara Hershey, Joe Don Baker

 

The Bernard Malamud novel The Natural, on which this movie is based, is a more cynical, hard-nosed look at baseball and its protagonist, Roy Hobbs.   The movie version paints its hero as near saintly, while the novel paints him as less than saintly, even human.   I wonder how the novel's version of events would have played in theaters.  Barry Levinson's The Natural, starring Robert Redford in the role of Hobbs, is more of a crowd-pleaser.  It is a tidy, innocuous story with a hero who can do no wrong and hits home runs that knock out the stadium lights.   

 

The Natural begins with a young Hobbs leaving behind his family farm and his girlfriend Iris (with his own self-made bat) to pursue his career in baseball.   He finds himself aboard a train with a legendary ballplayer named The Whammer (Baker) clearly modeled after Babe Ruth.   During a train breakdown, Hobbs strikes out the big guy on three pitches following a bet.  This attracts the attention of the mysterious Harriet Bird (Hershey), who latches onto Hobbs only to attempt to murder him later.  She shoots him in the stomach before killing herself.   Flash forward to fifteen years later, where Hobbs shows up as an aging rookie to play for the hapless New York Knights, who can't seem to do anything right and are mired in last place.    

 

The team's manager and part-owner Pop Fisher (Brimley) is skeptical of Hobbs' playing abilities and benches him, until one game Hobbs pinch hits and knocks the cover off of the ball with one swing.    Hobbs soon takes over in centerfield after the centerfielder dies after running through the outfield wall.     Hobbs is soon a hitting machine and the Knights move up in the standings threatening to win the National League pennant.     There is behind-the-scenes intrigue as well involving Pop and his shady partner known as The Judge (Prosky).  If the Knights win the pennant this season, Pop can buy out the corrupt Judge and own the team outright.  If the Knights fail, Pop is gone.   Judge dispatches icy blonde Memo Paris (Basinger), who is also Pop's niece, to get close to Hobbs and persuade him to join the Judge's payroll.   

Hobbs' exploits catch the attention of sportswriter Max Mercy (Duvall), who was present the day Hobbs struck out The Whammer, but can't quite place Hobbs.   "If he wants to hit a homer, he hits a homer.   If we wants to hit a double, he hits a double.  How can a guy this good come from nowhere?"  Mercy soon learns of Hobbs' secret past and threatens to write the story, mostly because he is a prick.  There is no mention of Mercy's motivation for wanting to destroy the life of the Knights' biggest star.    

Redford, 48 years old at the time, is still a convincing Hobbs and he looks the part of a ball player.    But, he is rather bland as a character, since he is so morally upstanding and stands above the morass of immorality around him.   There isn't much to him.  We are not as interested in him or his dream to be the best that ever played as we should be.  Iris (Close) returns to the scene in which she shows up as a fan dressed in a bright white dress that could almost blind anyone who looks directly at it. This breaks Hobbs out of a mid-season slump and soon they track each other down to discuss old times and vague declarations about her son never getting a chance to meet his father.   Iris's sense of timing is impeccable.    She waits until the Knights season is on the line to divulge the information to Roy that he is indeed the father.     

The Natural has a very somber tone for a sports movie.    The Judge's office is dark.    Many days are cloudy.     Any scenes in which it is sunny outside happen indoors with the sunlight poking through the window.    Perhaps this is to add the depth of the novel without actually portraying the events from it.     Randy Newman's famed score is entirely too celebratory for a movie about a baseball player.    It is stirring, but belongs in a different movie.   Hobbs hits the game-winning home run at the end and circles the bases with the lights exploding above him (seems kind of dangerous to stand around while that happens) and Newman's score thundering over the soundtrack.   It is all too much.  It lends more importance and gravitas to a story that hasn't earned it.   Oh, and don't forget the whole business involving the wounds from the shooting threatening to kill him.  It would have been better for his health, I suppose, to swing for a single instead of a home run.   

Despite that, The Natural has segments in which it nearly works.  The actors are far too good and the production values too strong to make a failure, but the film never quite gets on track.  Its hero is not compelling enough to carry the movie and the movie introduces intriguing supporting players only to shift the story back to boring Roy Hobbs.  


 

 

The Hangover (2009) * * *

Directed by:  Todd Phillips

Starring:  Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Mike Tyson, Ken Jeong, Heather Graham

I write this review having already reviewed its inferior sequels first.     But, I will not hold the sequels against the original film, which is a funny, self-contained comedy with some surprises for the viewer and the characters themselves.     Sequels were not necessary, but when did that ever stop Hollywood from making them?     The Hangover, thankfully, is not a raunch fest, although you would think a comedy about a Las Vegas bachelor party gone wrong would be one.     Most of the raunch is kept off-screen thankfully.     The bigger laughs come from the discoveries the characters make about what actually happened the night of the bachelor party.

The Hangover begins innocently enough.    Four friends travel to Vegas for an epic bachelor party, which thanks to drinks mixed with roofies, the guys wake up the following morning with a tiger in their trashed hotel suite and no memory of any of the previous night's events.     Plus, the groom Doug (Bartha) is missing.     The guys have some clues to go on, but solving this befuddling puzzle will take a lot of effort.     They encounter not only the tiger, but the police, a naked gangster locked in the trunk of their car, an escort with the hots for one of the guys, a baby, and Mike Tyson.      I won't even begin to explain how all of these elements fit together, except to tell you they do and follow a certain logic while doing so.

Why does The Hangover succeed when it just as easily could have stepped wrong?     For one thing, we like the guys:  married teacher Phil (Cooper), henpecked dentist Stu (Helms), and the bride's weirdo brother Alan (Galifiankis), who may as well be from outer space.    The groom is not onscreen most of the movie, but seems like a decent enough fellow.     So, we actually care if these poor guys piece all of this together.     We also like Mike Tyson, who plays himself and shows a comic side not previously seen.     I will divulge that Tyson is indeed the owner of the tiger.

The Hangover is an exercise in clever writing, with twists you may not expect, and some inventiveness.     A less intelligent comedy would lazily fall back on gross-out humor and cheap slapstick gags.     The Hangover wants to be more ambitious than that.     Is there too much plot squeezed in at times?    Yes, but for the most part, the movie delivers some strong laughs borne out of amusing situations and much to the characters' ever-mounting exasperation.     Galifianakis became an unlikely star thanks to this film.     He is really wacky, but he has a heart and the others can keep him in check.    As do the other guys who more or less play straight men to Alan.    

The sequels make the mistake of focusing all of the laughs on Alan, who is better in smaller, more controlled doses.      He is somewhat endearing in his lunacy in this film, while totally insufferable in the next two films.      The sequels made many mistakes the initial film wisely avoids, including mostly recycling the first film in Part II and then turning Part III into the Alan/Mr. Chow show.    Mr. Chow is the naked gangster the guys somehow threw in their trunk during the lost night.     A little of him goes a long way also.    

Annie Hall (1977) * * * *

Directed by:  Woody Allen

Starring:  Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Shelley Duvall, Paul Simon, Christopher Walken

Annie Hall is Woody Allen's tribute to a relationship that started, stopped, started again, and stopped for good.     Does it mirror his real-life relationship with Diane Keaton, his co-star whom he dated in the early 1970s?     Here's a tidbit.    Diane Keaton's real name is Diane Hall and Woody called her by the nickname Annie during their time together.     Did their relationship run its course in the same fashion as in this movie?    And with such touching truths, neuroses, and both moving in opposite directions?      Actually, it was more like Allen standing still while Keaton grew, learned, and asserted her independence.     Annie Hall is Allen's best film.     It is a romantic comedy with Allen's observations on life and relationships peppered in.     He wonders how the relationship went wrong.     Perhaps it's his use of Groucho Marx's quote, "I would not want to be belong to a club that would have someone like me for a member," that sets the table for what lies ahead.    He uses it twice in the film.  It is very telling about his self-esteem when it comes to women.    It's as if he enters a relationship wondering when, not if, it will fall apart.

The romance blossoms between Annie and Alvy (Allen), a stand-up comic and TV personality who is sometimes accosted by neanderthals on the street who swear they know him from somewhere...just not sure where.   They meet playing tennis and soon she offers to share a cab with him, even though she owns a car.   She drives like it is the Indy 500 on New York City streets.   Both are intelligent and neurotic.   They know they are perfect for each other but they can't always get out of their own way and just be happy.     Annie is a fledgling singer who catches the eye of famed record producer Tony Lacey (Simon), which inspires jealousy within Alvy not just because of Annie, but because Tony wants her to come to California to record and Alvy detests the Left Coast.   His pointed satire of California lifestyles is particularly biting and amusing.    His best friend Rob (Roberts) moved there to write situation comedies and check out the plethora of available young women.   Alvy travels to California, orders mashed yeast from a health food restaurant, and falls ill.    Or so he thinks he does.   Hypochondria is part of the package with Alvy.  

Annie Hall is full of unique visuals and truly inspired humor.   A loud blabbermouth stands behind Alvy on line for a movie pontificating on Marshall McLuhan.  Alvy gains his revenge by producing the actual Marshall McLuhan to chastise the loudmouth.    It doesn't even matter if anyone in the audience knows who Marshall McLuhan was, the gag works.    We see glimpses of Alvy's childhood where he lived in a Brooklyn house situated right under a rollercoaster.   Dinners are frequently interrupted when the house shakes.     There is one segment where Annie and Alvy appear as animated characters from a fairy tale discussing their relationship issues.    Alvy also laments what he perceives as anti-Semitism because someone says to him, "Did you eat?" and pronounced it "Jew eat?"   We also meet Annie's Wisconsin family, including a grandmother who looks at Alvy and pictures a Hasidic Jew, while her brother Duane (Walken) steals a scene by telling Alvy he sometimes wants to intentionally cause a head-on collision while driving.    The payoff to this is wonderful non-verbal comedy.    Rob and Alvy call each other "Max" for no other reason except that it just sounds good to them and is part of their verbal byplay.    

We feel genuine affection for Alvy and Annie.    Keaton won a Best Actress Oscar for her role and she plumbs it for all of its lovable ditziness.    She also grows enough to know Alvy no longer suits her as a mate.    The scatterbrained girl who says, "La dee da" in the beginning is more mature woman by the end.    Alvy misses Annie when she leaves, but probably misses the early Annie who was more neurotic than even he is.     In that sense, or at least in his mind, he was the mature one and enjoyed the fact that Annie depended on him so much.  

Allen was nominated for his only Best Actor Oscar to date for this film and it is a version of what would become his inimitable screen persona.      Lovable, overthinking, overanalyzing, easily miffed by the foibles of others, and forever in awe of the power the opposite sex has over him.     Women drive him crazy but, like he says in a story that closes the film, "I would commit my brother who thinks he's a chicken, but I need the eggs."    No writer, director, or actor quite sees the world like Woody Allen does.     Annie Hall is perhaps the prime example of why he is so endearing to us and how unique he is in the history of cinema.     As he ages, (he is approaching 81), I understand each work of his now is a treasure.     How many more will be left?     I don't know, but I hope we continue to see Woody Allen for a long time to come. 

Cast Away (2000) * * *

Directed by:  Robert Zemeckis

Starring:   Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Chris Noth

Cast Away begins tracking a Fed Ex package to Moscow, where Fed Ex executive Chuck Noland (Hanks) awaits its arrival.   There is nothing specifically important about the package itself.   Chuck is timing how long it takes to get there.   It takes 72 hours and Chuck is appalled by that performance.   "Governments are toppled in that time," he tells his Moscow crew as he attempts to bolster their efficiency.   Soon enough, Chuck is aboard an airplane that explodes mid-flight and crashes into the Pacific.   He survives by swimming to a deserted island untouched by civilization.     Surrounded only by a few Fed Ex packages washed ashore, Chuck is alone, desperate, and has a bad toothache.    "I avoided dentists, now what I wouldn't give to have one here," he tells Wilson, who is actually a volleyball stained with Chuck's bloody hand print.    Chuck etches a face into the blood.    Any dialogue Chuck has is spoken to Wilson, so the audience gains perspective on what an extraordinarily insane situation he is in.

Most of Cast Away takes place with Hanks alone on this deserted island.   At first, he tries in vain to make a fire and scours the area for anything to eat or drink.   There are lots of fish to be had, if he could catch them.    The fire will be ample enough, if he could just create one.    And the toothache will eventually go away thanks to some crude surgery involving an ice skate that washed up in one of the packages.   Hanks was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance and it is quite masterful.   He spends most of the movie in scenes with himself and little to no dialogue, yet he fully immerses us in his experience.    A different actor may not have inspired such empathy and thus the movie wouldn't work.

Cast Away works for the most part, mostly because we see Hanks learning to survive because the alternative would be to perish on this island with the unlikelihood that anyone would ever find him.     He puts his analytical skills he used at Fed Ex to use.   He studies the tides, the winds, and the seasons.    Chuck determines that there is an ideal time to sail away from the island and face the least resistance from the currents, but he has to manufacture a raft strong enough to resist the rough waters.   This is a painstaking process marred by trial and error.   Four years pass.   Chuck is paunchy when he arrives on the island and four years later is lean with a long beard and wooly hair.    He can now kill fish with a spear from a distance.   

What drives Chuck is his love for his girlfriend Kelly (Hunt), whose picture he keeps in a cave.     He frets about having left her behind.    Thoughts of suicide crept into his mind and he tells Wilson (and us) about his flirtation with ending it all.    Who among us might not consider this a possibly better alternative than wasting away on an island?     I'm sure there was a temptation to cut to scenes with a devastated Kelly picking up the pieces after Chuck's presumed death, but the movie wisely avoids them.   There is no outside world where Chuck now lives and the movie smartly doesn't show us one.   

If you're wondering if Chuck ever does escape from the island, the answer is yes.    I'm not giving away a spoiler.     This was given away in the film's trailers back when it was released.   Cast Away does not work quite as well when Chuck returns home.     He reconnects with a now-married Kelly whose husband is, oddly enough, a dentist.   Like Chuck himself, the movie doesn't quite know how to behave in the presence of other people.   The drama unfolds somewhat awkwardly and ends with Chuck literally and figuratively at a crossroads.    Hasn't this poor guy been through enough without having to face the rest of his life in solemnity?  

Cast Away is a better, more assured and fascinating film when Chuck is on the island, forced to be resourceful or die.    We actually find ourselves feeling the isolation Chuck goes through and it is here when Cast Away provides a unique, moving story.    

Tombstone (1993) * * * *

 

Directed by:  George P. Cosmatos

 

Starring:  Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Dana Delany, Dana Wheeler Nicholson, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Priestley

 

Tombstone is a movie that knows its purpose and what it wants to say.  It fully espouses the need at times for necessary violence, especially when dealing with villains as cruel and vicious as The Cowboys.   The Cowboys are led by Curly Bill Brocious (Boothe), who visits opium dens and murders the frontier town of Tombstone's sheriff in front of dozens of witnesses.  The Cowboys are so feared that the charges don't stick, which enrages the town of Tombstone's newest residents, the Earps, led by the famed former lawman Wyatt (Russell).

 

The Earps wish to run the town's gambling hall and lay low, but find this is not possible with the bullying Cowboys around.   Wyatt, along with his brothers Morgan (Paxton) and Virgil (Elliott), can not abide by the town's lawlessness and take on the Cowboys in a cold, bloody battle, starting with the famed gunfight at the OK Corral.    Joining the Earps is longtime family friend Doc Holliday (Kilmer), who is dying from tuberculosis.    This does not stop him from killing some Cowboys and taking on the group's most evil member Johnny Ringo (Biehn) in a one-on-one duel.     His loyalty to Wyatt is what drives him to fight this battle despite his failing health.    When asked why he is aiding Wyatt, Doc responds, "Because Wyatt Earp is my friend,"  His friend retorts, "I have lots of friends,"    Doc replies, "I don't."

 

What happens to The Cowboys is akin to a bug meeting a windshield.  The Earps track and kill the group's members with ruthless efficiency.  The only difference between the Earps and The Cowboys is what side of the law they're on.   When Doc battles Ringo in their duel to the death, Doc throws down his deputy marshal's badge afterwards and says, "My hypocrisy only goes so far."  The Earps and The Cowboys know one thing, which is violence, and they accept this as their nature.  Tombstone makes no attempt to explain away or probe the consciences of these men in hopes of perhaps finding some remorse there.   There is none to be had.  The Earps realize early on the only way to fight this group is with their own bloody brand of justice.

 

The action defines the characters more than dialogue.    But when the characters say something, it is important and almost poetic.    The characters accept their natures and their purpose.    Anything else is simply and pointlessly trying to ward off the inevitable.     Tombstone makes no apologies about being what it is.     Russell's Wyatt Earp is a steady instrument of violence.     His depiction in this film is far from the heroic treatment he received in other films.    This Earp tries to go the straight and narrow, but trouble flocks to him like seagulls to a stray piece of bread.     He could not avoid a showdown even if he wanted to.     Kilmer gives the best performance of his career as Holliday, an Oscar-nomination worthy performance that sadly did not result in one.    He views the proceedings with bemusement and soon contempt for The Cowboys.     His loyalty to Wyatt is the heart of the film, which doesn't pause often for reflection.   

 

Rounding out the cast are steady veterans Elliott and Paxton, who fit into Westerns like a glove.    Dana Delany is Josie, the love interest of the married Wyatt, whose wife is addicted to laudanum and out of it most of the time.   Wyatt's moral compass with affairs of the heart are as muddled as his battle with The Cowboys.    The movie understands and embraces the idea that in such lawless times, moral compasses do not always point in the right direction and sometimes are thrown out altogether.     It does not take a hypocritical approach.     Tombstone knows what it is and what it is not and makes no apologies for either.  

The Magnificent Seven (2016) * *

Directed by:  Antoine Fuqua

Starring:  Denzel Washington, Haley Bennett, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung Hun-Lee, Chris Pratt, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Peter Sarsgaard, Matt Bomer

The Magnificent Seven spends so much screen time gathering the troops, planning, and talking that there is little else to be excited about.     The setup and plot are simple enough and I was thinking we may have a Western masterwork like Tombstone on our hands.     Pure evil in the form of robber baron Bartholomew Bogue (Sarsgaard) viciously terrorizes a town near one of his mines and burns its church to the ground.     We know he needs to be dealt with in much the same savage fashion.    But, while Tombstone defines its characters by their actions and at a quick pace, The Magnificent Seven seems to be biding its time while our patience grows thin.    

After Bogue burns the church and promises to return in three weeks to terrorize the town residents into selling their land to him for pennies on the dollar, bounty hunter Sam Chisholm (Washington) arrives to carry out a warrant.    He dispatches his quarry and is soon offered a small sum by widow Emma Cullen (Bennett), whose husband was murdered by Bogue.     The money isn't much, but Chisholm is moved by her desire for vengeance and proceeds to gather up six other men to stand up to Bogue and his goons.

The movie stalls as we wait for Chisholm and his first recruit Faraday (Pratt), a wisecracking gambler, to find the rest of the guys who will comprise the titular group.     We meet Vasquez (Garcia-Rulfo), an outlaw/Chisholm quarry whom Chisholm promises not to pursue if he aids the cause.     Then, there is the pairing of Goodnight Robicheaux (Hawke), who travels with a deadly knife specialist (Hun-Lee), who is capable of cutting people in a way to make Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York envious.     The sixth member is Jack (D'Onofrio), a loony big guy described as "a bear dressed in human clothing".    The final member to round out the crew is a stray Native American named Red Harvest (Sensmeier), who is deadly with a bow and arrow and not so bad with a gun either.

Only Goodnight is assigned any depth.    He is a shell-shocked Civil War veteran reluctant to kill despite his abilities to do so.     He leaves after a heart-to-heart with Chisholm.     Training Day fans will recall Washington and Hawke's expert teaming in that Fuqua film.    It is good to see them together again.     But we kind of, sort of know he will be back in the nick of time to aid in the final showdown.     The final showdown with Bogue and his army is also a long letdown.    So much happens we never get a true sense of what exactly is going on.    It is a free-for-all, mostly because there are too many moving parts between Bogue's army, the townsfolk who assist the Seven, and the Seven themselves.     Even in chaos, we should still see an objective and a strategy, as in Saving Private Ryan, where bullets whiz by and bodies fall, but we still know our footing.

There are terrific actors here saddled with characters with little to them.    The actors try to infuse as much character as possible, but it is a tall order.     Sarsgaard plays a truly heinous villain to the tee.   He does his job, which is to make us root for his demise, but it is strange how much time he spends off-screen.    We miss him when he's gone.     Chisholm is as close to a moral center as the movie provides, since he is a "duly sworn officer of the court" as he puts it.    He only seems to own one outfit, which is an all-black number, and I hope he gets a chance to wash out during all of the movie's down time.     Haley Bennett is such a dead ringer for Jennifer Lawrence, I had to look up whether she is related to her or if Lawrence was doing an uncredited cameo.    She is not related to Lawrence by the way, but she still knows how to handle a gun like the boys can.  

What we have here is too much setup without much else.    The Magnificent Seven is a remake of the Yul Brynner 1960 Western (unseen by me), so I went in with a fresh perspective.     It runs over two hours and easily could've been more taut.    The movie ends with a tribute to the fallen members of the Seven, with the narrator dubbing them as "Magnificent", as if we needed to be reminded.     The movie falls significantly short of that term.  

Swimming with Sharks (1995) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  George Huang

 

Starring:   Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley, Michelle Forbes, Benicio Del Toro, Roy Dotrice

 

Kevin Spacey is at his best playing the smartest guy in the room who has no qualms about letting you know it.     But, then he is capable of pulling out moments of humanity from thin air, thus making a seemingly one-dimensional prick like Buddy Ackerman more than we expected.    He is a wonderful actor, always fascinating to watch, and like Jack Nicholson implicates us as he tries to get away with something.  

 

Spacey's Buddy Ackerman is a Hollywood studio executive with little patience for screw-ups.    His new assistant Guy (Whaley) hands him a packet of Equal instead of Sweet n' Low one day with his coffee and Buddy reads him the riot act.   "You have no brain.  You have no feelings.  Your job is to do what I want," he says in the most emasculating way possible without actually raising his voice.    Oh, and he has his moments when he completely loses it.    For Guy, being fired might be a blessing in disguise, but Guy is a film school grad looking to break into the movie business.   Being Buddy's assistant is the ground floor.  He may not get a chance to go much higher. 

 

Buddy tells Guy often, "Shut the fuck up.   Listen and learn."  Buddy was once in Guy's shoes.  He was an abused, put-upon assistant for ten years and now thinks it is his time to be the abuser.   I couldn't exactly say what he does at the studio, but he takes the most delight in dressing down his hapless employees.   One night, Guy finally succumbs to his mounting frustration and ties Buddy to a chair, gleefully torturing him and exacting a long, protracted revenge on his boss.  I am sure many people would identify with this desire even if they don't act on it.    

 

But this is only the beginning of Swimming with Sharks.    The plot grows more complicated with the presence of Dawn Lockard (Forbes), a movie producer always trying to get Buddy to greenlight her projects.    Sometimes, it takes a little more than simple verbal persuasion.   Guy falls for Dawn and the two have a relationship that has no realistic chance of succeeding in cutthroat Hollywood.   Everyone is looking to get ahead.   A straightforward romance simply will not do because it may actually stand in the way of getting ahead.   Guy, however, is the last to understand this.  

 

Whaley is sympathetic as Guy, who despite his best efforts usually finds a way to upset Buddy.    Buddy would probably fire Guy if he didn't enjoy sadistically picking on him so much.    Dawn knows Buddy all too well and can only stand by as he lies his way through deal after deal and phone calls with movie stars.     Swimming with Sharks was written and directed by George Huang, who worked as a studio executive's assistant for years and fully understands the inner workings of Hollywood's rat race.     The movie has an insider's feel to the town's pecking order.    Guy is at the very bottom rung and cannot move up even one rung to have assistants of his own to abuse. 

 

We learn Buddy is not entirely heartless.    He suffered a loss which haunts him and it is moving when he explains his loss to his captor.    Is he truly looking for empathy or is this a way to manipulate Guy into letting him off the hook?    We also learn Guy's reasons for snapping may not be entirely work-related.      The movie concludes in an unexpected way, which may seem a bit too tidy, but stays with the theme of people in Hollywood doing what it takes to get ahead, which transcends love and even ordinary human decency.