National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) * * *

Directed by:  Harold Ramis

Starring:  Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Imogene Coca, Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron, Christie Brinkley, John Candy

"Getting there is half the fun," says Clark Griswold (Chase) who treks in the family's new station wagon from Chicago to Walley World in California, a Disneyesque theme park.    He has no clue what he is in for and so goes National Lampoon's Vacation, which spawned three sequels and a loathsome 2015 remake.    The movie is a series of misadventures caused by a.) Clark's incompetence b.) Clark's general niceness which people immediately take advantage of or c.) Just plain bad luck.
Most of it is amusing, while the addition of Christie Brinkley as a hottie in a racing sports car is never an unwelcome sight.

Chase's hapless Clark is a devoted family man (although that is put to the extreme test by Brinkley) with a loving wife Ellen (D'Angelo) and two teenage kids (Hall and Barron).    His family vacation gets off to a rough start when the new car he ordered didn't arrive in time to the dealership and he is stuck with an ungainly station wagon which takes a pounding during the 2000-plus mile trip to California.     Clark finds himself in a St. Louis ghetto late at night after a wrong turn off the expressway, then in the presence of freeloading cousin Eddie (Quaid) who asks, without hesitation, for a $52.000 loan.    At Eddie's, the family is joined by the cantankerous Aunt Edna (Coca), who hitches a ride to Phoenix, which leads to further complications.     To list them all here would spoil the fun and would be entirely too time-consuming.

Chase plays Clark with less of an edge than other films.    He is a guy things happen to, but he keeps on going with pluck and determination.     His family tries to be supportive, but how many run-ins with danger can they tolerate before begging for Clark to turn around and go home?     It is refreshing to see Chase lose the snark and take up the reins of pure ordinariness.    I'm sure anyone reading this review has dealt with vacation snafus such as flat tires, wrong turns, motels which looked a lot nicer in the brochure, and of course churlish hotel clerks who won't take a check.    Vacation takes on an identifiable quality while of course placing the Griswolds in situations of ascending craziness. 

Vacation stumbles after Brinkley leaves the scene and its finale at Walley World is a letdown, but we built up enough goodwill with the Griswolds to walk away from the film with a smile.     The sequels and the remake do not provide the same result. 

Company Man (2001) *

Directed by:  Peter Askin and Douglas McGrath

Starring:  Douglas McGrath, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Cumming, Woody Allen, Denis Leary, John Turturro, Ryan Phillippe, Anthony LaPaglia, Jeffrey Jones

Company Man lists two directors, but it may as well have had zero.    It is all over the map and no laughs result, not even from normally strong comic actors.     The only scene which generates a smile involves Woody Allen as a CIA station chief who denies any revolution is imminent in 1959 Cuba as he lights his cigarette from a burning Batista effigy.    I smiled because of my assumption that Allen could at least perk up the material for a while.    I was wrong.    He phones in his cameo.    The other actors were probably envious because they were stuck in the movie a lot longer.

Douglas McGrath, who co-wrote Bullets over Broadway (1994) with Allen and directed the charming Emma (1996), stars in the film as Allen Quimp, a milquetoast grammar school teacher stuck with a nagging wife who wishes he would get a higher-paying job.    In order to get his wife Daisy (Weaver) and her overbearing father off his back, he lies about being an undercover CIA agent who uses the teaching job as a front.   Daisy and daddy are thrilled, while Quimp accidentally catches the eye of the CIA by helping a Soviet dancer defect.  

Quimp joins the CIA for real and is relocated to Cuba on the eve of Castro's overthrow of the U.S.-friendly dictator Fulgencio Batista (Cumming), who is played here as the least likely dictator you have ever seen.    He is a cross between Pee Wee Herman and a Liberace impersonator.    If that doesn't sound funny, it's because it isn't.   The laughs are supposed to come from the CIA's stringent denials of any likely overthrow despite guerilla attacks, demonstrations, and violence.     We meet Castro (LaPaglia) after the overthrow and we follow Quimp's plot to poison Castro with LSD-laced water at a press conference.     No points for predicting that somehow Quimp, through laborious contrivances, will drink the water instead.   

The laughs never arrive in Company Man, although the setup is to have Quimp as a Forrest Gump-type who stumbles into major historical events without a true understanding of what is happening.    We like Forrest Gump, while Quimp is a non-entity who tirelessly (but tiresomely for us) corrects everyone's grammar, as if by the seventh time it will actually generate a laugh.    The actors perform as if they were directed to overact (or underact) hysterically.     The long, long scene in which Daisy discovers the truth about Quimp in Cuba just as a fellow CIA agent and Batista simultaneously show up at Quimp's residence is one which should be shown in film classes as a lesson on how not to direct a comedy scene.

Company Man isn't just bad.    It is one which has already been forgotten by most of the movie-going public and likely all of the actors and crew members involved in its production.    All have moved on to bigger and better things, although possibly not McGrath, whose IMDB directing credits post-Company Man include Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Infamous (2006), and I Don't Know How She Does It (2011).    Infamous, for those who aren't aware, is the "other" Truman Capote biopic released after Phillip Seymour Hoffman's triumphant performance already won him an Oscar the previous year.    It had fine actors in it, but nothing new to say about Capote.    But, this is Company Man's review and not Infamous', and I think I've said all I need to say about Company Man.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (2017) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk

Starring:  Al Gore

I don't know if An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is inconvenient as much as it is redundant.   2006's An Inconvenient Truth featured shocking images and revelations about the disastrous effects of climate charge.    We have known for decades about the damage global warming is causing the planet.    An Inconvenient Truth spelled it out in incontrovertible and scary terms.   Former Vice-President Al Gore narrated that film also with a chilling power point presentation reflecting the rising sea levels, disappearance of glaciers, and how each year is hotter than the last.

An Inconvenient Sequel picks up in 2015 with Gore updating his power point presentation to show us even scarier trends and gripping footage of cities like Miami Beach dealing with unprecedented flooding caused by high tides.    With more water from rapidly depleting glaciers and icebergs finding its way to the ocean, sea levels rise.    It is a vicious circle.    Gore is a tireless advocate for the cause which shouldn't be so much work, but yet news footage shown at the beginning of the film gives us climate deniers who publicly refuse to believe in climate change.    As if it is something to refuse to believe.    It is as silly to deny climate change as it is to deny the Earth is round, but there are still people out there who do.    I'm sure some are trolls, but there are others who staunchly believe it or agree with it because their politician of choice does.

Much of the film centers on the creation of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which our current President opted out of in June 2017 with as much aforethought as opting out of a magazine subscription.     India was a temporary holdout in the conference due to their inability to gain financing without ultra-high interest rates for solar energy use.    They are concerned with using their fossil fuel resources to allow millions of its poor citizens to live.    The nation wanted solar energy, but not at absurd interest rates and the expense of millions of its citizens who need basic human services.    Gore goes to work to convince the World Bank to lend India the money at lower interest rates.    If this doesn't sound entirely riveting, that is because it isn't.     Such wheeling and dealing is best left off camera or in the director's cut on DVD.  

We see Gore travel the globe, visiting The Philippines which dealt with its own climate change-aided natural disaster and a small Republican town in Texas which despite its conservative leanings is leading the charge for 100% solar efficiency.    Gore and company are preaching to the converted here.   They play it too safe by not focusing on how politics has shaped the fight against climate change in the last decade.    We see snippets of then-candidate Donald Trump chastising then-President Obama for, and I'm paraphrasing, hanging around Paris too long for the climate change conference.     Gore explains that Trump's election was a setback to his cause, but practically blows past it.   We see Gore entering Trump Tower to speak with Trump, I assume, but there is no mention of what he discussed with Trump and no footage of the meeting.

The movie focuses plenty of the positive steps which have been taken by many nations to help reduce the emission of fossil fuel gases over the next few decades.    But, I couldn't help but feel this is looking at the issue through rose-colored glasses.     The movie isn't stirring or angry enough.    Like Hillary Clinton's failed Presidential campaign, it plays nice with the naysayers and deniers who ridicule the cause.    It would have been more dramatic and interesting to see Gore disarm opponents with the facts.    This would at least allow us the pleasure of seeing them put in their place and perhaps strengthen its standing with doubters.    But, it doesn't want to play rough or ruffle feathers.   The film wasn't made for anyone but the people who already believe anyway.

I admire Gore's passion and energy.    Despite his age, he still travels indefatigably all over the globe in defense of his cause.    But even his seminars, training sessions, and lectures are all aimed at an easy audience which isn't likely to question anything.    I would like to see one denier attempt to criticize Gore for flying all over when jet fuel emissions surely contribute to climate change.    The perfect response:   "Well, I can't walk to Paris."

Trading Places (1983) * * * *

Directed by:  John Landis

Starring:  Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Denholm Elliott, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Jim Belushi, Paul Gleeson

The villains of Trading Places, the super, duper rich Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Bellamy and Ameche) aren't content with being merely wealthy.  They enjoy the power they exert over less wealthy and prominent people in the form of small wagers.   In Trading Places, the Dukes argue over whether a person is a product of his environment or heredity.  They concoct a scheme in which their brightest and most educated commodities broker Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd) loses his job, money, fiancée, home, and reputation.  They are all given to street hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy), who has no clue as to why he is suddenly rich hours after being thrown in jail for alleged attempted theft.   The Dukes mercilessly revel in witnessing Winthorpe sink into disgrace and Valentine rise in the world of commodities.  

Directed by John Landis, Trading Places is a funny movie with plenty of laughs and an inspired story to boot.   Both men learn some things in their new environments, which is helpful in ultimately turning the tables on the Dukes.  I'm sorry if I'm divulging a spoiler here, but if you haven't gotten around to checking out Trading Places in the 34 years since its release, then I don't know what to tell you.    Part of the fun is observing Winthorpe's and Valentine's well-laid plan to disrupt the Dukes' attempts to corner the orange juice market and get even filthier rich in the process.    They become so rich that even their butler Coleman (Elliott) has his own butler.    Along for the ride is Ophelia (Curtis), a smart prostitute who initially helps in the plot to disgrace Winthorpe and then helps him to get back on his feet.

Aykroyd and Murphy are a great comic team.  They play particularly opposite characters who have two things in common:  intelligence and resourcefulness.  Trading Places doesn't go for obvious laughs.    Its best moments arise when it deals with small moments of truth and humor, such as when the Dukes give a club employee his "Christmas bonus", which turns out to be a $5.00 bill.   The butler slyly comments, "I'll be able to go to the movies...by myself."   A lesser comedy would have the butler scream four-letter and twelve-letter words at the Dukes.   A lesser comedy would exploit the racial aspects of the plot for cheap laughs, but the movie mostly avoids those and prefers to deal with the human comedy involved.

Aykroyd is appropriately snooty, but not irredeemably so.    Murphy is appropriately street-savvy, but not in your face.    Trading Places doesn't have Aykroyd and Murphy hog all of the laughs.  Winthorpe's encounter with a pawn shop clerk (played by Bo Diddley) and Valentine's party with uncouth guests from his street days are two truly memorable sequences.    Oh, and a gorilla plays an important part in turning the Dukes' world upside down.     Trading Places isn't a free-for-all.    It isn't like some modern comedies, in which the movie hurls gag after gag, bodily fluid after bodily fluid, and bodily function after bodily function at you relentlessly until you go numb and don't laugh anyway.    Trading Places takes its time, finds laughs in both small and big observations, and everyone involved in it is clearly having a great time.     

A United Kingdom (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Amma Asante

Starring:  David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Jack Davenport, Vusi Kunene, Tom Felton, Terry Pheto, Laura Carmichael

Based on a true story (we all know by now dramatic liberties will be taken), A United Kingdom tells a story in which, sadly, is still relevant and timely 70 years after it happened.     In the film, Seretse Khama (Oyelowo) is a tribal king in the African land now known as Botswana.     While being educated in England, he meets, falls for, and marries working-class white woman Ruth Williams (Pike) against the wishes of his family, the UK, and much of his people.    Besides the obvious issue of miscegenation, there are politically-inspired objections as well.    Botswana's (let's call it that even though it wasn't named so in 1947) southerly neighbor South Africa is a valued UK ally and sanctioning this mixed marriage might cause tension due to South Africa's new apartheid policy.  

A United Kingdom's best parts involve not the romance or the marriage, but the political gamesmanship played by the UK, Seretse's uncle (Kunene), and Seretse himself.    He wishes to rule and improve the lives of his people, while the UK (under which the nation is ruled) banishes Seretse for five years with an option to make the banishment permanent.     If you consider his native land is riddled with drought, poverty, and malaria, while his banishment involves living in relative comfort in England; one would assume this isn't a bad arrangement.    But, Seretse wants to improve the lives of the people he loves, even if they don't necessarily love him at the moment.

Oyelowo played Martin Luther King in Selma (2014), which I felt was a movie in which speeches took the place of real human drama.    Oyelowo was convincing in Selma and is aptly noble, altruistic, and intelligent here.     Pike is wide-eyed and loves her husband, while not naïve about the obstacles she will face as the white queen of a land of black subjects.     Both Oyelowo and Pike are good actors, but their love is given short shrift against the backdrop of England's colonial politics.    India's 1947 independence provides some historical subtext.    Botswana would gain its independence in 1966 with Seretse elected as its first President.

The men who act as the most outward villains are both fictional, so I've learned, and do everything they can to prevent Seretse from ruling.    As played by Jack Davenport and Tom Felton, they are appropriately hateful, pompous, and sneering.    There is satisfaction achieved when they receive their comeuppance, which owes more to movie drama than real life.     But, it is satisfactory nonetheless.    

A United Kingdom mostly works because it is able to anger us as we recognize the parallels which in some parts of society still exist.    We don't necessarily feel the earth-shattering love and passion between Seretse and Ruth necessary to defy a nation, but they are still a valuable symbol of those who are subjected to prejudice, fear, misinformation, and racism.    

Logan Lucky (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Steven Soderbergh

Starring:  Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Seth MacFarlane, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid

Steven Soderbergh is at home in caper comedies.    Logan Lucky has the feel, if not the sophistication, of the Ocean's Eleven series.    There isn't much in the way of computers used to knock off Charlotte Motor Speedway, just a plan which we weren't entirely confident the seemingly bumbling crooks could pull off.    Logan Lucky is breezy, light, and mostly gets the job done while filled with slyly comic performances from actors we normally don't associate with light comedy.

Jimmy Logan (Tatum) works underneath Charlotte Motor Speedway as part of a construction crew fixing sinkholes in the infield.    Due to his limp, he is let go because he is a potential insurance liability.     Jimmy has money issues and his ex-wife is now about to move his daughter far away, so he conspires with his bartender brother Clyde (Driver) to knock over the speedway by breaking into its vault (sound familiar?)   Jimmy has a limp, while Clyde wears a bargain-basement prosthetic left arm.    The brothers apparently attempted crime before when they were teenagers and it didn't end well.    Jimmy, a former star college quarterback, has fallen on hard times since the leg injury ended his career, so he sees the robbery as a way to get rich while battling what Clyde calls the family curse.

Assisting the Logans are their hairdresser sister Mellie (Keough), jailed explosives expert Joe Bang (Craig) who has five months to go on his sentence, and Joe's two dopey brothers Sam and Fish (Gleeson and Quaid).    Joe points out the obvious roadblock to his involvement, but the Logans plan to break him out of jail, commit the robbery, and return him before anyone notices he is missing.    Unlike the Ocean's series, the plan isn't explained to us ahead of time (except for the basics), and instead we delightfully witness it unfold.     There are complications, of course, one of which is a prick race car owner who shows up precisely when he shouldn't, and of course the ever-present stupidity of some or all of the robbers which threatens to rear its ugly head. 

I naturally won't spoil the rest of the film for you because part of the delight of a movie like Logan Lucky is watching its plot developments and try to figure how on Earth everything will work out ok.   These are criminals, mind you, but they are played by likable actors who are having fun taking their turn in the Soderbergh universe, so we won't begrudge them if they succeed in pulling off the heist.   I must admit there are plot swerves which occur for plot swerves' sake.    They don't make much sense, including the introduction of an FBI agent (Swank) who investigates the robbery and MacFarlane's entire role in the film, which mostly showcases his ability to speak with an English accent.    These developments prevent Logan Lucky from reaching the heights Soderbergh achieved with the Ocean's series, but for the most part I still enjoyed it. 

The Glass Castle (2017) * 1/2

Directed by:  Destin Cretton

Starring:  Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Max Greenfield, Naomi Watts, Ella Anderson

The Glass Castle, a film adaptation of a 2005 memoir by Jeanette Walls, feels like a movie holding back.     It is only willing to go so far with its presentation of its alcoholic, selfish, abusive lout of a father, only to backtrack and try and present us with a "he wasn't so bad, after all," ending.    Baloney.  Horsefeathers.  Hogwash.  Bullshit.    The ending feels tacked on; trying desperately to end things on a pleasant note.    Why?    The guy was on the same likability wavelength as the father in Captain Fantastic, which is another movie about a borderline abusive father who, wouldn't you know, was just trying to teach his kids valuable lessons.     We are the idiots for not being able to recognize them.  

The film begins in 1989 Manhattan, where Jeanette (Larson) is a New York Times gossip columnist engaged to a nice yuppie named David (Greenfield) and living in a nice apartment.    Things are good, until Jeanette passes her parents in a taxi digging through a dumpster for food.    Turns out Rex(Harrelson) and Rosemary (Watts) enjoy the "freedom" of living like uncivilized human beings and prefer to wander the country like gypsies.    The wandering is out of necessity because Rex keeps losing jobs thanks to his drinking and he stays one step ahead of bill collectors and the authorities.    The couple squats in an abandoned building and chastises Jeanette for "not being true to herself" for wanting to marry David, whom Rex bullies.     I can't fathom how bad they smell from a life of living on the street.

We see numerous flashbacks to Jeanette's mostly miserable childhood, in which Rex spends all of the family's very limited income on drinking, while Rosemary stands by her husband and enables his terrible behavior.    The kids go days without eating.    In one gross scene, Jeanette's little sister eats butter with sugar mixed in since it is the only thing resembling food left in the house.    The family moves from shithole to shithole before settling for a while in Rex's hometown of Welch, West Virginia.    We meet Rex's parents, and learn quickly his mother was both verbally and sexually abusive to him.    That gives us a reason for Rex's behavior, although Jeanette points out to him, "It doesn't give him the right to act this way,"    Her delivery of the line seems perfunctory, because the movie itself seems to believe the abuse does indeed give him a right to act that way.

The wheels churn toward the predictable, inexorable conclusion.    We know Rex can't live like a prick and die like one.    The scales need to fall from Jeanette's eyes because somehow she is wrong for wanting her folks out of her life.    Rex and Rosemary aren't so bad.    We just need to be fair and walk a mile in their shoes before passing judgment.     The ending is unconvincing, dishonest, and lame; borne out of death scene clichés we've seen before and not anything borne out of someone's unique story.

It is hard to fault the actors, whom do top-notch jobs playing either the abused or the abuser.    I'm not really a book reader, but I may have to obtain a copy of the book and witness just how much Hollywood came in and turned it from an unflinching look at an alcoholic's destruction of his family to a movie which shoehorned in a sappy conclusion.     

Wind River (2017) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Taylor Sheridan

Starring:  Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Jon Bernthal, Martin Sensmeier, Julia Jones, Gil Birmingham

Writer-director Taylor Sheridan, whose two previous screenplays were Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016), sets his stories in scenic, desolate areas of America.    The people in his stories suffer from the effects of that desolation and never in a more powerful way than in Wind River, which transcends its origins as a murder investigation to focus on the soul-crushing effects of living so far from others.    In Wind River, the story mostly takes place on a Wyoming Indian reservation which has a tribal police force of six patrolling an area as large as Rhode Island.     It is hard to imagine snow not covering the ground.    Homes are miles from each other and are in shambles.    Their occupants have either given up on their hopes and dreams or are well on their way to doing so.

A teenage girl's body is discovered miles from the nearest home, which stirs up old hurts and then piles new ones on top of them.    He name is Natalie.   She was raped, had cuts on her forehead, and was barefoot in the snow and subzero temperatures.    The cold killed her to be sure, but why was she running barefoot into the woods with no person around to help in sight?    Fish and Wildlife tracker Cory Lambert (Renner) and inexperienced, but determined FBI agent Jane Banner (Olsen) want to find out.    Cory knows the area so well "like it's his job", as he puts it, but when he discusses the landscape he can't help but be in awe of its savage beauty.    He loves the area and its people, while fearing its relentless, unpitying effect on those in it and around it.

Cory is divorced from his Native American wife (Jones) and has one son.    He had a daughter who died tragically three years earlier, so when he advises Martin (Birmingham), the father of the dead girl, on how to handle his grief, we know he is coming from a place of knowledge.    As a father of a recently deceased child myself, these scenes rung so true and heartfelt.    Cory goes about his daily business and his job, but the grief will always be just below the surface.    His own grief is part of the reason he needs to find out what happened to the girl, who at one time was friends with his own daughter.

Cory and Jane don't receive much help.    The tribal police chief Ben (the invaluable Graham Greene) is short-handed, but he doggedly carries on his duty without excuses.    His ragged, world-weary demeanor is a source of humor.    Jane sees the world as it should be, but Ben's experience knows the world as it is, especially in the Wind River reservation.    Jane learns quickly what she is up against; a world Cory and Ben know too well.

Sheridan's imagery of the unforgiving, yet gorgeous landscape belies the secrets it keeps.    Clues such as blood trails can be buried in snow squalls in minutes and the residents have to get around by snowmobile.    The wildlife is mysterious, beautiful, and terrifying, especially vultures and mountain lions which populate the woods and go about their business as nature intended.    Such rough terrain causes the people to act against their better natures out of desperation, loneliness, and anger.    Drugs run rampant in the area because it provides a respite against the sad lives these people lead. 

Wind River sounds very much like a downer, but it is well-paced and uses the mood of the Wind River residents as subtext.     As Cory and Jane move closer to the outcome, we are drawn in by the conventions of murder mystery without forgetting the ugliness which caused the death in the first place.     Renner is as strong here as he ever was, driven by his own demons to solve the crime, while occasionally letting down his guard for others to see inside.     He never needs to reach for effect.    Olsen is also strong as an outsider to this world who learns to appreciate her own life a little bit more after witnessing the suffering she encounters in Wind River.   

If I had any complaint about the structure of the movie, it is an ill-timed Mexican standoff which occurs before we learn the full story of Natalie's senseless death.    It makes the reveal anti-climactic.    And there is one scene in which Renner maybe goes a bit too action hero on us when dealing with a suspect. 

An image which may or may not have been intentional is perhaps the most haunting in the movie.    We see Cory and Martin sitting in Martin's backyard.    They are talking, but in some cases the unspoken words are more powerful than the spoken ones.     We see the highway in the distance with cars rushing past in both directions.    The people in those cars can simply blow by Wind River without a thought.    The people who reside in Wind River could use the highway to take them away and towards a better life.     An escape is so close, yet so very far away.    It may as well be on the moon.      



 

Terms of Endearment (1983) * * * *

 

Directed by:  James L. Brooks

 

Starring:  Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Debra Winger, Jeff Daniels, Danny DeVito, John Lithgow

 

Terms of Endearment gets the feeling right of a love between parent and child surviving squabbles, tears, joys, sorrow, and soon physical distance.    In this Best Picture Oscar winner, Houston suburbanite Aurora Greenway (MacLaine) lives next door to a womanizing, heavy-drinking astronaut (Nicholson) and hasn't had any relationships since her husband passed away.     Her daughter Emma moves away from Houston with her college professor husband Flap (Daniels) to a small Midwestern university.    Flap and Emma raise two children, but Flap has a problem resisting the charms of his female students, which causes obvious tension in the marriage.

 

Emma and Aurora speak on the phone daily as they attempt to manage their respective lives.    Turns out Aurora has a problem resisting the charms of the astronaut Garrett Breedlove.    What an apt name for him.    Garrett prefers younger women, but soon finds Aurora irresistible, possibly because she is at first put off by him and thus presents a challenge for the lascivious astronaut.     Nicholson and MacLaine play off each other so well, mostly because each hides behind facades which lower only gradually.    They soon see the best and worst in each other.    We see sparks of compassion and maybe even shyness in Garrett, which allows us to see a character we can't make easy assumptions about.    Nicholson, sly grin and all, won an Oscar for his work as did MacLaine.    It is little wonder.   They each capture all the right notes.

 

Debra Winger had the unfortunate luck to be nominated for Best Actress alongside eventual winner MacLaine, but she is not outshined in any respect.    We see how she can put up with Flap, but only so much, but we also see a gentler side in her own extramarital affair with sweet banker Sam Burns (Lithgow), who idealizes Emma as well as gives her the sweetness lacking in each person's marriage.

Why Terms of Endearment works so well is its ability to present its characters as three-dimensional and human.    They don't act according to a script, but their behavior evolves out of human nature, which is passionate, sometimes right, and sometimes wrong.  

 

I won't reveal the plot twist which is sad and seemingly out of left field, but isn't that how things go in life?    I enjoyed how the situation brings out the best and worst in others.    We see how all of this may be too much for someone like Garrett to handle, but doggone it, he loves Aurora enough to be there for her even if he isn't comfortable doing so.     "And I thought I was making a clean getaway," he confesses to Aurora, and there is no point in the movie in which we like him more than that one.

 

Terms of Endearment is a movie which dares to be about people and not plotlines, and we are fascinated all the same.     Sometimes all it takes to make a memorable movie is to create people with vivid human dimensions and let them do their thing. 

 

 

Love The Coopers (2015) * *

Directed by:  Jessie Nelson

Starring:  John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Alan Arkin, Amanda Seyfried, Ed Helms, Marisa Tomei, Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie, Jake Lacy, (voice of) Steve Martin, June Squibb

Love The Coopers (should be Love, The Coopers) gathers a group of accomplished actors together, sets up their characters' back stories, and meshes them together into a Christmas dinner with little payoff to reward us for sitting through all of the back stories.    It ends with the family members all dancing in a hospital waiting room on Christmas Eve, with all sins forgiven and all problems resolved.    The movie only wants to be loved, the people in it want to be lovable, and they are all fighting for your attention.  

I will encapsulate the stories as succinctly as I can.    The patriarch of the Cooper family is Bucky (Arkin), an octogenarian seemingly with a crush on young, confused waitress Ruby (Seyfried), who has no direction in life.    Then, there is Sam and Charlotte (Goodman and Keaton), who are considering separating after 40 years of marriage.    Charlotte's sister Emma (Tomei) is a single woman who is busted for shoplifting and is forever jealous of Charlotte.     She spends a very, very long ride in a police car conversing with the arresting officer (Mackie), who is gay.    Charlotte's and Sam's son Hank (Helms) is a soon-to-be divorced, recently unemployed father, while his sister Eleanor (Wilde) doesn't want to come to dinner without a mate and persuades a soon-to-be shipped out soldier (Lacy) she meets in an airport bar to pose as her fiancé.    Then, there is the ancient Aunt Fishy (Squibb) and the family dog.   

Love The Coopers spends ample time on the setup, but things mostly fizzle when they all sit down to Christmas dinner.    It is naturally snowy outside and all of the houses in the neighborhood are decorated to the gills.     Long-nursed grudges are brought to the surface until Bucky has a medical emergency and the entire Cooper clan goes to the hospital, including the waitress Ruby who comes along as Bucky's date.    The whole Bucky-Ruby thing is weird, unconvincing, and ends without any satisfactory resolution dealing with the idea of an eighty-something man in love with a twenty-something woman.    The movie sidesteps it and pairs off Ruby with a man only roughly twenty years her age.  

Charlotte and Tomei are supposed to be sisters, but come on.   Diane Keaton is 70 and Tomei is young enough to be her daughter.    For a while, I believed Tomei was playing Keaton's other daughter.    The crux of Goodman's and Keaton's dispute is something involving a trip to Africa which was never taken.     It is as if they are straining to find a reason to want to separate.    Of all of the subplots, I enjoyed the one involving Eleanor and her make-believe fiancé.    The two have chemistry and Wilde has a smile and eyes to die for.    I was at least interested to see how the story unfolded, even though it is resolved as predictably as you figure it would.

Love The Coopers is narrated by a disembodied speaker voiced by Steve Martin, who whimsically discusses the family and how neatly everything is wrapped up at the end.    The only thing he didn't say was, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!", although he sure sounded like he wanted to.    The movie isn't one with any surprises, except for the identity of the speaker, which is kind of cute.   

Jaws 2 (1978) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Jeannot Swarzc

Starring:  Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Jeffrey Kramer, Mark Gruner, Keith Gordon, Marc Gilpin

Jaws 2 is a passably entertaining sequel to Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic.    It is probably as good a sequel as could have been made considering the absences of Spielberg, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss.    It is unfair to expect anything close to the mastery of Jaws, but Jaws 2 gives an effort, and the tagline of "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water," is brilliant.   

Jaws 2 picks up some time after the events of Jaws and centers again on Amity Island police chief Martin Brody (Scheider), who once again has to deal with a series of shark attacks and the unwillingness of the town's politicians to address the problem.     There is no Quint or Hooper around to assist Brody, so he takes matters into his own hands.     He becomes a vigilante shark killer, if you will.     Brody's two sons become targets of the shark, which almost takes on the human qualities of a serial killer.    Is the shark a relative of the one Brody blew to smithereens in the first film?  

It would be semi-understandable for the town powers-that-be to try and dissuade the notion of a shark, if the same thing didn't happen all that long ago.    I am amazed the town isn't bankrupted by lawsuits.  But, there is Amity's mayor (Hamilton) asking everyone to be reasonable in the face of overwhelming evidence of another shark feasting on swimmers.   

Jaws 2 is more interested in becoming what Jaws wasn't, which is a slasher film with a shark instead of a human doing all the killing.    It isn't interested in creating suspense, but instead documenting the various shark attacks and then waiting until Brody kills the thing in a one-on-one showdown.     You would think the visitors to Amity Island would stay out of the water on their own once word of the shark got out, but nope.    Jaws 2 gives us more views of the shark than its predecessor.    Spielberg was forced to do so out of necessity since the mechanical shark kept breaking down.    However, Spielberg used his genius to suggest the shark's presence, such as the bobbing yellow barrels and the ominous John Williams score.   

The movie is skillfully made with Scheider ably taking center stage as the shark-weary Brody, who got more than he bargained for when he moved to Amity Island from the streets of New York City.   He is a formidable foe for the shark, but I must say I missed Quint and Hooper tagging along.      

Blood Father (2016) * *

Directed by:  Jean-Francois Richet

Starring:  Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, William H. Macy, Diego Luna, Michael Parks

Now that Mel Gibson directed last year's Hacksaw Ridge, which earned Gibson a return trip to the Oscars with a Best Director nomination, his list of projects may upgrade from movies like Blood Father.    However, he will appear in Daddy's Home 2 which will hit theaters in November, so maybe they won't upgrade too substantially.    Blood Father isn't an awful film, just one which Mel Gibson wouldn't have likely touched during his heyday as one of Hollywood's top leading men.    

Gibson lends world-weary experience and perhaps a bit of real-life truth to his role of John Link, a recovering alcoholic ex-con whose missing daughter shows up with drug dealers on her tail.    As a drug addict herself, Lydia (Moriarty) earned the wrath of a deadly cartel by killing the nephew of one of its leaders during a botched robbery.    She is on the run and calls her estranged father, who runs a tattoo parlor out of his desolate trailer somewhere in the California desert.   I can't imagine anyone being so desperate for a tattoo that someone would patronize Link's place, but he does seem to eke out a meager living while attending meetings and staying sober. 

Gibson's battles with alcohol are well-documented and the character of Link is not a thousand miles removed from Gibson himself.    When he says, "You can't be a prick all your life and just say 'never mind'," we sense he is speaking from real truth.     Gibson's performance adds gravitas to Blood Father and reminds us what a strong presence he is, even as his face becomes much more ragged and weather-beaten.    The performances are well above the material, which is mostly standard action, shoot-em-up stuff mixed in with a story of an estranged father and daughter learning to know each other again.   

Link relies on his past criminal experience to evade the drug dealers, who aren't far behind.    He calls in favors from shady folks like a former cohort turned Nazi memorabilia collector (Parks), who is a mixed bag of evil and lunacy buried under a façade of familiarity.     He also attempts to use his sobriety to nurse his daughter out of addiction, but I think the hail of bullets she is forced to withstand is far more sobering than anything her father tells her.

Blood Father isn't poorly made, but it is indistinguishable from other straight-to-on demand movies also.    It is by-the-numbers action with a knowing Mel Gibson performance mixed in which elevates it slightly.    I didn't hate it, but I couldn't muster up a lot of enthusiasm for it either.    It is kind of just there, with Gibson trying mightily to drag it along to its inevitable conclusion.   

The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) * *

 

Directed by:  Patrick Hughes

 

Starring:  Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Elodie Yung, Joaquin de Almeida, Salma Hayek

The Hitman's Bodyguard is a buddy movie with loud, loud explosions, car chases, and some lapses in credulity.    With all of the property damage and mayhem, I thought I was watching an Avengers or Justice League movie.    This is a movie in which, after everything is resolved to the plot's satisfaction, no mention of the trail of destruction getting there is made again.    To whom do the insurance companies send the subrogation paperwork?    How exactly is the death of a hired goon handled by the legal system?   By my count, Jackson's Darius Kincaid and Reynolds' Michael Bryce are responsible for at least as many deaths as the villainous dictator Dukhovich (Oldman) stands trial for at The Hague.

I know, I know.   I'm overanalyzing.   I'm supposed to sit back, have a good time, and let the absurdity go.    If you are able to do that, then I commend you.   The Hitman's Bodyguard isn't an awful film.    It is simply a movie with no surprises which is more concerned with the action than the characters.     The best buddy movies, like 48 Hrs, Lethal Weapon, etc. have people with intriguing personalities and they crackle with energy.    The Hitman's Bodyguard has action to spare, but this doesn't substitute for energy.    The actors attempt to inject the story with some life and occasionally succeed on the sheer force of their personalities.   

As the film opens in London, Michael is a top-notch bodyguard for hire with shady, but wealthy clientele.   No matter to Michael.    The money rolls in and his reputation for keeping his clients alive grows.    Until one day in which one of his clients is assassinated after seemingly boarding his plane to safety, and then Michael's world falls apart.    The film picks up two years later, in which we see Michael taking on coked-out, paranoid attorneys as clients and his reputation in the crapper.     How do we know Michael has fallen on hard times?    He was impeccably clean-shaven in the film's opening scenes and now has stubble and messy hair.    Plus, he is urinating in a bottle while waiting to retrieve his client.   

Meanwhile, across town at Interpol headquarters, Michael's former flame Amelia (Yung) is in charge of accompanying a key witness, our hitman Kincaid, to The Hague to testify against Dukhovich, a former Belarusian dictator being tried for crimes against humanity.    For reasons which I'm sure have little to do with international law, Kincaid must appear at The Hague no later than 5:00pm the next day or else the charges against Dukhovich will be dismissed.     This plot point was likely inserted to create a deadline and the inherent suspense which goes along with it.    If the prosecution's case hinges on a hitman's testimony, then it has no case. 

No matter.   Amelia's caravan of protection is wiped out by Dukhovich's thugs and Amelia and Kincaid are forced to hide out.    Amelia calls her old boyfriend Michael for help.    Michael, still carrying a torch for her, reluctantly agrees.    He is less than thrilled about having to escort Kincaid, with whom he has crossed paths often in the past, to The Hague, but gosh darn it, he does.    The thugs remain not far behind, mostly because of a leak in Interpol hierarchy assisting Dukhovich.    Interpol must not be stocked with any decent detectives because they can't seem to figure out the identity of the traitor even when it is painfully obvious from the jump who it is.

The Hague itself doesn't seem to have much prisoner security either.    Dukhovich, when he is not in the courtroom, is seen hanging out in what looks like a five-star hotel room.    He can pretty much run the show from there.    Shouldn't dictators up on such grievous charges be in a jail cell?    And should he be allowed to have access to a cell phone?    Gary Oldman gnashes his teeth and exists to spew hateful things and chew scenery.    Oldman has played so many villains of this type, he should have his own wing in the Movie Villain Hall of Fame.     I liked him better when he played the quiet, yet tough and resourceful Commissioner Gordon in the Dark Knight trilogy.   

Michael and Darius start out with hostile dislike, which moves along to a guarded truce, followed by confessions, a momentary chasm in their newfound friendship, and then topped off by a healing of their rift and teaming up to thwart their common enemies.     Along the way, they encounter so many bullets, fights, and cars chasing them that it is a wonder they don't develop PTSD.     And, like many movies like this, the baddies can rain bullets down upon Michael and Darius without even grazing them, while Michael and Darius fire one bullet and kill their attackers.     What a huge waste of money to supply these thugs with top-of-the-line cars, guns, and ammo when they can't hit anything.

Reynolds dials down his trademark snark enough to be somewhat vulnerable, while Jackson seems to be enjoying himself a lot.    Maybe too much for a guy the whole world is seemingly after.   I'm not sure what to make of the movie's attempts to make Darius a misunderstood good guy complete with, gasp, principles.    Salma Hayek appears in a few scenes as Jackson's foul-mouthed, hitwoman wife in jail in the Netherlands, who is so intimidating she can force her cellmate to stand in the corner facing the wall for hours at a time.    She may even be tougher than Darius, but not necessarily funnier.  

The Hitman's Bodyguard has a higher body count than all four Lethal Weapon movies combined and a property damage bill which must rival The Avengers.    It does nothing to stand out from those films or even elevate itself above the traditions of the genre.    It is content to be, well, merely content. 













 

 

 

The Great Wall (2017) * *

Directed by:  Zhang Yimou

Starring:  Matt Damon, Willem Dafoe, Pedro Pascal, Tian Jing

Thank goodness The Great Wall of China was built to keep out those pesky CGI monsters that plagued China in the 10th century.    Every sixty years, these green, four-legged meanies attack The Great Wall and the Chinese army is charged with fending them off.    Two European mercenaries (Damon and Pascal) stumble into these battles, with Damon joining the army while Pascal schemes with another white man (Dafoe) to escape the Wall.  

The Great Wall is a video game masquerading as an action film.    The monsters, known as "Tei Tao", attack in droves and are subsequently blown to smithereens by the weaponry of the day.    The Tei Tao are big, ugly thingies which scream and have lots of teeth.    They belong more in the Jurassic Park universe than this one.     The Tei Tao attack in waves during various points of the movie, with some even managing to climb over the Wall.     But, there is a way to kill the species, and that is to kill the Tei Tao queen.     If this sounds at all familiar, it is because that is the way you ultimately win any video game since the invention of Super Mario Bros.    You fight off creatures with increasing levels of difficulty until you impregnate the lair of the head honcho and slay him/her/it.

The humans in The Great Wall aren't much more interesting than the Tei Tao.    There are generals who go about their business solemnly.     William (Damon) discovers the true meaning of loyalty by electing to aid the army in their fight against the Tei Tao.    His traveling buddies not unreasonably want to escape the Wall and strike out on their own, but with the Tei Tao lurking around this may not be the wisest move.     Imagine William's misfortune to come across the Wall right as the Tei Tao was all set to make its appearance after sixty years of dormancy.     If he were just a few months later, then he wouldn't have had to deal with this crap.

The Great Wall is not leavened by humor or a sense of goofy fun.    It goes about its business with plodding seriousness.     The movie runs about 90 minutes, but plays much longer.    Director Yimou wants The Great Wall to play like a classic action epic, but how seriously are we expected to take all of this?    We have humans vs. vicious green monsters.     There is talk of how, if the Tei Tao succeed in taking the Wall, will soon take over the rest of the world.     It is fortunate most people believed the world was flat in the 10th century, so maybe they can rest easier dreaming of the Tei Tao falling off the edge of the earth.  

The Dark Tower (2017) * 1/2

Directed by:  Nikolaj Arcel

Starring:  Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor

The Dark Tower is a defeated movie.   There is a curious lack of energy which dooms the film from the start.    Sometimes, from the opening frame, you can tell a movie is a clunker.    This is one of those movies.    The characters are not ones we grow to care about much.    Aside from present day New York, the film takes place on a desolate planet which acts as the middle ground between our planet and another which houses the dark tower of the title.    It seems the tower can be destroyed by the thoughts of psychic children (not adults, children), which are harnessed into streams of fire which hit the tower causing earthquakes throughout the solar system.    But only the truly powerful psychic children can destroy the tower with their harnessed thoughts.    The evil Man in Black (no not Johnny Cash), played by Matthew McConaughey, has a team of computer geeks (yes, computer geeks) who assist him in locating these children so he can kidnap them and use their powers to destroy the tower.  
What will happen if the tower is destroyed?    I am glad you asked.    According to The Gunslinger (Elba), who is the last of a group of (men?) (aliens?) who protect the universe from The Man in Black's diabolical scheme, the tower acts as the source of a force field which holds evil aliens at bay just outside our universe (or is it solar system?) which are dying to come in and take over.    The Man in Black wants to unleash the dreaded interlopers onto our world by destroying the tower.    Does he get a bonus of some kind for helping the evildoers?    Is he going to be made President of the new world order?    He surely is invested in their success for whatever payoff he will derive from his actions.

The Man in Black can cause instant death by merely waving his hand or, if he is in a playful mood, performs Jedi mind tricks on others and wreaks havoc for his amusement.    It is odd that The Gunslinger, armed with merely an old-fashioned revolver, can possibly kill The Man in Black with a bullet, even if the bullet is said to be taken from the same metal that created the Excalibur sword from the King Arthur legend.    It just seems wrong that a gunshot could kill someone with such heavy-duty powers.    It also seems wrong that the Man in Black would need a computer team to locate people.    Do the computer guys use Google Universe?  

The world of dark towers, gunslingers, and a Man in Black haunt the dreams of 11-year-old Jake (Tom Taylor), who naturally can't convince anyone of the reality of his visions.     Through use of a portal found in a dilapidated Brooklyn home, Jake portals to the aforementioned middle planet where he comes across The Gunslinger, who is itching for revenge against the Man in Black for killing his father years ago.    The Gunslinger is inexplicably immune to the Man in Black's powers, so he doesn't just fall over dead.     The Gunslinger roams a planet which seems stuck in an Old West time warp and Lord knows The Man in Black wouldn't be caught dead there, so fortunately Jake comes along to bring The Gunslinger into present day New York.    Someplace The Man in Black might actually hang out. 

Yes, the entire story of The Dark Tower is silly, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the movie has a solemn pall hanging over it; a gloom that presses down on everyone from which the movie can't recover.    No one seems to be having any fun, not even the villain even as he delivers one-liners.    Elba seems to be portraying The Gunslinger as more of a duty.    Tom Taylor just doesn't register much as the movie plods along grimly.    I also find it funny that The Man in Black and The Gunslinger, who have all of these supernatural powers, have real names like Walter and Roland respectively.     The Man in Black sounds foreboding and mysterious.    Walter does not.  

Detroit (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Kathryn Bigelow

Starring:  John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, Algee Smith, Will Poulter, Jacob Latimore, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever

Reflecting on Kathryn Bigelow's two most recent films (The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty) and now Detroit, I marvel at their technical superiority and strong acting, but yet I'm still held outside. Her movies know how they are supposed to look and spare no expense in looking right, but I find I'm not all in emotionally.    The subject matter of Detroit has easy-to-connect parallels to today's society, in which racism, prejudice, and police brutality (and sometimes even killing) still exist to alarming degrees.    Stories of rioting have been in the news for decades.    The stories of these ills grab headlines.    People protest, talking heads appear on talk shows, and columnists express their outrage, but the needle doesn't move substantially.    How do I know?    This nation elected a President based on a campaign built largely on prejudice, xenophobia, and fear.    In 1967 Detroit, things weren't much different.

It is difficult to watch Detroit and not explore your own feelings on these subjects.   I can't imagine Bigelow and frequent collaborator, screenwriter Mark Boal, made the film without understanding how relevant its themes are today.    The connections are direct and intentional, which are part of the film's strengths.    The police offers and National Guardsmen in Detroit clearly trample the civil rights of the suspects they detain on the night of July 25, 1967.    We see how the race riots which started on the early morning of July 23 after an illegal speakeasy was busted begin.    There is massive looting and destruction of property.   The national guard was brought in to assist the weary police.    Detroit attempts to create an atmosphere with a prologue depicting the massive migration of blacks to the North, followed by the migration of whites to the suburbs, which led to marginalization of blacks in the urban areas since jobs and money fled to the suburbs too.    The bust of the speakeasy appears to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Detroit shows us how such tensions can cause the worst in people.    The rioting and looting are wrong, as are the police officers who shoot people running away from a crime scene in the back, plant evidence, try to keep their lies straight, and murder and terrorize other suspects they interrogate. The suspects detained at the Algiers Hotel after police and National Guardsmen descended on it after a black man fires a starter pistol (but is mistaken to be a sniper) to scare police are indeed harassed, beaten, and in three cases, murdered.    Others witness the crimes but do nothing to stop them.    One of them is security guard Melvin Dismukes (Boyega), who tries to act as an intermediary between the suspects and cops in hopes that cooler heads prevail.    As he later goes on trial himself, it is apparent Dismukes should have not tried to be a hero and stayed away.

The three white police officers who do the terrorizing are young, clean-shaven, and seriously warped by prejudice.    Led by Officer Phillip Krauss (Poulter-in a chilling performance), the men abuse their power in an attempt to determine if the suspect Krauss shot in the back and planted a knife on was indeed the man a sniper.    (He wasn't).   The suspects include two young white girls (Murray and Dever), who were discovered by the police in another room with a black army veteran (Mackie) as they rounded up the hotel denizens.    The idea of two white girls hanging out with a black man, even a Vietnam veteran with an honorable discharge, incenses the three officers to the point of rabid anger. The girls did not commit any crime, nor did the veteran, but in the officer's minds the girls betrayed their race because, in their warped minds, their visit to the room had to be sexual in nature.  

The scenes involving Krauss' illegal detention of the suspects are wound up, but not as tensely as one would expect.    They are shown, but yet we don't feel much about them except for some muted outrage.    Is it possible, with round-the-clock media coverage of police shootings and White House scandal, that I am on outrage overload?    Possibly.   I would recommend seeing Detroit as a way to test your own feelings on the societal ills presented here.    It inspires thought, but doesn't quite cross the line into true greatness.    I am not certain if it is Bigelow or me that doesn't allow that to happen.  

Sleepless (2017) * *

Directed by:  Baran bo Odar

Starring:  Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan, David Harbour, Dermot Mulroney, Tip Harris, Scoot McNairy, Octavius J. Johnson, Gabrielle Union

Sleepless isn't poorly made, but is just there.    The performances fit the material and everyone does a professional job, but the film never involves us more than superficially.     There is a promise for a better movie in here somewhere, but Sleepless doesn't find it.    It is content with being okay; a mostly forgettable January release which shows up in theaters right after the Oscar contenders and Christmas blockbusters have already started their runs.

I confess I had to peruse different film reviews to recall the film's plot.    Las Vegas detective Vincent Downs (Foxx) and partner Sean Cass (Harris) chase down and beat up drug dealers and then steal their cocaine stash belonging to a powerful casino owner (Mulroney) and a fearsome drug lord (McNairy).    It is no surprise that the men want their stash back and kidnap Vincent's son (Johnson) to ensure Vincent returns the cocaine unharmed.      McNairy gnashes his teeth with intensity, while Mulroney is somewhat reasonable as a casino owner in way over his head.     At first, we think Vincent is a crooked cop we don't sympathize with because he chose to be a crook himself.    But, there is more and I won't reveal any spoilers.  

On Vincent's tail is Internal Affairs cop Jennifer Bryant (Monaghan) and her partner Doug Dennison (Harbour), who are in charge of rooting out corrupt cops within the Las Vegas PD.    They are slow to discover what we learn soon enough about Vincent, who pays an extreme price with the breakup of his family over his career decisions.     It is hard to believe Vincent would let things go to those lengths just to hide...., but never mind.   

Vincent spends the bulk of the movie attempting to rescue his son from the mobsters and avoid the IA cops.     He is in a pickle, but thankfully his nemeses are rather generous given the circumstances and allow Vincent one hour to produce the coke, which gives him more than enough time to plan his son's rescue.     We also know because we have seen movies before that another character is pulling the strings from behind a curtain and we aren't especially shocked to learn his or her identity.

If I sound less than enthusiastic about Sleepless, it is because I am.    It isn't bad enough to allow me to dig my teeth into a scathing review, nor is it good enough for me to be effusive with praise.    The movie leaves us with a cliffhanger suggesting a sequel will one day be in the works.     If you consider how many uncalled for reboots and sequels pop up all the time, would we be aghast to see a trailer in about two years for Sleepless 2?    They should have Vincent move to Seattle and call the movie Sleepless in Seattle.  

The Insider (1999) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Michael Mann

Starring:  Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Philip Baker Hall, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Michael Gambon, Debi Mazar, Stephen Tobolowsky, Lindsay Crouse

The tobacco industry settled $246 billion in lawsuits in the late 1990's thanks in large part to the testimony of whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, a former Brown & Williamson executive interviewed on 60 Minutes.    Getting the interview on the air was the result of exhaustive investigative journalism and legal maneuverings for CBS, Big Tobacco, and Wigand himself, who had to violate a corporate secrecy agreement he signed when he was fired from his position.

The Insider takes the on the tone and pace of a thriller with many moving parts.    Wigand is played by Russell Crowe (in an Oscar nominated performance) as a man seething with anger over being fired for butting heads with his superiors and maybe suffering from paranoia and delusions.     He is not an easy man to like, but he does a risky and courageous thing by going on 60 Minutes to lay out the lies told by the tobacco industry about the safety of its products.     People by and large knew cigarettes were bad, but what the public may not have known were the steps taken by Big Tobacco to ensure its customers became addicted.     Big Tobacco was forced to place warning labels on its products after the proof of their danger became incontrovertible.      Despite the rise in the cost of tobacco products, people still purchase them in record numbers; the money spent being only one of the terrible costs of their use.

Pacino plays Lowell Bergman, a 60 Minutes producer who works with Mike Wallace (Plummer) to get the story and coax Wigand into going on television.     Wigand has understandable qualms about becoming a whistleblower and part of his motive is surely personal.     Bergman, perhaps in crusader mode, believes the story will shed light on a public health issue.     CBS balks at airing the interview due to the possibility of Big Tobacco suing the network and thus threatening a proposed lucrative sale of CBS to another entity.     Bergman attempts to work around Wigand's secrecy agreement, including a brilliant idea to have Wigand testify to a grand jury in one lawsuit against Big Tobacco.   The thinking is once Wigand is compelled to testify, the secrets are out and thus 60 Minutes is free to air the interview without legal repercussions.

The Insider takes us through this maze of legality and morality without confusing us.    It also doesn't paint Wigand as a hero, but a flawed person with a past who still possesses a tremendous amount of inside knowledge which is dangerous to Big Tobacco.    We feel the tension press down on Wigand as he decides whether to meet with 60 Minutes.    He clearly wants to, but he also senses people hired by Brown & Williamson may be following him and making not-so-subtle threats such as placing a bullet in his mailbox.   Did Brown & Williamson ever do such a thing?    The truth will never be known.   

Director Mann moves things along (with liberties taken with the story as expected with any movie "based on true events") and it depicts men like Bergman and Wallace as tireless crusaders for the truth, even at the expense of corporate profits.     We see Bergman's dogged determination and knack for getting around road blocks, such as leaking stories to the Wall Street Journal about how CBS caved to corporate interests over the public's need to know about the dangers of tobacco.    He cares more passionately about the story than the financial interest of his employers.    The Insider wisely doesn't paint CBS as greedy villains.    We see what is on the line for them and in many ways, we can understand why they may pause at airing such a potentially explosive piece.   

The Insider tells a gripping story and gives us a unique view of how difficult and frustrating investigative journalism can be.    It takes dedication, a superhuman ability to take rejection, and some creative ways to see through the morass of bullshit to get to the other side.    When I watch 60 Minutes now, I think of The Insider. 

The Lego Batman Movie (2017) * 1/2

Directed by: Chris McKay

Starring:  (voices of) Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Jenny Slate

I was no fan of The Lego Movie (2014); it was chaotic and made little sense.    It was a mixed bag of humor, satire, and populated with so many characters it was easy to lose track of them all.    But, at least it provided an explanation for the chaos.   I haven't written a full review of the film, but I would give it two stars.    I liked the Batman of the first film (voiced by Will Arnett) and I figured a sole focus on just Batman would like The Lego Batman Movie more palatable than its predecessor.    It did not and it isn't.    The Lego Batman movie is a dizzying mess; the filmmakers must have believed they must flood the screen with colors, characters, and action or we would somehow become bored.     We grow bored with the endless action sequences, in-jokes, and self-awareness anyhow. 

Batman's arch-nemesis The Joker (Galifianakis) is trying for the umpteenth time to destroy Gotham as Commissioner Gordon retires and turns the reigns over to his daughter Barbara (Dawson), who will eventually become Batgirl.     The Joker assembles each of Batman's nemeses over the years in a consolidated effort to rid the world of Batman.     The plan doesn't work, but The Joker is more hurt that Batman doesn't consider him his arch enemy than he is by another failed plan.    Batman adores the adulation of the public, but returns to the Batcave with no one to share his success with except for his loyal butler/father figure Alfred (Fiennes). 

The Joker soon surrenders himself and his gang to the new commissioner and now, with no crime on the streets, Batman is a man without a purpose.     He has grown so used to his loneliness that he all but rejects his newly adopted son Robin (Cera), who idolizes the Caped Crusader.     When The Joker hatches his latest plot from behind bars, Batman refuses the help of his allies, preferring to be a loner and do all of the heavy lifting himself.  

My plot description may seem sensible to you, but the movie is an overcrowded, wearying free-for-all with little direction.     The movie almost seems as if it is afraid to slow down, but the effect is pure overload.     Is it possible that with eight different Batman films which have been released in my lifetime (not counting the Lego Movie and Batman's cameo in Suicide Squad) that I am just tired of yet another incarnation?     Even with attempted levity and satire, Batman is still Batman and there are only so many spins you can put on his story.     At least The Lego Batman Movie didn't revisit yet another depiction of Bruce Wayne's parents being murdered and Bruce's evolution into Batman.     I'm surprised they didn't try to squeeze that in.