Ishtar (1987) 1/2 *

Directed by:  Elaine May

Starring:  Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Isabelle Adjani, Carol Kane, Charles Grodin

Yes, the rating is 1/2 of one star or 1/2 *.    I so rarely see a movie with so little redeeming value that it is possible you may not have seen me award such a rating (if award is even a proper term).     The last movie I recall giving such a rating is Kick-Ass (2010), which was an appalling film.    Ishtar is appalling in a different way. 

Ishtar stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, two legendary actors, as Lyle and Chuck, two delusional, talentless songwriters and singers who aspire to be Simon and Garfunkel.    They see a Simon & Garfunkel album cover in a storefront window and say, "Our song is definitely better than Bridge Over Troubled Water."    Their stage performances leave audiences in stunned silence, and not the good kind of stunned.     Their agent offers them a paying gig in the fictional North African country of Ishtar, which unbeknownst to them is in the midst of potential civil war. 

If the stage performances reflecting the duo's complete lack of talent were funny, we might have been able to forgive the film for swerving into the civil war business.      They are not funny, they are  embarrassing.      I cringed as Beatty and Hoffman were trotted out in front of the camera to belt out lousy renditions of "That's Amore".      Then, the civil war business, which involved dueling CIA agents and international intrigue, was introduced and all hope and any marginal interest was lost.   

I recall the scathing reviews the film received in 1987.    I could not imagine a film starring Beatty and Hoffman and directed by Elaine May would be so bad.     The critics were right and audiences were right to stay away.    Fortunately, both actors recovered nicely.    Dustin Hoffman won a Best Actor Oscar the following year for Rain Man, while Beatty scored with Dick Tracy and Bugsy.     Their careers were far too established to be ruined by Ishtar.  

I can not imagine how Elaine May pitched this premise to the studios.     I understand she had clout, but when does clout expire?    Probably after Ishtar bombed.    I can not imagine what appealed to Beatty and Hoffman enough to star in it, except perhaps their friendship with May.     Beatty and May co-wrote the much more successful Heaven Can Wait (1978).      I supposed they were too blinded in their loyalty to May to realize they were in a dud film.     Or maybe they realized it after shooting started and by then it was too late to back out.    They march along with the enthusiasm of soldiers on a death march.     Even other talents such as Adjani and Grodin as the dueling CIA agents are adrift in a sea of nonsense.    Ishtar earned its very bad reputation.  

Trumbo (2015) * * *

Directed by:  Jay Roach

Starring:  Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Louis C.K., Michael Stuhlbarg, Elle Fanning, Alan Tudyk

 Dalton Trumbo was jailed for contempt of Congress for his refusal to "name names", which became a popular term during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings which occurred from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s.     For as strong a nation as the United States claims to be, it is scared easily.    After winning World War II, the United States and Soviet Union became enemies, resulting in a decades-long Cold War.    Communism was suddenly the next big threat to America, and the committee chair J. Parnell Thomas believed potential subversion was festering in Hollywood.      So he trotted out movie stars, directors, studio executives, etc. to be interrogated under intense scrutiny.    Failure to answer questions or name other known Communist party members resulted in blacklisting.     This fate befell Dalton Trumbo, who was a rich, famous screenwriter who was blacklisted and spent the next decade of his life punching out scripts under assumed names.    He even won two Oscars but naturally could not show up to accept the statuettes.    

What exactly did the hearings solve or fix?    The Communist party was more fearsome in reputation than actuality.    It did not have a large membership, but that didn't stop the committee from flexing its muscle in what were basically publicity stunts disguised as investigations.    The trouble is, many people lost their livelihoods and had their lives altered forever based on fear and ignorance.     America is quite famous for that.    Being a member of the Communist party was not and never has been illegal, yet the committee (later to be run by Senator Joe McCarthy) treated it like it was.   

Trumbo represents a dark time in America.     It shows simply how fear can ruin lives and how some people, like Dalton Trumbo, are willing to sacrifice to stand up to it.     I sometimes complain how movies feel like TV movies and this usually means the film is superficial and lacks quality.    Trumbo has the same feel, but in this case it works.     It is told simply, but not simplistically.      It does not show Trumbo as a blowhard, but a man with deep beliefs who is willing to give up his freedom for them.     History has shown Trumbo and the other many blacklisted writers, directors, actors, and other film industry workers were wronged.     Trumbo himself was awarded his Oscar for Roman Holiday properly one year before his death.     His widow Cleo received Trumbo's Oscar for The Brave One in 2011 shortly before her death.   

Trumbo ingeniously worked while being blacklisted by at first writing scripts for a B-movie studio and then creating a network of pseudonyms and aliases to fix other writers' scripts.    He worked tirelessly, even typing while bathing in the tub.     This eventually presents problems for his understanding family which proves even their patience was not unlimited.       The blacklist was eventually broken thanks to director Otto Preminger and star Kirk Douglas, who had enough muscle and moxie to stand up to Hollywood and openly employ Trumbo.     They knew how to throw their weight around.  

Trumbo is played by Bryan Cranston, who plays him as a brilliant writer who walked the talk when it came to standing up for the First (or even Fifth) Amendment.      Cranston, complete with hoarse voice, never reaches for effect.    He loves the riches Hollywood provided for him, but is willing to sacrifice it all in the name of principle.     It is a courageous decision that many would not make.    Yet, he is never played as a self-righteous bore.     This is important in Trumbo's effectiveness.

Cranston is aided by a top-notch supporting cast, including Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper, the gossip columnist with a lifelong ax to grind with Trumbo and John Goodman as the B-movie studio executive who breaks the rules to keep Trumbo working.      Hopper writes her columns to ostensibly stand up for America, but is she truly doing so?     Was the committee standing up for America when it was sending people to jail and ruin because they had beliefs that were contrary to their own?    I say no.   

My favorite scene in the movie is when Trumbo runs into John Wayne (David James Elliott) at a fundraiser in which Wayne speaks about his hatred for Communists and his love for America.     Trumbo, whom Wayne naturally did not like, asks a simple question, "Where did you serve in World War II?    I was a wartime reporter in Okinawa."     Wayne's credibility is shot right there and Trumbo never even has to raise his voice.  

What Planet Are You From? (2000) * 1/2

Directed by:  Mike Nichols 

Starring:  Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, Greg Kinnear, Linda Fiorentino, John Goodman, Judy Greer, Richard Jenkins, Ben Kingsley

What Planet Are You From? is a romantic comedy that never feels right.   The romance isn't romantic, the changes of heart aren't moving, and the film isn't very funny.   Any laughs occur outside of the plot.  With the talent assembled and Mike Nichols directing, much more is expected. Instead, we are given a comedy any B-movie director could have made.   Heck, maybe Ed Wood would have given this a shot.

Shandling plays Harold Anderson, who is really an alien sent to Earth by a distant planet populated by men with shrinking genitals.  There are no women on the planet, so his mission is to impregnate a woman and bring the baby with him to be studied.   I think the mission is to figure out how to reproduce or something.  It sounds like the lame plot one would see in a porno.  It is an understatement to call this a contrived setup.  I picture the screenwriters (one of whom is Shandling) laboring trying to explain this to the studio execs.  

Harold's spacecraft intercepts an airplane and beams him aboard along with his boss (Kingsley).    Kingsley bails and Harold is suddenly aboard amid the chaos that ensued.   This incident is investigated by FAA agent Roland Jones (Goodman), who becomes convinced correctly that Harold is an alien.     This news is met with little enthusiasm by his superiors and even less by his wife who is convinced he is having an affair.  Couldn't the aliens think of a less conspicuous way to arrive on the planet?   

Since Harold has no real feel for women, he repels most of them with his blunt proposals for sex.    He becomes a bank vice-president with a fake resume and pals around with the lecherous Perry (Kinnear), who doesn't do much work because he is always gawking at, banging, or talking about women.    One woman who likes Harold is recovering alcoholic Susan (Bening).   Her alcoholism has nothing to do with the price of tea in China, but I suppose it was thrown in for background.   Harold and Susan quickly marry, mostly because she says that is the only way she would have sex, and soon enough she is pregnant.   There are emotional and logistical issues that rear their ugly head which are to be expected.    

One gag that is repeated endlessly while generating zero laughs is the sound that occurs when Harold becomes aroused.  His manufactured private parts sound like an engine whirring out of control during arousal.   The women who hear it don't seem very curious about it.    If I were a woman, I would be rather alarmed or at least casually suspicious.  Yet, we see intimate scenes complete with the whirring sound.  This concept is not funny for one second. It is an insurmountable distraction.  Here is one idea:  Harold's penis could have been constructed way out of proportion in a way that would put Dirk Diggler to shame.     It would have been amusing to have Ben Kingsley question the minion who goofed up.     ("I'm sorry sir, my calculations were slightly off.")  That has to be funnier than the mechanical, noisy genitalia.  

Shandling is not an obvious choice for a romantic lead and for good reason.  He is not a good one. He looks extremely uncomfortable and flashes his giant white teeth a lot, just like Ross did on the Friends episode where he got this teeth whitened.    He does everything but hide from the camera.     I do not believe anyone has approached Shandling about playing a romantic lead again since this film.  Bening and the rest of the cast dutifully carry on and can make just about any silly thing sound plausible.  No one said being an actor is easy.

The late Mike Nichols has made The Graduate, Biloxi Blues, Carnal Knowledge, and Primary Colors, all of which are proof that he was a great director of different types of material.   What Planet Are You From? is a woeful film to attach your name to.  Fortunately, he made Angels In America for HBO three years later and restored his good name.  This is a film likely omitted from his obituary.    

Burnt (2015) * * *

Directed by:  John Wells

Starring:  Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Daniel Bruhl, Omar Sy, Alicia Vikander, Uma Thurman, Matthew Rhys, Emma Thompson, Sam Keeley

Burnt tells the story of a master chef looking for redemption.   He was once the head chef at one of the most prestigious restaurants in Paris, but fell victim to drugs, women, alcohol, and his inflated ego.     After leaving Paris, he serves his penance shucking exactly 1,000,000 oysters in New Orleans.    Once he hits his goal, he flies to London to make one last attempt to gain the elusive "third star", which is the equivalent to a 5-star general in chef terms....I think.   

I thought I had Burnt pegged as a predictable redemption drama, but it throws in a few surprises that make it special.    We know that Adam Jones (Cooper) is troubled by the demons mentioned above, but will find a way to pull through at the end.      Adam is not always a likable guy.    His tantrums directed at his staff border Gordon Ramsay's in their intensity.     At first, his quest is simply ego-driven and selfish, but he actually learns a few things along the way.    He learns he can't do it all by himself and to trust his staff to share in his vision.      You would be surprised how moving it can be. 

We learn Adam made plenty of mistakes in Paris and made some enemies.     He became estranged from his mentor, fell out of favor with the owner's son Tony (Bruhl), and was vicious enough to his sous-chef Michel (Sy) to cause him to chase Adam through the streets of Paris.    The resolution of this chase is among the surprises Burnt has to offer.  

Adam is able to convince Tony to reopen the Paris restaurant in London.     We see the food being prepared and everything in the restaurant put in just the right place.     Adam is looking for perfection, which causes distress to his staff which includes an apprentice named David (Keeley) and single mom Helene (Miller), who does not take kindly to Adam's insults and rants, but not enough to rule out being a potential love interest.     Also in the mix is Dr. Rosshilde (Thompson), a therapist Adam must visit as a stipulation of his investors.     She senses he is only halfway dedicated to treatment, which could take a dangerous turn if things go south.     Oh, and there are drug dealers lurking around to whom Adam owes a substantial amount of money.     They are not above causing bodily harm.  

Burnt successfully conveys the pressures of running a high-end restaurant.    The clientele pay top dollar for dishes they can't get anyplace else.     I'm not sure I would want to.    The portions are so small that I wouldn't be shocked if the diners then go someplace afterward to fill up on a burger.      If Burnt was not a good movie, it at least it made me hungry.    But, thanks to the performances by Cooper, Miller, and especially Bruhl (who slyly presents Tony's hidden motives for helping Adam), Burnt is pretty good.     I enjoy movies watching experts do their thing.    Adam is brilliant, but irascible.   Troubled, but with redemption not far out of reach.     You think you know exactly how Burnt will play out.    It basically plays out like you'd expect, but I like the human touches along the way, including a tender scene involving Adam's rival which goes a bit against movie convention.  

Joy (2015) * * *

Directed by:  David O. Russell

Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd, Elisabeth Rohm, Isabella Rossellini

Joy feels more like a dream than a biopic.     It is rare that I openly admire the set designs in a film, but they are unique in Joy.     They add to the atmosphere.     The story of inventor Joy Mangano (Lawrence), who invented the Miracle Mop (which I use today or at least a version of it) and became a fixture on QVC and HSN, is not one that screams to made into a movie.    But David O. Russell found value in it and brought along his strong cast from his previous films to bring it to life.

The cast from Lawrence to Rohm came along from Russell's previous outings Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.    Edgar Ramirez has not appeared in any previous Russell films, but is a welcome addition.     The film belongs to Lawrence, playing the underachiever with a heart of gold who one day creates the unique design for the "Miracle Mop".   She turns her father's body shop into a manufacturing plant and lands an audience with QVC head Neal Walker (Cooper) to create 50,000 units.     The capital is supplied by her father Rudy's (DeNiro) new wealthy girlfriend (Rossellini), to whom Joy falls further and further into debt even as the mop sales take off.  

Joy herself becomes a celebrity by selling her own products on QVC, which was unheard of but agreed to by Walker, who likes Joy and wants to see the order number rise on a digital readout next to the set.     However, the business world is cruel and Joy finds herself at odds with her family and her manufacturers who are squeezing the profit margin ever tighter.      Lawrence is never less than convincing as she ages twenty years in the film.     She is feisty, resourceful, and compassionate.    Who else would allow her ex-husband of two years to stay in her basement alongside her recently displaced father?     She is a mother of two with a depressed mother of her own who lies in bed watching soap operas all day.      Her ex-husband Tony (Ramirez) is not riding the gravy train, but acts as a caring confidante as Joy's business career booms.    He even has a few contacts of his own which help her land at QVC. 

This is the third film I've seen this December with lots of snow on the ground.    The Revenant and The Hateful Eight are the others.     The snow adds to the mystique of the proceedings.     Joy's house, Rudy's body shop, and the QVC headquarters all appear as islands onto themselves with no civilization around for miles.     Even Los Angeles and Dallas seem quaint and desolate.     Russell didn't spend a lot of money on sets, but yet this creates a hypnotizing, less distracting effect.     Russell's previous two films were more in love with characters and dialogue.    Joy is in love with one character (Joy) and its minimal number of sets and buildings.    

Joy is not as profound or peppered with memorable people as Silver Linings Playbook or American Hustle.     The characters other than Joy (except maybe for Tony) seem to have agendas of their own and keep their emotional distance.    Maybe that was the intent, as we discover later that even Joy's own family sued her for a larger piece of her empire.    In true Joy fashion, though, she still took care of her father, even as his greed got the better of him.  

Concussion (2015) * * *

Directed by:  Peter Landesman

Starring:  Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, David Morse, Luke Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Concussion begins in 2002 as the life of Hall of Fame Steeler Mike Webster is quickly falling apart.    He lives out of his pickup truck, trying desperately for relief from his eroding mental and physical ailments.     He knows something is wrong, but he can not explain it.     He rambles like an unkempt homeless man.     A teammate and former team doctor both try to help Mike, but he soon dies of cardiac arrest. 

Webster's body is assigned to Dr. Bennet Omalu (Smith) at the county coroner's office, who wonders aloud why Webster died at 50 without any apparent physical health issues present.    His patient and exacting method of research flusters his superiors, but it is this method that allows Dr. Omalu to discover a frightening truth.    "Football killed Mike Webster," he tells his superior Dr. Cyril Hecht (Brooks).   Dr. Omalu believes, with sufficient scientific knowledge to back up his findings, that the human body has no mechanism in which to soften the blow when the brain is jarred within the skull.    The brain is a free-floating organ immersed in fluid.    When there is a blow to the head, the brain bounces off the skull violently.    In his words, "repeated physical trauma chokes the brain," because the brain releases proteins which begin to slow brain function.    

Dr. Omalu coins the condition as CTE (I won't attempt to spell out the medical term) and soon other former players are diagnosed with it after committing suicide or suffering an untimely death.     Dr. Omalu naively believes the NFL will be happy to hear about this information so they can protect its players.     He finds the only thing the NFL wants to protect is the bottom line.    "This is a corporation that owns a day of the week.  The day churches used to own,"  Dr. Hecht tells Omalu.   He is not incorrect.  

The more accurate the science, the more the NFL wants to sweep it under the rug.   The NFL conducted previous studies on the long-term effects of concussions and head trauma, but concluded that there were no substantial issues stemming from them.   They were either very, very wrong or chose to value dollars over player health.    However, as the number of former players dying from CTE complications increases, the league is soon forced to do something.    It takes years for the league to even meet with Dr. Omalu in person.  

Will Smith plays the Nigerian-born Omalu with equal parts compassion and passion.   He "speaks" to the bodies of the dead, asking for their help in discovering how they died.   As his terrifying diagnosis becomes more apparent, he almost wishes he didn't know.  "I wish I had never met Mike Webster,"  he tells his wife.    The NFL puts its own not-so-subtle pressure on Omalu to drop the whole thing.    He refuses, which leads to temporary disillusionment with a country he once believed was just below heaven in the universal pecking order.

Concussion works the best when it presents the science of CTE and Dr. Omalu's increasingly frustrated efforts to persuade the NFL to do the right thing.    The NFL would rather possibly spend billions later covering medical costs for former players than actually do something to make the game safer now.     They feel it would dilute their product.     Judging by the money and TV ratings football generates, they were foolhardy in their thinking.      Dr. Omalu's courtship with his future wife (Raw) tends to slow things down.    We learn enough about Omalu by how he conducts himself and how he respects his profession.     The domestic scenes act as a needless detour.

The film's most powerful scenes involve the tragic disintegration of the lives of Webster, Andre Waters, Dave Duerson, and others who are trapped within their own minds by this crippling illness.    They can no longer function properly, but are cursed with the knowledge that something is definitely wrong, but don't know what.     It is beyond sad that they did not live to find out or be treated.  

The Hateful Eight (2015) * *

Directed by:  Quentin Tarantino

Starring:   Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Channing Tatum, Bruce Dern, Demian Bechir, James Parks, Walton Goggins

Tarantino's latest film, The Hateful Eight, was able to hold my interest for a while, but soon I despaired as I realized he was simply trying to push the envelope again.     How much blood, body parts being shot off, racism, and sheer ugliness can we tolerate before we cry uncle?    This stuff is very tiresome and wearying.     I understand from the title that we are not in for a movie involving pleasant people, but where is the payoff to reward us for hanging in there for almost three hours?     This is a film where M. Night Shyamalan should have been flown in to provide a last-minute plot swerve.     I am not against violence in movies per se, but violence for the sake of excessive violence is not my idea of entertainment.   

The Hateful Eight opens in snowbound, freezing, and desolate Wyoming circa 1880.    A stagecoach is on the way to Red Rock, Wyoming.    A man named Marquis Warren (Jackson) stands in front of three dead bodies and stops the stagecoach in hopes of hitching a ride to town.     The stagecoach traveler is "Hangman" John Ruth (Russell), who is handcuffed to a prisoner named Daisy Domergue (Leigh) being taken to Red Rock to stand trial for murder.    Ruth and Warren met previously months before so they at least somewhat trust each other as they make their way to Red Rock.    A fast-approaching blizzard derails their plans and they (along with the new town sheriff they also pick up along the way) are forced to spend at least a night in Minnie's Haberdashery in the middle of nowhere.

The first half-hour contains plenty of dialogue (a Tarantino standard), but sets up what seems to be an interesting premise.     The haberdashery is populated by a dutiful Mexican helper named Bob (Bechir), a former Confederate general (Dern), a British hangman (Roth), and a loner named Joe Gage (Madsen).     Ruth believes someone, or even many, are in cahoots to free Daisy from justice, so he takes precautions to limit risks.     Is he paranoid?    Maybe, but he has a $10,000 bounty he wants to cash in for Daisy and does not want to lose it.    

Alliances are formed and then unformed as Ruth attempts to find out which (if any) of the guests are hiding something.     Warren has the same suspicions, since he and Ruth are familiar with the haberdashery owners who are conspicuously nowhere to be found.     Then, Warren tells the general a tale of how he forced his son to perform fellatio on him before killing him, people get shot, and the ugly business begins.     This includes poisoning of a pot of coffee which causes those who consume it to vomit gallons of blood. 

Any early intrigue quickly dissipates when the unfortunate souls who drink the poisoned coffee puke up blood and shootings begin.    Blood is everywhere, body parts including arms and testicles are shot off, and The Hateful Eight becomes a depressing mess.    My heart sank when I realize Tarantino was once again showcasing violence to the extreme.     Someone isn't just shot in the head, his/her face is blown off.     We see the blood gush and Tarantino lovingly documents it.    The title credit suggests an homage to the bloodier 1960's spaghetti westerns, but even they had their limits.     These films have been copied, borrowed from, parodied, and are now paid homage to by QT.    Can't we leave these films buried in the past where they belong?

Tarantino's dialogue contains excessive N-words and swear words of the 4 and 12-letter variety.    It is a welcome respite when a line or two does not contain these words.     They have lost their dramatic impact.    Did 1870's outlaws speak like 1970's mobsters one would find in a Scorsese film?     I pity Samuel L. Jackson, who must have very thick skin to be able to put up with someone calling him the n-word every minute.     Jackson is a QT veteran and handles things with smarts and ferocity as only he can.     He and Russell are the closest things to heroes in the film, which upon retrospect is sort of sad.   

The person who receives the worst physical abuse is Daisy.    By my count, she is punched in the face at least 20 times, elbowed in the nose, has blood and guts spurted all over her face and hair courtesy of a head being blown off in front of her, and does not even bother to wipe off her face which has become a crimson mask.     In her first onscreen appearance, she already sports a black eye.   Daisy is not the kindest soul.    She is as mean and nasty as the rest, but the abusive treatment of her is excessive.     I feel sorry for her even if I am not supposed to.     There is also juggling with the film's timeline so we see the entire story.     A built-in prequel if you will, but this contains no surprises.     Tarantino may have created a monster with this timeline thingy.    Many directors and writers have done it to death in their films, so Tarantino's method is old hat by now.   

I am beginning to wonder why I am even giving the film two stars.    I think because the opening scenes were strong and set up a premise that never delivered.     The actors are skilled and deserve credit for surviving the onslaught of violence and vicious dialogue.     The scenes flow mostly like this, "Talk, n-word, f-bomb, mf-bomb, someone is shot, repeat. "    Why does Tarantino think we want to be subjected to this endless cycle?    For nearly three hours?      I think QT is a writer/director who has been given passes based on his reputation as a critical darling.    Of the eight he has made, I believe Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Volume 2, and Inglourious Basterds are very good films.     The rest simply do not live up to the advanced billing.     It is time for him to move on and try different material.     How about a romantic comedy?    Or simply a comedy?    One in which no one dies?    Can Tarantino even stretch himself that far anymore?     I would like to see him try.