Category: Anne Hathaway

THE END OF OAK STREET

By Marc S. Sanders

I look at a movie like The End Of Oak Street and I think to myself didn’t we once have all that we needed?  As kids raised in suburban life, we had our share of turmoil when mom and dad wouldn’t stop bickering and the neighborhood bully wouldn’t leave us alone.  However, Superman bedding, books on dinosaurs and the solar system, and a dog named Starbuck, along with neighborhood barbecues and a local library made up for a lot.  Movies like Gremlins, The Goonies and E.T. from the early 1980s were spared the onslaught zombified characters brainwashed by the World Wide Web, delivered by means of portable electronic devices.  In order to escape danger, you ran or pedaled as fast as you could while screaming your head off.  When you had a moment of respite, you stretched your imagination to logically surmise why the science fiction you always read about was actually coming true.  

When I saw those movies in the theaters and later rented from the video store, I didn’t have to reflect.  These were fresh tellings of new adventures with honest and relatable issues that might have been happening in other homes, just like they occurred in my house.  The End Of Oak Street invites you to reminisce while welcoming today’s generation to look beyond their Play Stations and A.I. reliance.  It’s a simple and familiar film not out to challenge you like a complex standardized test.    Writer/director David Robert Mitchell only wants to thrill your discoveries as they follow a terrifying, inescapable journey.

The Platt family do their best to maintain a family nucleus.  Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) are siblings who rely on each other while their parents, Denise and Greg (Anne Hathaway, Ewan MacGregor) seem like they are teetering on the unheard of D-word.  When I was growing up, only one kid in my school had divorced parents – far from what my daughter witnesses.  The family’s slivers of divide, along with that pesky bully and an irate neighbor who literally threatens to shoot Starbuck, take a back seat to strange occurrences of flashing lights at night and mounds of animal poop in the backyard.  There’s also plant life that grows quickly out of the ground, yet is of unknown origin. 

The day after the biggest flash happens, the Platts discover that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to prehistoric times when dinosaurs run amok.  Like a familiar franchise, these animals are ready to chase, roar and eat the neighbors.  The Platts seem to have the best luck at surviving though.  Now they have to figure out how to stick together, stay alive, hope that Starbuck comes home, and get back to present day, 1982.

The dinosaurs resemble the creatures of the Jurassic Park/World pictures.  David Robert Mitchell introduces some new breeds with toothlike delights, though.  My favorite was some kind of giant snake or eel that can gracefully enter a home from the upstairs bedroom and silently wind its way through the hallways, staircase and down to the kitchen before it quietly opens its wide maw with enormous fangs that are ready to bite down on Anne Hathaway.  Outstanding work!

There are triceratops and raptors and “veggies-saurouses,” and pterodactyls that claw and nibble and bite and roar and chase.  It’s nothing novel after twenty Jurassic movies.  Still, the time period and setting are new to this standard and the cast is genuine, well mostly.  Anne Hathaway hearkens back to the stressed suburban mom that Dee Wallace Stone delivered in E.T.  She’s a good housemaker at her wit’s end with a dream for another kind of life.  Ewan McGregor’s European dialect is hard to ignore.  So, he doesn’t exactly feel like that dad with the Adidas shorts, tube socks and white tennis shoes.  Greg delivers pizzas to make ends meet. It was hard to buy a guy with an accent designed for highbrow Shakespeare dropping off a large pie with everything on it. The character is drafted well as the paternal figure who is not the king of his castle and lacking all the answers. McGregor just feels more intelligent than Brian Platt is supposed to be.  In this movie, dad doesn’t drive.  Mom drives the car and wields the gun.  Craig T Nelson (Poltergeist) would never stand for that. Oscar Isaac was originally meant to play the role. He would have been a more appropriate choice.

The End Of Oak Street works like a rainy Saturday afternoon picture at the neighborhood theater when you’d be dropped off at the mall by mom while she ran her errands.  Bicycles and homemade bows and arrows fend your way through the made-up adventures in the woods or between the homes and within the backyards.  

Again, dinosaurs are nothing new or novel anymore, but David Robert Mitchell sets up a handful of shocking moments that will drop your jaw as some characters wind up in unexpected peril.  Other times you laugh as the Platts can only run across well mowed lawns, from one end of the street to the other.  It’s adventure, but this family also has time to come to grips with their hang ups while running out of food and avoiding being consumed by their unfamiliar environment.  

Anne Hathaway is especially right in this time period, and she only makes McGregor look more suitable in this middle Americana period setting.  When he speaks, I hear Obi Wan Kenobi and Trainspotting, but at least Hathaway keeps him engaged as a husband device for her performance as the frustrated, neglected housewife.  

The End Of Oak Street is a welcome passage of escape to a time when visual effects were being embraced as a means to tell wondrous stories of imagination.  It’s fortunate, that on the surface, its technology stops at the chapter of a once familiar now, when social media wasn’t needed to save your life, much less solve your problems. The family had to sleep on the family room floor together, and then assemble in a circle to talk to one another about whatever was bothering them.

JJ Abrams’ studio Bad Robot produced this film.  He also directed Super 8, a clear salute to Steven Spielberg’s alien adventures that’ll thrill you and make you ugly cry.  This is the director/producer’s specialty-to echo how much these films shaped so many of us into adulthood.  I hope Abrams and his production crew stay on this trajectory.  I’d like to play in the past a little more before I head back to my future.

THE ODYSSEY

By Marc S. Sanders

It seems that Christopher Nolan is left challenged by one thing – himself.  In less than thirty years this director/producer/writer has moved from the simplest of filmmaking with limited funds (Following, Memento) to enormous heights in bonanza showmanship like The Odyssey, the first movie to be completely shot with IMAX cameras.  These devices are expensive and according to Nolan, they are also heavy and overbearingly noisy.  Yet, IMAX accommodated the filmmaker with specialized boxes to contain their equipment and muffle the sound interference.  As such, The Odyssey is a wonder to the eye.  Frankly, as impressed as I was with the film, on the most ideal IMAX screen available, I still didn’t see anything that felt any grander than the latest Dune offerings.  I mean how far are my pair of 20/15 LASIK eyes supposed to decipher?  Don’t get me wrong.  I am impressed.  However, was I as impressed as I was supposed to be? Should I be nitpicking pixels here?

IMAX says it all though.  The landscapes of open desert plains and vast open waters are brilliantly captured.  I could never tell you of any inconsistencies or shortcomings.  Costumes serve just as any sword and sandal picture that came before.  The sound, especially in an IMAX theater, is immersive and deafening as expected. Tidal waves within blinding rainstorms demonstrate this wholeheartedly.  The cast is stacked with some of the best talent available. The Odyssey has everything it demands of its legacy and what’s expected of a Christopher Nolan film.  Yet, I was never emotionally invested in the picture.  Understand that Christopher Nolan knows how to reach an audience on a primordial level of emotions. Think back to Matthew McConaughey’s tearful moment in Interstellar or how he shares scenes with young Mackenzie Foy. Look at Christian Bale’s anguish during the middle section of The Dark Knight. Hugh Jackman and Bale compete for moments of deep rage and sadness within The Prestige.

Nolan wrote his adaptation of Homer’s poetically romantic adventure.  I recall reading it in high school.  The fat, floppy, black paperback that weighed down my book bag has never been forgotten.  The highlights of the story remain in my consciousness from the Trojan Horse to Helen Of Troy (the face that launched a thousand ships), and of course the central plot of having the famed Odysseus making his long awaited journey home.  It’s all here, and then there’s more including the towering Cyclops and Circe, the witch who can turn men into pigs.  Nolan’s film goes from chapter to chapter, beat by beat.  This easily could have been a ten-episode miniseries on HBO MAX, and people would eagerly watch every Sunday night.

I favor Nolan’s choice to rely on modern dialogue, without rooted domestic accents or dialects. It’s a wise choice when delivering a poetic opus to the screen. This movie is a story. It likely would not relate to audiences on a poetic level structured in stanzas. Homer’s work does not lend to dialogue like Shakespeare or Mamet. A friend took issue with referring to Odysseus and Penelope as “mom” and “dad.” I get it. Nolan’s picture is much bigger than Harry Potter. However, the characters are bonded as family. So, it’s a pick your preference kind of situation. You either embrace or it takes you out of the story on occasion.

I’m not sure what I can say that this beast of a film says for itself.  If you’re not dazzled by simply one shred of a moment in this picture, then you are impossible to satisfy. Consider me wowed, but I was not moved.  The same way that I was never absorbed with Homer’s piece.  It was a homework assignment that spanned a long month of my junior year.  As a film lover, it’s inevitable that I see this picture. If it’s the first complete IMAX picture from beginning to end, then yeah, I’m spending the extra money to see it that way.  Am I going to watch it on repeat, on home video 4K? Probably never on a whim.  It’s a chore.

First, the picture seems to presume the viewers have prior knowledge of elements like the battle of Troy and why the war took place before we see how the famed Trojan Horse led to Odysseus’ (Matt Damon) victory with his army.  I don’t recall all that merited the action, but Nolan’s footage is astounding, especially that enormous horse on its hind legs.  On screen, the figure is as towering as the Statue of Liberty. No wonder the thing is being sold as a popcorn bucket.  

As complex as Christopher Nolan’s films can be (Interstellar, Inception), I always thought he was great at spelling out his unique brands of formula.  It took me a good hour or more to pencil down who everyone is playing and what purpose they serve in The Odyssey.  It boasts a big cast of celebrities who are all given their moments to shine.  I was especially taken with Samantha Morton’s Circe, introduced as a helpless woman grotesquely ready to reveal something more.  Robert Pattinson is Antoninus, a bratty and cowardly adversary ready to assume rule now that Odysseus has not returned.  He truly owns the picture when the focus turns back to him amid the rest of the cast and extras that occupy the room.

Anne Hathaway as Odysseus’ wife Penelope demonstrates nice range away from her Prada films and warm-hug kinds of pictures.  She looks quite unfamiliar while leaning into what you’d expect from Cate Blanchett.  Tom Holland drops the adolescent mischief of Spider-Man to play Telemachus, the son who takes it upon himself to uncover where his father could be after being gone for two decades.

Lupita Nyong’o may not look like she belongs in a story originated in Greek fiction, but she serves her small but significant role(s) with fierceness.  I’m not petty enough to let the appearance or history of an actor diminish my experience of seeing a sensational performance.  The same goes for Elliot Page in a crucial cameo.  As an aside, knock it off with the woke protests. Theatre is theatre and this is centered in mythology with a Cyclops of all things. If the Romans of Gladiator can speak with English accents, then in the fiction of Hollywoodland, casting has no limits.

I do not think the finished product The Odyssey is a new kind of novelty for filmmaking.  Christopher Nolan is taking advantage of the latest advancements that Peter Jackson did with his Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit trilogies.  If Nolan didn’t make this movie, Jackson would likely step up.  The swordplay and battles are as similar as most anything else that’s sent out each year.  Nolan has not reinvented the wheel in that aspect.  Likely he’s done it with how he made this picture.  That’s a blessing and a curse.  

The Odyssey is seamless, but how am I to recognize what’s done better here than what Jackson or Denis Villanelle has accomplished with their works?  I guess I had to be on set.  Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and company testify to how astounding the experience has been.  I choose to believe them though I can’t compound what was embarked. For example, the actors enthusiastically celebrate the director’s idea to have then perform speaking to the mirror image of their scene partners. The mirror was mounted next to the IMAX lens and thus reduced time and cost for reshoots with the bulky and expensive equipment. Something like that. See, I do not see the advantage of this technique when I’m sitting in the theatre. There it is, though. Amazing! Incredible! It can be the greatest hot dog I’ve ever savored. Yet, I never went to the sausage factory.

I know my enthusiasm does not measure up to what so many others are saying.  The Odyssey is just an overwhelming picture.  The storytelling seems all too familiar, and yet not everything feels completely clear and decipherable.  Visually, it will always be stunning, even on a 55-inch flat screen. I wish Nolan offered more definition to the giant Cyclops (played by the master of mime and body manipulation, famed Ringling performer Bill Irwin who was TARS in Interstellar).  The movie will easily sweep all the technical awards while only earning acting nominations for Morton and maybe Hathaway.  Matt Damon earns recognition for exerting himself like never before in muscle mass. He’s only improved what he’s physically done in the Bourne films, for example.

This is a major hurdle that Christopher Nolan has elevated to, and a new bar has been set at a taller height.  Still, this picture never stayed with me like his Dark Knight trilogy that covered everything from sensational action to questions of morality. His brainy science fiction challenged protagonists to extend themselves towards sheer impossibilities of comprehension like Inception, Interstellar, or The Prestige.  Even a biographical story like Oppenheimer left me more emotionally consumed than The Odyssey, because the title character served as a puppeteered villain to everyone else, including himself internally.  Odysseus leans on Athena for solace, played by Zendaya, serving as an imaginary friend to the hero. He’s marooned with Calypso (Charlize Theron) serving as a sounding board while Odysseus struggles to recollect the memories of his adventures. All the parts are here like a grocery shopping list, but the connections just don’t feel as warm as they were in Nolan’s other pieces.

That’s okay though.  We all have our favorite flavors of ice cream. Just like we all have our favorite efforts of Christopher Nolan.

What’s this guy gonna do next? I cannot wait to find out because it’s never simplistic and always challenging with a sense of thrill and knowledge.

INTERSTELLAR

By Marc S. Sanders

On a rewatch of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar it is no wonder he eventually went on to adapt Homer’s The Odyssey into a fully realized film.  The classic sci-fi picture, which draws inspiration from Stanely Kubrick’s work while likely springboarding off of Arthur C Clarke’s and Isaac Asimov’s ideas, is an ambitious undertaking.  It’s not Star Wars with lasers and aliens, but it is slightly Star Trek with missions bent on discovery. Its fiction is rooted in true science and that’s precisely why it should be taken seriously; never taken for granted. 

Like The Odyssey, the story from Nolan with his writing partner and brother Jonathan, sets out on a far off journey that will take travelers decades into the future of a fictional future with an uncertainty of survival or a return back to Earth.  Loved ones back home remain in wait and worry.  The Nolans had to be thinking of Homer’s poetic opus while undertaking Interstellar.  The parallels are just so clear, welcoming fresh perspectives for both films.

Matthew McConaughey is Cooper, a former astronaut, now corn crop farmer and widower.  He is raising his son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) who is choosing to follow in her father’s footsteps of accurate science and astronomy.  His father-in-law (John Lithgow) is tending to the family at the home and likely by default because Cooper was never meant to be a homemaker.  He was meant to soar among the stars.

The children’s school serves to prep them for farming and deny even the simplest theories of science, especially when Murph opts to write reports that back up such conjecture.  Cooper is on her side.  Yet, the school faculty deny any of the historic Apollo missions of the twentieth century and college is not a primary goal for students. Preparation for farm life is what’s needed. Wild legends that propagandize technological competitions in races to space with the Soviet Union lend no use or value to surviving on an Earth stricken with food shortages. Farming is what the world has to focus on.

Interstellar reveals that an interruption in Earth’s gravity is causing punishing sandstorms, more familiarly reminiscent of the dustbowl era from the 1930s. Technology is not cooperative, nor is it tolerable for the government. Even military service is no longer needed. Therefore, farming has become the most necessary industry to rely upon. The world these characters occupy is plagued with an extreme shortage of food while nitrogen is expected to replace the availability of oxygen. If the people of Earth don’t starve, they’ll suffocate.  For example, as the film begins the last crops of okra have run out for the entire planet Earth.  Wheat is also in short supply. Corn is becoming the standard on a planet that gets globally bombarded with punishing sandstorms. 

Through odd circumstances, Cooper and Murph meet up with the last remaining folks at a classified NASA facility, operating from a clandestine nowhere locale, led by leading science expert Professor Brand (Michael Caine) with assistance from his daughter, Amelia (Anne Hathaway).  They urge Cooper to pilot a ship into deep space, past Saturn, beyond the reaches of a black hole, and into another galaxy to locate a new planet that the remaining survivors of Earth can inhabit. That’s Plan A.

Should all else fail, Plan B is prepared with embryos to cargo thereby establishing new generations of mankind to indefinitely prolong the human race.  Specific destinations include attempting to catch up with NASA explorers who left many years before but never returned or provided updates on their progress.  Those astronauts only had the means to search individually and separate from one another. Cooper and Amelia would attempt to rendezvous with those that left before and surmise if they discovered anything that can be habitable. This mission serves the need to leave Earth, not to save it.

Murph resents her dad’s commitment to this new mission, but he sees no other choice.  Personally, Cooper has always been a pilot and astronaut. Farming is not in his blood. He, Amelia, along with two other crew members, Romilly and Doyle (David Gyasi, Wes Bentley), will age slower than those they leave behind on Earth.  Cooper is hoping to at least return by the time Murph’s age matches up to his.  

Accompanying the crew are two robots that possess the personalities of accurate science, with a bit of programable sarcasm mixed in.  Clearly the design of TARS and CASE (Bill Irwin, Josh Stewart) are drawn from Kubrick’s monolith image, but the stand-up rectangles can sectionally move to allow leg and arm use for utility operations.  Very clever fictional engineering work going on here. Irwin is especially impressive as TARS as he put his skills with mime work and body flexibility to work. He’s actually on set, encased in a box, functionally performing as TARS.

Christopher Nolan is filmmaker who knows how to make the exposition of his pictures magnetically curious.  First off, he works best when assembles his stories with a circular narration. Little details are disclosed and then left behind to reveal information about another subject and then another. Nothing may appear connected. However, often his movies will later go back to what’s only been hinted out and uncover an important purpose. Books falling off a shelf in the upstairs bedroom do not say much until you realize that there’s a message there. Dust particles descending in an organized pattern lend to an environment but may also serve a clue. On a first watch, and maybe even on the second and third view, it’s at least a welcome challenge to decipher the time period of the story and why even some of the most minute details serve so importantly. Christopher Nolan prefers to work with some brainy stuff.

Interstellar never feels like a chore even when you try to comprehend the complex debates among its characters.  Hathaway and McConaughey haggle over which planet to visit next.  Their resources far into this new galaxy will not enable them to visit both locations.  So, how important and powerful is love, bent on a personal desire, when the future of mankind is at stake? Should romanticism tip the scale of the crew’s decision? The travels through space offer unusual challenges that hardly mimic anything I’ve ever seen on a Star Trek episode.  

Back on earth, the children grow into adults played by Casey Affleck and Jessica Chastain, both very good at being disagreeable siblings living on a world that is quickly deteriorating while mounting dirt exposure affects the family’s health.  Affleck’s portrayal of Tom is focused on upholding crop supplies to defy worldwide starvation. Chastain’s portrayal of Murph works with Caine’s character, continuing his research that is expected to resolve the last variables of seeking a new planet to relocate the residents of Earth.  Contrary to Tom, Murph is working ahead of an inevitable loss by applying her knowledge of science to pioneer a more sensible solution.

A side story dating back to Murph’s youth revolves around a “ghost” who resides behind the bookshelf upstairs.  Out of nowhere, one book after another will topple off a shelf.  (A nice detail by Nolan is to have Stephen King’s dystopian novel The Stand propped up.) Are Murph and Cooper really willing to accept supernatural phenomena over what can only realistically occur? I mean we are talking about the hard truths of science here. Tom is happy to tease his little sister with the weirdness of a ghost living behind that bookshelf.

Interstellar never allows anything to be easy. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s script works harder at offering the unsolvable than what can lead to rescue and resolution. Science of any kind never makes anything easy. Even humanity can unexpectedly betray its best intentions. Things go awry in space and on Earth causing more setbacks and distance apart and therefore presenting less likelihood of success.  Yet, what’s effective is that Christopher Nolan treats his picture like a documentary.  Peppered through the first forty minutes of the film are elderly people offering up interview recollections of what it’s been like to live with meteorological dirt storms that intrude upon their homes and outer environments.  They have to turn their dishes upside down to keep them as clean as possible.  They need to wear masks and goggles. Seven years after this movie came out, ideas like this hardly seem exaggerated. The elderly folks who are being interviewed were real folks who experienced those dirt storms from the early twentieth century and participated in some of Ken Burns’ documentaries. Christopher Nolan operates on science fiction that is anything but far-fetched.

On paper, all of this would likely be the most exciting issue of Popular Science magazine ever published.  Sadly, it would never be read and rest on the coffee table in the lobby of our dentist or primary care physician. Thankfully, Nolan finds a way to thrill us through scenarios. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey (there’s that word, again), the Nolans offer first person, interior window perspectives of looking out over the wing of the space crafts.  You hardly ever get an idea of the whole dimensions of the model ships with only a select few omniscient, external views.  They want you to live within the confines of the space crafts.  Outer exhausts are emitted but when Nolan cuts in footage from the outside, the fumes are not accompanied by sound effects.  The same goes with various collisions or explosions in space.  Planet Earth may be depicted as an unlivable dust bowl, but the constructs of outer space remain unchanged.  Sound never exists in the vacuum of space.  So please have a seat Mr. Spock.

Though I wish his signature whispered twang was a little more enunciated, Matthew McConaughey is touching throughout the entire three-hour film.  Nolan captures an exceptional moment of sadness as he is able to catch up with video feeds submitted by Tom and Murph.  Try to fathom visiting a planet for the equivalent of three hours, measured on Earth, but when you return to the ship, over twenty-three years have gone by.  People back home have passed away.  Babies have been born.  Children have embarked on careers.  You might respond like Cooper does and become a mess of tears and homesickness.  It’s a one take sensational moment, beyond compare.  An absolute highlight of the actor’s career.  

Anne Hathaway is not the central character here, but she works well as a continuous counterpoint to the hypotheticals proposed by Cooper. As a contrast to Cooper the pilot, Amelia operates on exact science and though she’ll reside in an enclosed tin can of a spaceship with three men, she does not want to entertain the luxury of becoming friends. They might have endless amounts of time, journeying to Saturn and then on to another galaxy light years away, but there’s a lot of new science to uncover.   

Following Batman Begins, the director took his team back to Iceland which serves as destinations into the far reaches of outer space.  Nolan’s cameras sweep on and on and overhead to tell us there’s much to look for in these places left mostly untraveled.

Possibilities beyond imagination are treated like realistic outcomes, including ideas like communications traveling back in time by means of gravitational pulls. Things like this I completely buy but could never explain how it connects or operates.  

The Nolans accomplish what so many other pictures neglect or fail to factor including engineering, biology, astrophysics and necessary needs of survival accompanied by the philosophical natures of love.  It might sound romantic, but it’s been a long while since humanity grew out of the slime of the earth.  Love had something to do with us still breathing this air and allowing us to go see the director’s Batman movies.  

Christopher Nolan challenges us to find entertainment and wonder while he speaks on higher plains of intelligence than other standard summer blockbusters.  He’s at the other end of a wide spectrum where he’d never consider nuking an asteroid in space to save the Earth.  Something less glamorous and more overwhelming would take us out in his universe.  It would require his heroes to make bigger sacrifices than what another filmmaker might propose for Bruce Willis.  Nolan is the storyteller who is adamant that we can do better by use of scientific awareness and realistic possibilities.  

Who knows?  Incessant dust clouds might overcome the planet, accelerating its demise and forcing some of us to do things that a man like Cooper would declare “necessary.” When the glaciers finally melt away, I would not be surprised if the scientists at the time reference what Christopher Nolan considered in one of his pictures.

Nothing here feels so otherworldly or foolhardy, anymore.

Interstellar may be that sci-fi flick that’ll become required textbook studying for our children’s children’s children who live beyond the black holes of space and time.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA/THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2

By Marc S. Sanders

I love when a movie can teach me about an industry.  Network and Broadcast News dive deep into television news.  Boogie Nights lends a sneaky and empathetic eye to the porn industry.  The Big Short explores the pains of mortgage lending and investments.  Spotlight reveals unwelcome truths within the Catholic Church by way of the press.  The Devil Wears Prada offers brilliant wit that often will leave you uncomfortable while emphasizing the importance of high-end fashion at its centrally located heart in New York City.

I recall watching an episode of Judge Judy.  The cranky magistrate was making light over the dispute between two comic book collectors.  The Incredible Hulk #181, which features the introduction of Wolverine (famously played by Hugh Jackman in the movies).  Judy Scheindlin could not fathom the need for an argument over this item, nor how a mint first edition copy could demand an asking price in excess of $5,000.  The best scene in The Devil Wears Prada parallels this circumstance as the new temp assistant, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway in her forever breakaway leading role) scoffs at a meeting run by the infamous Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep in probably her most memorable performance).  

An underling cannot decide which of two blue belts complement a new outfit.  Andy just doesn’t understand “this stuff.”  Miranda uses her response as a means to explain the purpose a fashion meeting stretches far beyond a belt selection.  The reason they are standing there is detrimental to the outcome of tens of thousands of jobs and a blue sweater is never just a blue sweater.  In fact, Crayola, in case you didn’t know, Andy’s sweater is cerulean.  Cerulean is never just blue, just as a particular Marvel Comic Book is never just 60 cent magazine you roll up and buy at the candy store.

It’s during this moment that director David Frankel provides a visual demonstration. A dress is not a dress without a belt.  A dress and belt are nothing without a jacket.  A dress, a belt and a jacket are not necessarily enough without a hat.  A process is assembled.  

I know Prada was a book first (which I’ve yet to read), but how better to show why the visual medium of film is so vital to exploring what many of us may never be familiar with?  Just as you might not comprehend the importance of the comic book industry, I do not have an appreciation for the fashion industry, but the people who work under Miranda Priestly’s Runway magazine better do so because it represents a “beacon of hope” for millions of women, aspiring designers, and industrialists worldwide.  The items on display may have asking prices in the thousands, but they dictate what all of us wear casually and formally and how affordable all “this stuff” is for our respective demographics.

Andy is a twenty-something Northwestern graduate striving to become a successful journalist in the city.  To make ends meet with her live-in boyfriend Nate (a miscast Adrian Grenier, looking like Hathaway’s little brother despite the midnight shadow), she accepts a temp offer to be second assistant for Miranda Priestley, the devil of this film’s title.  

The first assistant is Emily (Emily Blunt in her breakout role), a nervous and low tolerant British trainer for Andy.  Emily gets twenty minutes for lunch and the prospect of accompanying Miranda for fashion week in Paris.  Andy gets fifteen minutes, and if she’s lucky an invitation to a hideous skirt convention.  Andy is also a size 6, which is now the new 14.  Seriously, what is Andy doing here?

Nigel (Stanley Tucci, who should have been Oscar nominated for this performance) is the top fashion selector keeping up with trends that Miranda will support and approve in the Runway catalogue.  

Miranda, Emily and Nigel – they might as well be speaking a foreign language to Andy.  Perhaps that should be vice versa?

The Devil Wears Prada is a best-selling novel by Lauren Weisberger inspired by her experiences in the Andy role when she worked for Anna Wintour, the famed editor in chief of Vogue. Weisberger’s story lacks a mentor for the novice.  Andy has no choice but to find her way through the endless challenges of meeting insurmountable expectations while trying to balance a personal relationship and friendships as she holds out for a prized opportunity in journalism.  Working for Miranda Priestley or Anna Wintour and living to talk about it can only open doors to some of the most esteemed publications out there.  

The characters of this film, standing on the heels of comedy, are sketched beautifully with genuine realism.  Meryl Streep is so focused on being a demanding, unrelenting, quietly intolerant heathen who knows her job better than anyone.  She is the toughest and most intimidating. Yet, there is no denying she never stops reading the pulse of updated trends and fashion sense.  Miranda knows every significant designer and clothing manufacturer the world over.  If a brand needs to break through, they must know Miranda Priestly and only hope to earn her attention.  Success is earned especially by affiliation with Runway.  Miranda never tumbles from the mountain she stands upon while so few can even intrude within her shadow.  It goes further when you see Streep enter any room, building or show in the entire film.  She doesn’t belong in the settings.  Rather the settings race to surround her.  

I also recognize the expanse of the script by exposing this ultimate power’s concealed weakness.  A late scene in the film goes against the familiar current of Streep’s character and the actress pulls it off with utter heartbreak.  How often do we get to feel sorry for the villain?  Miranda is stripped of confidence, makeup, and fashion, simply at a loss to just be as human as those beneath her.  It’s a shocking and beautifully written scene that Streep shares with Hathaway, devoid of any other kind of familiar armor.

It’s important that Anne Hathaway runs with a looser and more scattered persona.  Andy must be so much more than just opposite of Miranda.  For this story to work, the two women cannot even communicate in the same way or ever share similar perspectives.  Andy has to fail if she is to succeed.  How can anyone be expected to fly Miranda out of south Florida during a hurricane?  How can anyone obtain a copy of the unpublished manuscript of the latest Harry Potter novel? To keep from drowning in any line of work you have to absorb yourself in its environment.  Function with its nature.  The crux of the film is observing if Andy can follow through.

A spin off film focusing on Stanley Tucci’s character would absolutely work.  Nigel comes off like a sidekick, but with a few choice pieces of dialogue.  In a third act revelation, the film paints the picture of Nigel as an endearing sore thumb in a home he was completely uncommon with while growing up.  Tucci plays this man of confidence and knowledge under the radar.  A friend to Andy while never being so overt.  The impression seems quite obvious that Nigel is gay, but his career is his main priority. The argument has come up that only homosexual actors should play gay characters.  Stanley Tucci’s performance is the best, most assured response to turn off that debate.  (He’s married to Emily Blunt’s sister.) How he dresses, walks, talks and carries himself through every scene demonstrates a man of expertise who lives above any prejudice.  He lends purpose to high end fashion, and his service builds the confidence of women who are meant to have power and authority. 

Emily Blunt is the antagonist to Andy but her panicked hysteria is also the comedy found in the film.  Anything Andy considers is unheard of in Emily’s eyes. While Miranda is short on words, Emily exposes how fearful this devil truly is ranging from pouring a glass of Perrier to hanging a coat in the correct closet.  

David Frankel assembles this film with energy.  I especially love the filler montages that start at the opening credits and drive the transitions of the story.  He captures Andy, the lovable ugly duckling, in contrast to every model attired woman making a career for themselves in New York and it works to show how much a fish out of water she is.  Later, after Nigel delivers a complete makeover to desperately hopeless Andy, a new montage of seamless edits has Hathaway’s character walking with utter confidence and determination.  Frankel applies sweeping edits showing Andy walking behind a city bus or building, reemerging on the other side in another fitting outfit of color and vibrancy.  All of these moments define the world of The Devil Wears Prada.  Frankel truly creates a darling visual masterpiece.

The Devil Wears Prada focuses on career opportunities and building poise in a niched industry that is constantly evolving while never waiting for the troops to catch up with the fleet.  It studies the interactions that not only occur in an office but beyond, with high end social gatherings where the best of the best must be caught up with people’s personal dramas while circumventing around competitors who look to reign and cut throats.  Designers intersect with publishers and writers, and we see the back-and-forth responses, especially when the acerbic Miranda frowns at a presentation.  Someone with power and influence has the means of success or failure for the next person who comes through a door.  

As the film moves past its exposition, Andy, the protagonist, is ready to be tested.  I might be describing a fantasy, unfamiliar to any of us, but David Frankel and Lauren Weisberger, with an adapted screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna, choose to take every bar or gallery or on-site location seriously.  Because they go in a direction where morals, ethics and loyalties can be probed and embraced by an audience.  Personal values and priorities can be questioned either at home, in the field or in the office.  

The Devil Wears Prada goes beyond the clothes these people wear.  Its story justifies why these four primary characters adorn themselves in the garb selected for them, allowing them to command or earn authority.

The newly released sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, demonstrates that after twenty years much of the environments and practices of the original are outdated though the world of fashion is unmistakably necessary.  In a post Me Too era where the internet makes the world so much smaller, the industries of journalism and clothing design do not feel as global and exotic.  A tyrant dressed in Prada cannot be so demanding.  She must rely upon herself, and not so much her underlings to get her Starbucks or hang up her coat.  Flying coach, not even first class, might make for a good gag, but…well…that might be pushing it.  Yet, this latest installment offers good ideas and inventive challenges for Miranda Priestly to contend with.

Elsewhere, Andy Sachs might be a well recognized, award winning journalist but with print and article submissions becoming extinct at the mercy of second to second social media news, it’s never enough to hold on to a job.

Runway is in trouble for being associated with sweatshop practices overseas.  Miranda is the scapegoat.  That’s about all you see of that problem because it’s important to speed along to Andy and Miranda working together again.  The writer is quickly recruited for an image repair of the famed magazine and its editor.

Even though the sequel follows similar beats to its predecessor, there are an overabundance of narratives, and they are scattered brained.  It begins with the blemish to Runway’s reputation, then on to getting the gang back together again.  These episodes quickly fix themselves and now the magazine becomes an affected constituent to corporate controls and seizures for the remainder of the film.

Side dishes are too overloaded as well with an unwelcome romance storyline for the career driven Andy.  This bit screams of a producer insisting that Anne Hathaway have a love interest.  Never have the scenes with Hathaway and actor Patrick Bramell, as a high end city property owner, felt like opportunistic bathroom breaks.  

Andy is also given a peer to cope with by the name of Mack (I had to look up the name) played by Larry Mitchell. He wears a Yankees cap. Otherwise, what is he doing here?  Other than Hathaway, he does not share a scene with any other cast member, and he’s there for Andy to commiserate with.  Couldn’t moments like these be shared with Nigel or Emily?  It would only strengthen the script and the appearance of the four returning principal characters. Tracie Thoms makes a welcome return as Andy’s art gallery friend.  Additional moments with her seem inviting but not relied upon.

Kenneth Branagh is here to cash a paycheck as Miranda’s new husband.  I don’t think Meryl Streep ever makes eye contact with him.  The famed, Oscar winning actor/director/writer only serves as a reactionary post for Streep.  Again, a producer who wanted to feel relevant likely insisted that Miranda have a love interest.

These elements are disappointing to me.  Often we see the leading man drive through a career without the need for family or relationships.  Especially in the world of The Devil Wears Prada, where women are never held back from achieving their goals, why are these two self made ladies of influence anchored to answering to a man in their life? There’s enough material to further their fulfillments without these useless characters.

Emily Blunt returns with nothing to do as well.  Even with a twist, that serves no surprise to her character as the stuck-up Emily, she steps into Miranda and Andy’s paths when the film has to wind down with a last button to push.  She’s also wasted in dumbed down tryst with an airhead played by Justin Theroux. This accomplished actor who has an impressive line of work, deserves better.  With practically nothing to do, Blunt should have insisted on a rewrite because her character has become entirely unappealing.

BJ Novack (actor and writer of The Office) does okay with what the script deals to him as oil to water antagonist for Streep’s role.  Yet, he’s also an unnecessary new character; one which could have been covered by Blunt’s character.  

Stanley Tucci is also not given much to do.  However, the new film is wise not to experiment with new angles for Nigel.  What works should be upheld.  It was smart just to let this supporting character remain as is.  Tucci is always wonderful and the film lights up when it circles back to him.

I’ve heard some are disappointed with deviations applied to the Miranda character.  In the first film, she truly is the one you love to hate.  Here, Meryl Streep is ready to respond to a change of climate and thus, Miranda is not as free to be the uncompromising slave driver while also revealing some genuine feelings.  This is the best part of The Devil Wears Prada 2.  It exposes the humanity of a notoriously cold person.  Yet, a wiser choice would have been to dismiss the Branagh character and have Miranda share moments with her twin daughters briefly touched on in the first film but never mentioned here.

Though I never cared for Adrian Grenier in the role of Andy’s boyfriend Nate, the first film leaves open possibilities for their relationship to survive.  Nate was a budding chef which on principle opens a lot of doors for the Prada world. The new iteration could have circled back to Nate being requested to cater one of the many events that occurs in this film, even when the story diverts to Miranda’s Hampton getaway.  Instead, a forgettable guy fills that void for Andy’s perspective.  What was to gain from that?

I was skeptical a follow up movie would work.  Prada doesn’t demand new adventures like Indiana Jones or Batman.  Yet, the new film offers a lot of potential to apply Miranda and Andy to a new internet culture of harassment boundaries to contend with two decades after they first met.  A lot of good seeds left about in the first film are abandoned in lieu of newly irrelevant material and characters.  Had The Devil Wears Prada 2 condensed its ideas the pace and drive would have been much more novel and adorably reminiscent at the same time.  Alas, it’s a size 14 when it should be a size 6.  The Blu Ray release should have a special edition that excises all of this unwanted fabric and size up a dress that’s more sleek and form fitting.  

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)

By Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
My Rating: 10/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 87% Certified Fresh

PLOT: The story of a taboo romantic relationship between two cowboys, and their lives over the years.


Brokeback Mountain is the kind of movie that makes me wish I was a better communicator, like Lost in Translation.  I know I love these movies, I know WHY I love these movies, but it’s difficult for me to put into words.

Brokeback is, of course, the movie that will forever be known among the snark peddlers as “that gay cowboy movie,” which is insultingly reductive.  That’s like referring to Star Wars as “that space movie.”  To reduce the movie to those terms is to totally ignore the boundless riches to be had by watching it, I mean really watching it.

For one thing, damn, just LOOK at it.  Look at the way the skies fill the frame, with clouds hanging heavily over the mountains and the dusty streets and the trailer parks.  Director Ang Lee makes the sky into a tangible character all its own, much like Kubrick did with the Overlook Hotel.  It infuses every outdoor scene with a sense of the largeness of the world around us.  It’s a fitting backdrop for the intimate story presented to us.  In fact, those huge scenic backdrops are kind of a throwback to the ‘70s, to the films of Cimino and Arthur Penn and Bertolucci, when painting a picture with the camera was two-thirds of the story.  Virtually every outdoor scene in Brokeback Mountain is worthy of framing in an art gallery.  Stupendous.

The movie turns on the story of two men who unexpectedly and passionately fall in love in 1963, a time when gay love was still taboo, at least in polite society, and especially in any given cowboy community.  But as the story winds its way through almost twenty years in the lives of these men, it becomes less about the FACT of their affair, and more about the enormous sense of yearning and loss that comes from desperately wanting something that you can’t have.  Who among us has never felt that kind of insane desire?  Not necessarily for a person, even, but for anything at all?  A crippled man who longs to walk, or a blind man who yearns to see.  A dream job.  A dream vacation.  That’s what this movie is about.

Heath Ledger delivers the performance that really put him on the map.  His portrayal of Ennis Del Mar is incredibly subtle, although his Western accent flirts with impenetrability at times.  I love the way he shambles and mumbles through his role, virtually the entire movie, which pays off in that fantastic scene by the lake (“I wish I knew how to quit you!”) when this hulk of a man is torn down by his own unspoken passion.

Again…I’m not a poet, so this really doesn’t quite get at the mood generated by the movie.  It’s no feel-good film, that’s for sure, but it’s worth seeing by anyone who loves world-class storytelling.  Don’t let anyone, or your own preset notions, steer you different.