The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) * *

Directed by:  Susanna Fogel

Starring:  Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Gillian Anderson, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Jane Curtin, Paul Reiser

The Spy Who Dumped Me gives us two likable comic actresses and unfairly asks them to carry the day without much else to support them.    The movie isn't bad as much as forgettable.    It has been just over 24 hours since the movie ended and I can provide the basic plot and not much else.    I'm sure there were a couple of chuckles, but I would be hard pressed to recall them.    No matter, Kate McKinnon is a virtuoso and Kunis plays it straight; serving up the gags for McKinnon to knock out of the park.   In this case, maybe fly balls to shallow center.

Kunis is Audrey, the "me" of the title whose boyfriend Drew (Theroux) dumps her over a curt text.  She and her best friend Morgan (McKinnon) soon find out Drew is actually a spy, which to Audrey's semi-relief at least explains the quick kicking to the curb.    For reasons typical to spy movies, Audrey and Morgan find themselves traipsing all over Europe (they must have plenty of free time) trying to outwit assassins and retrieve a flash drive containing some sort of program which will hack into everyone's bank account or private servers.    Or something like that. 

We have double crosses, chases, shootouts, fist fights, and ironic jokes; none of which differentiate themselves from Bond films or Jason Bourne movies.    The Spy Who Dumped Me feels more or less like the real thing.    Oh, one of the gags is Morgan's last name, which is Freeman, and I imagine the screenwriters cracked themselves up over that one.    You know a comedy is in trouble when it resorts to trying to milk laughs out of names.    Of course, there are exceptions, like Fletch.

The Spy Who Dumped Me runs nearly two hours, but runs out of gas long before.    The actors try to infuse energy into the limp material and deserve for credit for trying, but the movie is all concept and movie title with minimal comedy or thrills.    Does it want to be a comedy?  An action movie?  A parody?   I'm not sure it even knows.

Blow (2001) * * *

Directed by:  Ted Demme

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Cliff Curtis, Ray Liotta, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Reubens, Franka Potente, Ethan Suplee, Emma Roberts

Whomever coined the phrase "a fool and his money are soon parted" must have had a guy like George Jung in mind.   Blow is the story of Jung, who should've found another job than drug dealing.    As Jung put it himself in voice-over narration during a long prison term:  "My ambition was greater than my talent,"    He as at least honest with himself.    There was a point in Jung's career in which he was supposedly distributing 85% of the Medellin cartel's drugs and the money poured in, but Jung couldn't sustain it.    He was too trusting, too forgiving, and walked right into being pinched by the feds on more than one occasion.     It cost him everything, and then more, since in the end his daughter wouldn't even visit him in prison. 

Blow chronicles Jung's (Depp) life from late 1960's California to the point in which a federal charge puts him in prison for a sixty-year sentence (he was paroled in 2014, thirteen years after Blow was released).   He has no job in California and no prospects; he stumbles into marijuana dealing which grows big enough for him to take on a partner, hairdresser Derek Foreal (Reubens).    The weed dealing goes well enough, and George plans to marry his sweetheart Barbara (Potente), but then things go awry when he is picked up in Chicago for distribution and skips bail to take care of the suddenly terminally ill Barbara.

When George is apprehended at his parents' house (because duh) in Boston, he is sent to prison with a cellmate who specializes in cocaine dealing.    As George puts it, "I graduated prison with a master's degree in cocaine,"   The product is deadlier, more expensive, and with higher stakes involved, but this doesn't make George any better at his job.    He meets Mirtha (Cruz), with whom he marries and has a child, but Mirtha behaves as if being with George is a step down for her.    She liked him better when he was just her lover, and soon she is addicted to coke and drawing the feds' attention with lavish parties which included Pablo Escobar's associates as guests. 

As portrayed in Blow, George Jung is a sap who finds he is way in over his head in the drug world.    He is a nice enough guy, which causes him to trust the people who will ultimately screw him over.    He soon has a giant house with four Maserati sports cars in the garage, but he looks the part of a big-time drug dealer rather than truly embodying the life.    His life is a prison sentence waiting to happen.    Even his father (Liotta), who wants his son to be happy even if it is dealing drugs, says, "This money isn't real," and years later, George realizes what he meant.

The best scenes in Blow involve George's relationship with his daughter Kristina Sunshine (Roberts), whom George deeply loves, but finds he must do the very thing to support her which also put him in prison for years at a time:  drug dealing.    Kristina is no pushover, and is reluctant to believe her father when he says he wants to move to California with her, but in total George-like fashion, he finds he has to break yet another promise to her when he is busted again.     George isn't cut out for anything else, although he should've at least tried.

Depp is as sympathetic as can be for a guy who is a drug dealer, even though he dealt product which separated some people from their family members permanently.    George's problem is his tunnel vision.    He doesn't see the angles and can't foresee where the business is going.    He thinks everything will last forever and work out in the end.    During his last prison stretch, he has what he believes is a tearjerker reunion with his now grown daughter, but we learn this is not the case.    This is George's price for choosing the wrong line of work, and it should come as no surprise that his relationship with Kristina even today is estranged.   The universe has its own brand of justice.

BlackkKlansman (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Spike Lee

Starring:  John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Robert John Burke, Topher Grace, Alec Baldwin, Corey Hawkins, Jasper Paakkonen

The saddest thing about BlackkKlansman is the realization that not a lot has changed on the racial front in America.     BlackkKlansman takes place in 1970s Colorado and ends with footage of 2017 Charlottesville.     Can we say definitively that there has been an improvement?     Spike Lee's film doesn't just recount an unusual police investigation in which a black detective poses as a Klansman, but it reflects societal attitudes on race today.    When white characters say "America First" and "we need to take our country back and make it great again," it is a thinly veiled (heck, not veiled at all) allusion to Trump's dangerous rhetoric.

Ron Stallworth (Washington) is the first black police officer in Colorado Springs, Colorado history.   Soon after being hired, he is made detective and decides, after attending a rally held by former Black Panther Kwame Rule (Hawkins), to contact the local KKK chapter posing as a white racist.    Stallworth is able to pass for white over the phone, but after a face-to-face meeting is arranged with the chapter president, white undercover officer Flip Zimmerman (Driver) is sent in to pose as Stallworth, with Stallworth staked out in a car listening in on wired conversations.

Aside from the usual hateful racial speech you would expect from Klan members, not much happens in the investigation until Stallworth/Zimmerman learn of a plot to kill black civilians and protestors, which includes Stallworth's activist girlfriend Patrice Dumas (Harrier) who is close to Rule and was once accosted by white police officers after Rule's speech.    Stallworth is hiding his identity on two fronts.    He can't be made by the Klan and he can't tell Patrice he is really a cop and not a fledgling civil rights activist.    However, Stallworth does not have to enter the lion's den like Flip, a non-practicing Jew who is the object of suspicion by the insane and scary Klansman Felix (Paakkonen), going so far as to threaten to hook Flip to a polygraph to prove he isn't Jewish. 

Stallworth soon finds himself engaged in hate-filled phone conversations with then-national Klan chairman David Duke (Grace), who thoroughly believes he is speaking to a like-minded white man on the other end of the phone.     In an ironic twist, Duke soon visits Colorado Springs to induct Stallworth into the Klan, and due to death threats against Duke,  the real Stallworth is assigned to be his bodyguard by his superiors.    Grace is an unusual casting choice for Duke, but an effective one; selling the Klan's horrible rhetoric with oily charm and deceptive folksiness.

BlackkKlansman sets the stage for accurate portraits of race relations in the 1970s.    The Colorado Springs police station banner reads, "Minorities encouraged to apply," which Stallworth does, but it is made clear by his superiors, including the mostly tolerant Chief Bridges (Burke) that he is to be the "Jackie Robinson of the Colorado Springs police force", which means he must learn to turn the other cheek when racist comments are hurled at him.    With these scenes, Lee condemns the insular police mentality in which they protect their own at all costs, and there is a satisfying payoff in the end in which the code of silence is broken in unexpected ways.

Lee also shows the Klan for the narrow-minded nimrods they are and doesn't pull punches.    The Washington and Driver performances are daring and walk a fine line between their characters' undercover personas and their inner conflicts.    Flip discusses how going undercover has changed how he views himself and his non-religious upbringing.    He never thought about being Jewish being he wasn't raised Jewish and never even had a bar mitzvah.    But, we see how it pains him to spew out racial epithets even if he sounds convincing enough to the clueless Klan.

The romance between Stallworth and Patrice is less absorbing.   It feels like a tacked-on subplot which we have to endure before getting back to the main event.    In the history of race relations and civil rights in this country, BlackkKlansman shows us a odd footnote.    Maybe this is why the film, with all of the powder keg elements intact, isn't quite as riveting as expected.    The infiltration exposes Duke and the Klan as being trusting idiots, but Duke would shake it off and go on to showcase his views on the national stage.    Lee chose this story to show us how hate groups feel empowered in permissive environments.    Charlottesville showed they have reared their ugly heads again.    Will we ever get to a point in which groups like the Klan and neo-Nazis are non-existent?    Lee seems pessimistic about that possibility, and there is little evidence to suggest he's wrong.   

Three Kings (1999) * * 1/2

Directed by:  David O. Russell

Starring:  George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze, Nora Dunn, Cliff Curtis, Mykelti Williamson, Jamie Kennedy

There are moments in Three Kings where we think we are heading somewhere special, and others which make the film feel longer than the Gulf War itself.    It is a frustrating film, moving between satire and political agendas in jerky, clunky fashion; unable to get out of its own way.    With that said, Three Kings gives us wonderfully three-dimensional performances and scenes of true power in which the reasons for fighting Saddam Hussein are questioned and answered cynically.   Just not enough of them.

We meet the participants in the waning days of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.   Most of the hostilities had ended and Hussein withdrew from Kuwait, and one day an Iraqi soldier is captured with a map sticking out of his rear end.    It is a map to millions in hidden gold bullion in the Kuwaiti desert.    Four American soldiers:  Archie Gates (Clooney), Troy Barlow (Wahlberg), Chief Elgin (Ice Cube), and Conrad Vig (Jonze) go AWOL to locate the gold on their own and enriching themselves, but of course it won't be that easy.    Even after they find the gold, they need to find a way to transport it, and this involves making deals with Iraqi refugees who fear Saddam's wrath if they were to return to their homeland.     The deal is:  The refugees help transport the gold and the Americans lead them safely to the Iranian border.   

Sounds simple enough, but then Three Kings meanders.   Troy is captured by soldiers still loyal to Saddam and in between torture sequences is taught about why then-President George H.W. Bush really wanted Iraq out of Kuwait.    Troy spouts off the canned, rehearsed response which was drilled into his head by his superiors, but Iraqis know the reasons were more economical than humanitarian the hard way.   This scene begins in gripping fashion and simply runs too long.    Other sequences have that feel also, ungainly mixing comedy and action.

I'm sure I'm not giving away a spoiler by suggesting that of the four main characters, at least one has to die and such a death would be dictated by marquee star power.    Clooney provides the smooth, convincing leadership he would go on to provide in numerous films over his distinguished film career.    He sounds like he knows what he's talking about without smugness or conceit.     Ice Cube doesn't simply walk around with his trademark sneer here, he plays a man with a specific moral compass which at times goes off track because hey, $65 million is $65 million.    How could it not in such a muddied situation?    $65 million beats being a Detroit baggage handler.   I also liked Cliff Curtis as the leader of the refugees who evokes sympathy and stands as the film's moral center. 

Three Kings was released four years before the U.S. would be engaged in another war against Iraq under even more dubious circumstances; one which has been more costly in terms of lives lost, lives altered, and money spent.    Even though Saddam Hussein was removed from power and executed, there is still instability in the region which brought about the birth of ISIS and civil unrest, with American soldiers caught in the crossfire.    Three Kings ends on a happier note because the Gulf War itself was much shorter and the film could not possibly foresee the events of the next few years unfolding.    Three Kings sets up a potentially fascinating view of a confused struggle masquerading as a gold heist, but we soon find these don't really mesh well together. 











  

Barry (2018) * * * 1/2 (On HBO, First Season)

Starring:  Bill Hader, Stephen Root, Sarah Goldberg, Henry Winkler, Paula Newsome, Glenn Fleshler, Anthony Carrigan, Dale Pavinski

You likely wouldn't think of Bill Hader playing an assassin-for-hire.    Well, guess what?   Barry Berkman (Hader) probably never thought he would be one.    He was a Marine who fought in Afghanistan and now kills people for a living.   His boss, Monroe Fuches (Root), assures Barry that he is killing scum of the earth, which eases Barry's conscience for a little while.    But soon, the job gets to Barry and during what should be a routine hit in LA, he discovers acting by accident and learns that he loves it.    He takes an acting class led by the energetic hack Gene Cousineau (Winkler) and decides he would rather recite the Alec Baldwin monologue from Glengarry Glen Ross than shoot people.  

This is the setup for Barry, but not the destination.    Barry finds leaving his old life behind isn't that easy, especially when he fouls up the hit and kills his Chechen client's associates.    This can't go unpunished, and Fuches (who sees Barry as the son he never had) won't let Barry go so easily.    If Barry hadn't followed his target to the acting class (his would-be victim is an actor who takes the class) and run into aspiring actress Sally Reed (Goldberg), then maybe his life wouldn't be so complicated these days.  

But, Barry falls for Sally at first sight and sees a way out of his conscience-killing existence.    Did I mention that Barry is a comedy series?    A dry, uneasy one which doesn't exactly fit the mold of traditional comedy, but it is fearless.    It is not afraid to be dark and satirical at the same time.    It is quite the balancing act which series creators Alec Berg (Silicon Valley) and Hader mostly pull off.    Sure, Barry is at times preposterous and goofy, but we find ourselves pulling for Barry as he tries in vain to pull away from his old life and start anew.    For a time, he succeeds, but those moments are fleeting and in the eighth and final episode of the first season, Barry finds he has to go back on his word more than once that "he is out...starting right now."   We at times forget that Barry is a HITMAN. 

Throughout the eight-episode season, there are plot twists we don't expect and some we do.    But, no matter, because the show loves these characters and all of their hyper absurdities.    Hader is mostly the straight man in his own story, and does so effectively and sympathetically.    The best performance comes from Winkler, who plays Cousineau as an acting coach filled with self-importance and confidence, even if we aren't sure why he has so much of either.     He writes books about acting technique even though no one has ever heard of him.    Cousineau is the living epitome of the saying: "Those who can...do.   Those who can't...teach," and gives us the show's biggest laughs, especially when he romances the detective (Newsome) who is investigating the murder of Barry's would-be target.

Barry ended on a dark note and there will surely be more to come in Season 2.    It doesn't devolve into silliness, but where it leads follows inexorable logic and consequences of previous actions.    Barry, the show, doesn't let Barry the character off the hook.    I admire Barry for having the courage to go where it must and allowing itself to be about not-so-lovable people.   

The Sandlot (1993) * *

Directed by:  David Mickey Evans

Starring:  Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Denis Leary, Karen Allen, Art Lafleur, James Earl Jones, Chauncy Leopardi

I hate to sound like a churl, but here goes.    Maybe in my youth, I would've appreciated The Sandlot more than I do now.    It was released in 1993, when I was in my early 20s, so even then I wasn't the target audience.     It captures summer days, which was the reward school kids trudged through the school year to get to, with the proper nostalgia.    You can feel the heat pounding on the kids as they play baseball on the sandlot of the title.    It's innocuous, but rather dull.   Kids would like it, even if the idea of going out and playing baseball on a warm summer day may seem foreign to them in the age of video games and cell phones.

We meet nine boys in a small town in 1962 who shag fly balls, hit homers, and in some cases knock the cover off the ball at the local sandlot.     Some of the balls manage to land in the yard of Mr. Mertle (Jones), which is guarded by (as legend would have it), a terrible half-dog monster which eats baseballs and any kids who dared to try and enter the yard to get the balls back.     When a baseball signed by Babe Ruth owned by one of the boys' stepfather finds its way into Mr. Mertle's yard, then they try all kinds of creative ways to get it back before the creature eats it.

The boys are led by Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez (Vitar) and the story is told from the point of view of Scott Smalls (Guiry), courtesy of rather leaden voiceover narration by The Sandlot's writer and director David Mickey Evans.    Benny "The Jet" as he is called, is the only one who would go on to play baseball professionally and he is clearly the best player.   Smalls is clearly the worst, at first, but with The Jet's encouragement, he learns to catch a ball and hit a little.    The rest of the boys have their moments to shine, but I confess they didn't make much of an impact.    Maybe the movie had too many characters to juggle and some got shortchanged. 

No points for guessing whether The Jet gets Smalls' ball back, or whether they realize both the dog and Mr. Mertle were misunderstood, and whether Mr. Mertle would himself be a former ballplayer who played alongside (drum roll) Babe Ruth.    The Sandlot sidesteps basic baseball history facts such as the existence of the Negro Leagues and how Jackie Robinson didn't break the color barrier until 1947, so how Babe Ruth and Mr. Mertle ever played together is a mystery.  

The Sandlot is not about historical accuracy, but capturing the spirit of youth and how playing baseball was indeed the national pastime for pre-teen boys.    The era of The Sandlot is unlikely to come again, and while I appreciated the film's feel for its time and place, I just found myself not caring all that much.    

In & Out (1997) * * *

Directed by:  Frank Oz

Starring:  Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack, Tom Selleck, Matt Dillon, Bob Newhart, Wilford Brimley, Debbie Reynolds, Glenn Close

Director Frank Oz and writer Paul Rudnick deliciously satirize Hollywood, media, gay stereotypes, and attitudes toward homosexuality in the light comedy In & Out.    This is the type of movie in which eyebrows are raised when a straight man can recite Barbra Streisand's entire record catalog; and a fight breaks out because someone says, "Yentl sucks".  Them's fighting words in this movie, which makes it that much funnier.

The idea behind In & Out occurred when Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia and thanked his gay high school drama teacher.    In & Out takes this and runs with it.    In this movie, actor Cameron Drake (Dillon) wins an Oscar and thanks his favorite high school teacher, Howard Brackett (Kline), and drops a bombshell:  "He's gay,"   Howard is horrified, and his family, friends, and students are stunned.   Despite Howard's protests that he isn't gay, he is now under suspicion.   Howard is due to be married within the week to his girlfriend of three years, Emily (Cusack), with whom he has never had sex.    Emily attributed this to Howard's gentlemanly ways, but now...

Within 24 hours of Cameron's announcement, all sorts of media descends upon Howard's small hometown of Greenleaf, Indiana looking for the scoop:   Is Howard gay or not?    Cynical, desperate-for-ratings tabloid TV show host Peter Malloy (Selleck), who is gay himself, has his own suspicions and hopes to out Howard to get the best story for his show.    Selleck gives one of his best film performances here.    Howard tells him: "You are so Hollywood," and Selleck almost blushes while thanking him.    It wasn't meant as a compliment, but no matter.   Peter will take it. 

Kline is a wonderful actor, both in drama and comedy, and we never feel anything less than sympathy for the poor, quiet schmuck who is forced to confront truths about himself he never suspected before.    In a refreshing twist, Howard's loved ones and students basically support him, but are confused about their own attitudes towards something they've never had to deal with previously.    Dillon takes a character who at first appears to be a vapid Hollywood product and instills him with a heart.    When he realizes the pressure he put Howard under, he treks to Greenleaf with his way too skinny model girlfriend to set things right.    "Eat something, I'm begging you," Cameron tells his girlfriend, who is stumped because she has no idea how to use a rotary phone.

This may be the only Oscar ceremony to take place in June (since the high school graduation is one week after Cameron's announcement), but Rudnick has some fun with the ceremony itself.
Cameron's competition is:  Paul Newman in Coot, Robert Redford in Codger, Michael Douglas in Primary Urges, and Steven Seagal in Snowball in Hell.  

Oz has proven over the years to be an adept director of satire.   Bowfinger and The Stepford Wives are howlers, and here he takes potentially offensive material and makes it palatable and funny.    By allowing the characters to examine their own feelings about Howard, we can ponder what would happen if we were in the same situation.    In & Out just makes it funnier.