Category: Drama

THE APPRENTICE

By Marc S. Sanders

No.  This is not a reality show.  This film feels much more authentic than the “reality” of a reality show.

Ali Abassi is the director making broad strokes that cover the early career of one Donald J Trump (Sebastian Stan).  By the time I was finished with the picture, I gathered that Abassi was depicting how one monster created his own monster, and then that creation destroyed the original creator.  This might as well be the story of Darth Plagieus The Wise.  Watch a Star Wars movie for a change, would ya?

The original creator is the infamously corrupt attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) who proudly knows how to dodge one indictment after another  while standing on the precipice of his historic conniving.  In a private New York City club one night in the early 1970s, Mr. Cohn will lock eyes with Mr. Trump across a crowded room.  Cohn will mentor this kid about the three rules of business which include denials when necessary and never admitting you’re wrong.  

Trump works for his uncompromising father Fred (Martin Donovan, bearing a striking resemblance to the real person, complete with the bushy mustache, bushy hair, and towering height).  The family is in the business of real estate while fighting accusations of forcing out lower class minorities from their run-down tenement buildings.  Donald is not even fearful of knocking door to door with late rent notices and threats of evictions.  Still, he knows they are up against a wall and if there’s anyone who can exonerate him and his father it is Roy Cohn.  Yet, Roy does not weaponize with legal research and law jargon to uphold a defense.  Instead, he digs up dirt on those figures that are in the way.  To keep skeletons from going public will mean a drop of the case. Thus, Donald has received his first lesson in cutthroat business operations.

From there, Trump gets the impression that with Roy there’s no limit on what can be achieved.  New York City is slum area, but Trump knows he can revitalize the streets with his invested infrastructures, beginning with Trump Tower on 5th Avenue.  It’s time to pressure Ed Koch for tax breaks even if there’s no justification.  If Ed doesn’t want to cooperate, it is to the press Donald J goes with how he truly feels about the Big Apple’s Mayor.

As the fast tracker gets more and more visionary, so does the recognition of a guy who…well may be crazy enough to become a game show host or even President of the United States.

Much of The Apprentice seems legitimate based on the very public image of Donald Trump.  The common gestures like the thumb and index finger held together to drive home a point or the repetitive adjectives that construct much of the man’s vernacular (“…tremendous, tremendous…”).  The junk food eating is covered.  Trump’s hyperactive ranting and slamming of those in his way work towards his drive along with his disregard for not honoring loan payments.  The growth of his empire in casinos and resorts break ground too.  None of this is slander.  The news showed how it happened.

Private moments are where skepticism could be merited.  The prenuptial agreement that Cohn drafts, and a supposed forcible rape on his first wife Ivana (Maria Baklova) by Trump are given attention.  The disdain he has for his alcoholic older brother reveal the workings of a family life never based on love, and only on platforms of business and prestige.  His sneaky approach to get his senile father to sign documents may or may not have happened.  I dunno. When his mother found out about it, she threw him out of the house. Perhaps? Doesn’t sound so farfetched.

Trump’s obsession with his appearance is also given attention.  A constant habit with fixing his hair is redundantly shown. I believe it. If he was not obsessed with his hair, he wouldn’t look like he does, and that haircut begs for some proper attention. If he’s not going to eat right and exercise, then his doctor will conduct surgery to preserve his youth, and a hair transplant will be completed to conceal a bald spot.  Apparently, Trump took diet pills as a means to offset his terrible nutrition. Doc insists they are amphetamines that his patient has to stop using, but for a guy like Donald Trump, he has to keep going and going. No time to sleep when there are worlds to conquer and beach front property to build upon. I don’t suppose any of these private activities away from the paparazzi can be validated with tangible proof beyond heresy. Nevertheless, again as the world knows Donald Trump today and for the last forty years, what is offered in Ali Abbasi’s account, with a screenplay by Gabriel Sherman, seems consistent from what the public sees regularly. Don’t get me started on the board game my dad got me for Hanukkah in the early 1990s, or the fact that Trump eats a filet mignon with ketchup.

As Trump goes up the scale, Cohn is quickly descending and the man who gave the kid access to everything is disregarded during the age of AIDS spreading in the early 1980s when Reagan seemed to inspire the use of disposable income for many middle-class yuppies.  Cohn is a victim of these prosperous, yet unexpected times. Being a closeted homosexual and contracting AIDS did not suit the cloth of this shark. Also, the mounting charges against the lawyer for his unseemly practices eventually caught up to him. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy, quite frankly.

Jeremy Strong is known for his literal method acting and he personifies Roy Cohn, the guy with chutzpah not just found in him but in everyone he associates with including criminal mob bosses.  This is a very powerful guy that no one should underestimate.  The only thing that could kill him is if Donald gets out control…along with Roy surrendering to the residual effects of a secret gay sex life in the early 80s.

This is not so much a polarizing film based on red and blue politics.  Donald Trump actually functions like the one depicted in The Apprentice.  Sebastian Stan wisely steers away from a Saturday Night Live impersonation.  You don’t hear Trump’s voice but with talented hair and makeup artists, you recognize the delivery of dialogue.  It changes from a polite young man who wants to be the emperor he sees in his father, only not as conservative and a lot more aggressive.  Later, with the help of an overly confident ego accompanied with a loud and brash mouth, do you see the person most of us are familiar with. 

The Apprentice has a documentary style narrative with Abbasi’s reliance on hand held cameras.  The grainy photography of the 1970s Nixon years enhance the crime and disruptive unsettling Northeastern America.  Donald Trump, in his beige linen suits and ties, does not fit in this environment.  There isn’t an authority to him yet. He looks too liberal actually. In the 1980s, with much accumulated for the mogul, the graininess changes to look like footage played back on a VCR.  Trump has the tuxedos and overcoats that do not hide his belly well enough.  The navy suit and red tie surface for the first time and his surroundings are often decorated in gaudy layers of gold.  The royalty he’s placed himself in is here to stay.  Roy Cohn used to go all out with his parties and sex orgy binges, but never like this.  This new Donald J Trump is so overinflated that even the great Roy Cohn is drowned out of existence.

Ali Abbasi allows some winks and nods at what we know will become of Donald Trump.  Name drops of other bigger than life businessmen enter the scenes and you nod your head when you see guys like Rupert Murdoch or Roger Stone arrive.  Trump’s brand has always been defined by the power pawns he associates with.

A side story glosses over Donald’s relationship with Ivanna.  I know why it has to be here.  It’s played well by Maria Baklova and Sebastian Stan.  Though in comparison to Donald’s relationships with his father and brother, plus Roy Cohn, the marriage storyline does not carry the same kind of weight.  Much of the material seems conjured up here and not as genuine.  Maybe that is because the general public has never seen how the husband and wife truly treated each behind closed doors.

The Apprentice declares that there are portions of the film that are fictionalized for dramatic effect.  Yet aren’t most biographies?  Sebastian Stan seems to have a lock on his portrayal.  If he judged his character at all, he lent credence to how the real man is satisfied with how he carries himself.  I don’t know how the actor sides politically or how he particularly feels about Donald Trump, but Stan grew a respect for the figure.  He doesn’t make the guy look like a buffoon.  This Trump is passionate about every new project he pursues and just as equally he’s focused on pushing obstacles and enemies out of his way. If he doesn’t push, then he steps on them. It doesn’t matter if it is his wife, his brother, his father, his mother or the one that got him everything he needed, his good friend Roy. Even a once respected mentor can become a casualty in the pursuit of greatness.

I can’t say how any one person might respond to The Apprentice.  A Trump follower, or even Donald J Trump himself, may feel very flattered by this reenactment and how the guy got to the top of his gold pyramid.  Others will be offended and exhausted over even more exposure of the largest ego the world has encountered.  Either way, I attribute my compliments for the outstanding pairing of Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong.  A partnership is at the center of this piece, and now we bear witness to how the connection between these two characters moved along, and then eventually very far away from each other.

THE HOMECOMING (Great Britain, 1973)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Peter Hall
CAST: Paul Rogers, Ian Holm, Cyril Cusack, Viven Merchant
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 86% Fresh

PLOT: After a nine-year absence, a philosophy professor visits his psychologically dysfunctional family in London to introduce them to his wife.  Let the mind games begin.

[WARNING: This review contains mild spoilers. …not that a ton of people will run out to find this movie right away, but still…just in case…mild spoilers.]


There have been countless movies about dysfunctional families through the ages, so many that I won’t bother listing any.  I haven’t watched them all because there is only so much psychic room in my mind for movies about mean people being mean to each other for the sake of being mean.  There are exceptions to the rule, as always, but that is my general feeling on the matter.  Peter Hall’s The Homecoming, based on a blistering play by Harold Pinter, has an ending that I’m still trying to sort out, and which I felt left me hanging, but I think I may see what Pinter was reaching for, and in order to suss all that out, it will be necessary for me to discuss specifics of that ending.  So, be warned.

In the tradition of Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and Tennessee Willaims, Pinter’s The Homecoming is a portrait of several unlikable people who are thrown together due to an accident of birth.  Based on the movie, it is unlikely any of them would cross the street to piss on any of the others if they were on fire.  Max (Paul Rogers) is the patriarch, a mean, abusive little man who spews never-ending insults at whomever is in range.  He is a widower with three sons: Lenny (Ian Holm), Joey, and Teddy.  Lenny and Joey are grown but still live at home.  Joey is an aspiring boxer, and Lenny…well, we never quite get to know what Lenny does for money, although it is hinted towards the end that he is involved in some less-than-savory enterprises.  Teddy, miraculously, has made good as a professor of philosophy in the United States, but he hasn’t been home in nine years.

There is also Max’s brother, Sam (Cyril Cusack), a tall, effete man with a high, reedy voice that would probably be comic in different circumstances.  Sam absorbs Max’s tirades with the kind of unruffled calm that only comes after years of experience.  Together, they form one of the most unpleasant family units since Jaime and Cersei in Game of Thrones.  Here’s one of Max’s more pleasant descriptions of his sons: “Look what I’m lumbered with.  One cast-iron bunch of crap after another.  One flow of stinking pus after another.”  How is this guy still single.

One night, they’re surprised by the return of Teddy, the philosophy professor, with his wife, Ruth (Vivien Merchant) in tow.  It’s indicative of Teddy’s relationship with his family that none of them knew he had been married for nine years…with three sons of his own.  After some quote-unquote pleasantries, everyone goes to bed except Ruth and Lenny.  Lenny has the balls to slyly put some moves on her in a weird-ass game of cat and mouse, as if he’s probing her for weaknesses, looking for the best place to stick the knife in.  Ruth is passive at first, but shows a spark of strength before everyone calls it a night.  But the next day…that’s when the feces really hits the fan.

The Homecoming is a great example of a “slow burn” film, the kind of movie that takes its sweet time getting around to its prime directive because it only makes sense because of everything that came before, like Atonement [2007] or Incendies [2010].  We are shown so much of Max’s vitriolic harangues because we have to see how momentous it is when his brother or Ruth finally respond in a meaningful way.  We are shown so little of what Ruth is capable of at the beginning because it is that much more shocking when she proves herself even more adept at psychological warfare than anyone else in the house, including her husband.

But what is the point of all this?  In a movie like In the Company of Men [1997], for example, we spend so much time in the presence of sociopathic monsters so that, at the end, one of them can be shown the error of his ways in an immensely satisfying conclusion.  But, in The Homecoming, we don’t really get that kind of wallop in the face at the end.  Granted, Ruth displays her tenacity in a satisfying manner, putting each and every man in the house in their place in one way or another (some ways more surprising than others), but when that final shot faded to black, I was like, “That’s IT?”

What is Pinter getting at?  Is he demonstrating that, no matter how bad you may think your family is, it could always be worse?  Did he perhaps exorcise some demons in his own past by committing these flawed individuals to paper?  The film is based on a play, but the acting style throughout is very stilted, for lack of a better word.  The only character who displays something vibrant on the screen is Max, but his vibrancy is only defined by his cruelty.  Everyone else (with the possible exception of Ian Holm as Lenny) sounds almost as if they’re reciting their lines at the first read-through of the rehearsal period.  Cyril Cusack gets some jabs in as Sam, but they’re very few and far between.  Why does the meanest character have the strongest voice, at least until the final sequence?

It might be easy to explain it as a Whiplash [2014] thing, where great things can only be accomplished after even greater trials and tribulations.  You can’t appreciate the light unless you’ve spent some time in the dark, et cetera.  As a movie-watching experience, I must honestly report that my patience was starting to wear thin until we finally got to the second act of the film.  I would have enjoyed more color and flair from the other actors.  However, that might have ruined the effect the filmmakers were going for, so I’m of two minds.  It explains my only slightly-above-average rating.  If the entire movie moved and sparkled like its second half, I may have gone a little higher.

It’s also worth mentioning that this film only exists because of a filmmaking project spearheaded by producer Ely Landau whereby fans of stage drama would purchase a subscription to a “season” of films that would be shown simultaneously at 500 movie theaters across America, sort of like what Fathom Events does today.  These were filmed adaptations of stage plays, not a record of a staged production, and 100% faithful to the original scripts.  Notable films in this experiment included The Homecoming, Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh [1973, dir. John Frankenheimer], Ionesco’s Rhinoceros [1973, dir. Tom O’Horgan], and Albee’s A Delicate Balance [1973, dir. Tony Richardson and starring Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield <!!!>].  American Film Theatre only lasted two seasons, but if you’re a fan of faithful cinematic adaptations of stage plays, these are going to be worth the search on streaming or home video.

The Homecoming is ultimately a rewarding watch, for the performances from Paul Rogers and Ian Holm, if for nothing else.  (Vivien Merchant is appropriately cool, but again, you have to wait for near the end of the film to see her really shine.)  It’s an interesting record of a moment in film history when a group of people had a radical idea and the money to fund it.  And, it must be said, it’s an excellent way to remind yourself that, however bad your family is, it can always be worse.  MUCH worse.

MRS. MINIVER

By Marc S. Sanders

To watch a classic film, usually reserved for Turner Classic Movies, is to get a history lesson while realizing that people’s perceptions have hardly changed.    In the early 1940s as World War II was occurring, happiness in many corners of the world was still moving forward.  Presently, I believe that happens today.  For example, Israeli hostages are only now being released from Hamas.  Until the conflict is over though, a childhood friend of mine chooses to run every Sunday morning.  He declares that he runs because they can’t.  This friend is not a soldier bearing arms.  He is acknowledging a violent and frightening conflict that persists.  On the side, he’s a devoted New York Yankees fan.  In 1942, when William Wyler’s Oscar winning film Mrs. Miniver was released, the well to do characters were performing comparably as Europe was in the thick of staving off the Nazi militia.

Mrs. Miniver opens on a bustling metropolitan district in England.  The title character, Kay Miniver (Greer Garson), is in a mad rush for something.  She hops on and off the double decker bus and weaves her way through the crowd.  Finally, she arrives at the destination.  The glamorous hat she’s had her eye on is still available to purchase.  Her only dilemma now is what will her husband think when he learns of the extravagant purchase.

Upon her arrival home, Clem Miniver (Walter Pidgeon) hides from his wife in a brand new convertible.  When she goes in the house, he makes a decision.  It’s expensive, but he must have the car and so he buys it.

In this tranquil part of England, the most immediate concern among these well to do people is deciding whether or not to treat themselves to gifts that will bring them joy.  Talk of a German invasion seems like a possibility, but the Minivers, with their two young children and their twenty-year-old son at Oxford, insist on living comfortably and happily.

Lady Beldon (May Whitty) is the elderly and intimidating aristocrat who suffers a terrible dilemma.  It seems the bell ringer, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), has grown a beautiful rose that looks like no other.  He cherishes it so much that he names the flower “Mrs. Miniver.”  The real person is honored for the personal recognition.  Yet, Lady Beldon’s concern is her yellow rose will not win this year’s prize trophy cup at the village flower festival.  Her granddaughter Carol (Teresa Wright) gracefully asks Kay if she’ll convince Mr. Ballard to withdraw his entry so that her grandmother can win once again.  She’s elderly, she’s accustomed to winning each year, and it would mean the world to her.

This request will also lead to a romance for Carol with the Minivers’ son Vin (Richard Ney), who has just enlisted in the Royal Air Force so he’s ready to fight the Axis forces of World War II.

All of this seems frivolous during the first half of Mrs. Miniver.  These people live comfortably but gradually grow a little more unsettled as they soon hear planes flying overhead their homes while the sounds of battle play off in the distance.   The possibilities of war coming to their front door seems to be an unlikely scenario.  The battles and bloodshed are out of sight, but only partially out of mind. 

I appreciate the editing of this film.  Clem is woken in the middle of the night to join the other neighboring husbands at the local saloon.  They are being requested to join the historic small boat rescue at the battle of Dunkirk.  The men down a drink and sail off without hesitation.  No one gives protest or stands behind their wealth or stature.

Midway through the picture, Kay is reading a bedtime story to her children in a dimly lit room.  We never see the entirety of this cramped space.  The scene simply begins with no transition.  The walls appear to be made of aluminum and then I realize the Minivers have taken shelter in an underground bunker.  Soon, they will be living through one unimaginable night of shelling and bomb dropping. Director William Wyler never turns off the camera through the extended sequence.  The bunker shakes and rattles.  The children cry in fear.  Dirt rains down them.  Books and belongings fall among the family. The pounding explosions carry on outside.  It seems to never end and the concern over a lady’s fashion hat or a beautiful new automobile are distant memories.

When Vin and Carol arrive home from a honeymoon, the Minivers home is wrecked.  So is Clem’s boat following the Dunkirk incident.  However, they happily remain living there with the youngest child playing a welcoming number on the piano.  

Amid all of these episodes, the people of this small English town uphold their positivity, but they never lose sight of what is nearby.  It’s just a house.  The Minivers are surviving and remain together.  Their biggest concern is that one day Vin won’t return from battle. Yet, time and again he does with hugs and kisses for everyone.

I’ve provided a lot of what occurs in Mrs. Miniver because I was not entirely sure of the purpose of all of these happenings until the final act is served and surprising outcomes arrive.  For much of the film, William Wyler delivers an impression of life away from the front lines.  These people live with a devotion to help their country and abandon comfort when necessary. Flower festivals, gleeful children, young romance and materialistic tranquility will carry on regardless of terrible interruptions of war.

Amid turmoil in our present state with political divides, unjust prejudice, natural disasters, and a resurgence of Cold War threats, I can’t help but wonder if many of us live like this family.  I believe we do, and I see nothing wrong with that.  We have to escape and live happily no matter what terrible future might befall us because otherwise what is the purpose of living?  Still, we choose to remain alert and especially empathetic and ready to aid our fellow neighbors when the need arises.

Visually, a shocking set design for the final scene of Mrs. Miniver sends a message that is only enhanced by a sermon delivered by the town minister.  I learned later that this speech was written at the last second by William Wyler and the actor portraying the minister (Henry Wilcoxon).  It perfectly demonstrates the overall purpose of the entire film.  Mrs. Miniver is the story of a fight for ongoing freedom; an independence to live and to treat oneself happily and lovingly.  People perish during the course of the picture.  The minister explains with convincing validity why they had to die so undeservedly and unexpectedly.  It’s an ending that really touched me, and upon the movie’s conclusion a message appears urging Americans to buy war bonds.  

This speech had such an impact at the time that it circulated in propaganda films and on radio airwaves as a means to deliver a shared triumph among the Allied masses.  It reminded people that simply because you live at home, does not mean you are exonerated of the fight for continued freedom.  The fight is not exclusive to hoisting a rifle or dropping bombs from planes.  A unified front of country must be upheld.  

Mrs. Miniver begins as a romanticized film of people living glamorously and happily but it effectively segues to a reality of uncertain times.  I went from questioning what is its purpose to an understanding of a reason to live and to strive.  

EMILIA PEREZ (FRANCE)

By Marc S. Sanders

I never watched a telenovela from start to finish.  At best, the only footage I’ve seen are on GIF scenes that tease at the over exasperated expressions (bulging eyes, big teeth, big hairstyles, lots of lipstick) of the actors and the characters they are portraying.  The Funny Or Die You Tube clips draw their comedy by having the straightest voiceover summarize a season of these miniseries. The stories were not meant for humor, but on the surface, I can’t help but think they are operating with a Naked Gun tongue firmly in an Airplane! cheek. 

Emilia Pérez looks like a telenovela compiled into a two-hour film, but as outrageous as the storyline and the sequence of events play out it’s anything but silly.  I held an appreciation for the circumstances that writer/director Jacques Audiard set up so that the insurmountable conflicts appeared convincing, and most especially overwhelming.  Emilia Pérez performs like an episode of Three’s Company – the one with the misunderstanding – but there are complications that border on bloody violence, life, and death.

Zoe Saldana portrays Rita, a defense attorney for Mexico’s worst criminals, and she despises the purpose she serves for the murderous scum she represents as she assists in getting one thug exonerated after another.  Early on in the picture, Saldana espouses her remorse through song and dance all within the middle of a courtroom, because as you quickly learn Audiard’s film is a movie musical. 

Shortly after the opening number Rita is summoned by Manitas, the most powerful head of the Mexican drug cartel.  He has unlimited resources and cash, and he hires Rita to do a worldwide search for the finest physicians to complete his sex change operation.  Once that is complete, the two will arrange the publicly known death of Manitas, send his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and their two children off to hiding in Switzerland, and the drug czar will be replaced by the woman Emilia Pérez.  Emilia and Manitas are portrayed by real life trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón.

Four years jump by, and Emilia catches up with Rita, who remains the only person to know of the ruse that took place.  Emilia wants Rita to deliver Jessi and the children back to her.  The former father will now pose as the wealthy aunt and they will live together in Mexico, going forward. 

Rita discovers a new kind of respect for Emilia as the bloody past of this individual have ceased since her sex change.  As such, Emilia recalls that her former self was responsible for countless murders and kidnappings, many of which took place under her command.  Now she seeks redemption by making herself public with a well-funded campaign that will focus on the recovery of missing people and set up proper burial arrangements so next of kin can have closure.  Emilia reveals a common burial site where hundreds of bodies were secretly laid to rest.  No one questions how she knows of this area.  Yet, she becomes a philanthropic woman who has earned the respect of millions within Mexico.  The irony is that she recruits other cartel lords to make sizable donations to this cause.  If anything, it makes them look more noble in a public eye.

Elsewhere, simplicity does not hold for her relationship with Jessi.  I won’t reveal what occurs because it lends to an ending you might expect.  All three leads embrace different perspectives of this storyline, and it only heightens the complexities of the film.

Jacques Audiard is of French descent, and after seeing the film I learned that many have taken issue with him overseeing this project.  He does not speak Spanish, has no Mexican heritage and according to many has not embraced a true account of Mexican culture or activity.  The movie was also submitted for Oscar contention as the French candidate in the Best Foreign Film category. I’m glad I did not learn of these objections until after seeing Audiard’s film, though.  It did not interfere with my take on the picture, and I believe it should not cloud your viewpoint if you intend to see it.  (It’s currently showing on Netflix.)  There were moments in the film that I predicted would occur such as where a boy on a bicycle is heading with a plastic shopping bag in tow.  By that moment, I knew what was to be revealed inside the bag. 

The film is soap opera like, especially with the musical numbers that are included.  I’d think the songs were composed by Lin Manuel Miranda if I didn’t know better because the lyrics work like dialogue much like you would see in Hamilton or In The Heights.  I was taken with the singing performances of Saldana, Gascón, and of course Gomez who works part time as a professional singer anyway.  It’s almost operatic how they and other cast members express their conflicting feelings in character.  Out of context of the film, I don’t think any of these songs work or would draw an attraction to leave the radio tuned in.  The songs are storytelling, but not memorable or catchy with chorus versus.

While I did not mind the song portions, I never missed them when scripted dialogue, primarily in Spanish with English subtitles, was being played.  I guess you could say the music makes the film different.  A different kind of telenovela, a different kind of crime drama, a different kind of soap opera, and certainly a different kind of musical.  Whether you take to the assembly of the film or not, you cannot deny that Emilia Pérez stands out within any one of these categories.

The film is up for the most Oscar nominations in the year 2024, thirteen in total.  One thing that is odd though is that Zoe Saldana is competing in the Best Supporting Actress race while Karla Sofía Gascón is up for Best Actress.  Even though Gascón plays the title character, I insist it should be the other way around. Saldana occupies most of the running time of the film and as complicated as the character Emilia Pérez is, I found Saldana to be more conflicted as Rita, the outsider looking in with all the secrets held tight in her subconscious.  The best way to share her struggles with the audience is to sing them aloud.  The long-time action movie star (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avatar) sets the stage for the whole movie, as soon as the five hundred million studio logos get their street cred at the beginning of the film.  (I empathize with Peter Griffin on Family Guy.) Saldana is marvelous in this picture.  A stunning performance.

As Emilia Pérez, Karla Sofía Gascón pulls off an intricate stretch as she convincingly plays two very different roles.  Had the film not told me, her character could have easily been the second coming of The Crying Game. Unlike Saldana though, once Emilia is brought into the film I didn’t so much see a performance as I heard the problematic narrative that came from the script.  I don’t recall any special moments or scenes that wowed me to the point of an Oscar nomination.  It’s certainly one of the most unique roles to come along in films lately.  So I guess that’s where the justification for special recognition stems from.

Selena Gomez is a powerhouse in her role.  She was worthy of a nomination that regrettably did not come.  As I understand she cannot speak Spanish fluently and was challenged at times with the dialogue and the singing involved.  Beyond Saldana’s introductory number, Gomez has the standout song with her portion of El Trio.  Gomez has so many dimensions to this character, as the bubbly airheaded and spoiled wife of the drug czar, who then transitions to a sorrowful and cold caricature after time has passed since her husband has been killed, and later she is vengefully outraged.  This is such a standout performance from her lighter material found in Disney programming and Only Murders In The Building.  She’s quite fierce.

I liked Emilia Pérez.  Artistically speaking, I question the worthiness of some of the recognition though.  It’s up for Best Cinematography.  Often the picture is grainy, which I believe was deliberate, but intent does not imply the highest order of artistic measure.  Maybe it is earning praise due to the transitions during the musical numbers.  Nevertheless, this film does not look as sharp as Dune, Alien: Romulus or The Brutalist. 

As well, I did not find anything special for its nomination in Sound.  Perhaps the sound lends to the music embedded throughout the film.  I don’t know.  I can’t figure what was merited here, when there are arguably dozens of other films that likely deserved more recognition. 

The creative licenses are where the strengths lie in Emilia Pérez.  The editing and directing are good with expansive footage of Mexican locales, and transitioning film work during the song and dance portions.  It has a screenplay that grabbed me right away.  The compounded conflicts that arise feel fresh as one new development introduces itself after another. None of the material is so much for shock value like you would find in a telenovela.  The crises all seem to make sense. 

It’s not easy once a gender transition is complete, especially for a murderous drug lord.  Likewise, it’s not going to be easy for the immediate family or the one person who carries all the secrets that no one else does.  Regardless of his background, Jacques Audiard’s film lays enough groundwork and attention for each of these women’s perspectives.  He’s simply a storyteller who triumphs with impressionable tales to unfold. 

THE BRUTALIST (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Brady Corbet
CAST: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: When a visionary architect and his wife flee post-war Europe, their lives are changed forever by a wealthy client.


Maybe I’m a victim of too much hype.  Maybe that’s partly my fault, too, as I waited to see Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist until after it had been nominated for a whopping ten Oscars, including the so-called “Big Five:” Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay.  As a result, my expectations were possibly a little too high.  I admit it.  However, even if my expectations hadn’t been inflated, I don’t believe The Brutalist would have affected me any differently.  It never lost my interest during its 3.5-hour running time, but it never achieved the kind of liftoff I felt I was being prepped for.  At the end, I was left with more questions than answers, which can be acceptable for some films, but for this one, I felt like I was left out of the loop.

In 1947, László Tóth (Adrien Brody), an Austro-Hungarian Jew, successfully emigrates to America, fleeing intolerable conditions at home, but is forced to leave behind his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), and his mute niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy).  He was a respected architect in his home country, but now he is part of the huddled masses, represented in a sensational shot as his ship sails past Lady Liberty, the camera tilting so she is upside-down and cattywampus in the frame.  That really got my attention, for some reason.  If you want to really drill down, it could be visual foreshadowing for how László’s American experience will not be quite as stable as he had hoped.  Or maybe director Corbet just liked how it looked.  Either way.

Although László’s overriding priority is to somehow get his wife and niece to America, he must first get a job (after first engaging in a surprisingly frank and raunchy sex scene with a prostitute).  His first safe harbor is with his Americanized cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who runs a custom furniture company with his shiksa wife, Audrey.  It’s through this job that László meets American millionaire Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce), a man who will unwittingly shape László’s life for the next several years.  Harrison has a son, Harry (Joe Alwyn), who looks like a distant relative of the Hemsworth clan and is a condescending racist, let us not mince words, but who, in his own words, tolerates László’s presence because of his architectural skills.  (Harrison wants László to design a community center in honor of his late mother.)

This is all just in the first act of the movie, before the intermission.  The Brutalist moves with a deliberate calmness, in spite of its thriller-esque title.  I was reminded of Doctor Zhivago [1965], as it covers large swatches of László’s life with nice attention to detail, never hurrying, but never losing my interest.  The second act finally introduces Erzsébet, László’s wife, for the first time in two hours (hope that’s not too much of a spoiler).  The plot spins out for the rest of the film as a series of conflicts between László, his wife, Harrison and his son, and the crew building the community center that László has designed.  László becomes more irascible as changes are proposed and approved without his knowledge, plus he must deal with a change in his wife’s condition.  There is a detour to Italy where László and Harrison must decide on which marble to use for the center’s, er, centerpiece, and it’s here where an act is committed that, although it feels like it came out of left field, does not seem too surprising considering the behavior of the perpetrator during the first couple of hours.

As I was watching The Brutalist play out, I was repeatedly reminded of another film, featuring another madman with a single-minded focus, also played out in an earlier era of American history, though it takes place decades earlier than The Brutalist: Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood [2007].  Both films have the same deliberate pacing, the same focus on men of industry, their familial and professional challenges, even the same kind of jarring, atonal score playing in the background during key scenes.  But while The Brutalist is at least equally as well made as There Will Be Blood, the latter movie reached out and grabbed me by the lapels and didn’t let go until the final scene, ending with a bang and not a whimper.  I cannot say the same about The Brutalist.  I give props to the craft of the film, to the filmmakers who clearly had a lot to say and needed the time to say it.  The editors knitted everything together and gave the film a very specific voice.  But as the film’s epilogue played out, and I realized how it was about to end, I sank a little lower in my seat and thought to myself, “Well, this is mildly disappointing.”

Sidney Lumet once wrote words to the effect of, “If your movie is over two hours long, you’d better have a lot to say.”  The Brutalist does have a lot to say about the Jewish experience in post-war America, about the single mindedness of gifted artists, about the casual racism embedded in white America that persists even today.  But I couldn’t get away from the feeling that it could have said it in a movie that wasn’t long enough to require an intermission, that didn’t answer questions that were left unanswered (how and when did Zsófia suddenly start speaking?  where did Harrison go??  what exactly happened on that stream bank between Harry and Zsófia???), and that didn’t leave me feeling as if I’d watched a correspondence course video on American architecture instead of a movie.  Again, it’s well-made and occasionally beautiful to look at.  It’s not a BAD movie.  It’s just not a GREAT one.

FAME

By Marc S. Sanders

Sometimes a movie can only be accepted of its time.  The storylines, the music, the performances and the direction no longer appear as genuine or innovative in comparison to films that arrived later, after its own appreciation has floundered.  That is especially true of movies that stand on the heels of the pop culture it pioneers.  

I believe Alan Parker’s high school hit Fame was a landmark film.  Jumping forty-five years into the future though and I’m sad to say it has lost much of its staying power. 

Perhaps, as the 1980s were just beginning I’d believe that Christopher Gore’s script would get an Oscar nomination.  Maybe I’d cheer on a performance by a not yet Tony award winner named Barry Miller whose praises were sung by the media along with the likes of Barbra Streisand and John Travolta for a performance that mirrors a lot of what comedian Freddie Prinze experienced, both successfully and tragically.  Today however, I find much of what is preserved in the final cut of Fame to be unforgivingly cheesy, overacted and oversaturated with one “very special episode” trope after another.  

Parker and Gore outline Fame around four aspiring students within all kinds of performing arts from dance to song to acting and scene writing.  The film cuts from one storyline to another broken down over five sections of life within a Manhattan performing arts school – Auditions followed by Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior and Senior years.  We see the students move from nervous, unsure personalities to mature young adults comfortable in the cloth of a school with artistic passions and confident of where they want to steer their futures that hold no promises.  However, just because they have dreams on their horizons following graduation, it does not automatically spell out financial success and fame.  The purpose of Fame is to demonstrate an ongoing uphill battle while these teens try make it either on Broadway or in Hollywood.

In 1980, there’s attention drawn to what was not expected to be customary like the gay student who’s certain to be an outsider.  There’s the Jewish kid and the kid who can’t read and will flunk out.  There’s also the one who realizes he could become a great stand up comic and the young lady who must face the hard truth from a teacher that she’s not cut out to be a dancer.  There’s hints of suicide and drug use.  For one of the most likable characters named Coco (Irene Cara who famously sings the unforgettable Oscar winning theme song), she gets caught in a disturbing casting couch experience.

Watching Fame today, you can easily predict what’s coming as each new scene begins. Many of the stories are anecdotes limited to these brief episodes.  Storylines don’t wrap up just as life doesn’t.  We are simply reminded that these are the pains of enduring as one of any kind of performing artist during the throes of high school.  Because I’ve seen Blossom and The Facts Of Life and all of John Hughes movies, all which came after Fame, I was never moved or surprised with Alan Parker’s film.  Today, Fame looks like it’s just going through the motions.

What still works though is the independence to freely express a love for theatrics.  All of these kids take what they do very, very seriously.  I never underestimated or doubted one character’s passion.  They are especially in love with this stage of life when they can joyously storm out of the school to dance on top of cars and in front of traffic to the film’s title song.  They turn lunch time into their own personal orchestra of piano, saxophone and yes, more dancing.  These are the moments that remain timeless.

In 2023, Fame was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry for preservation of its historic significance in the world of film.  It belongs there.  I have no doubt that in 1980, as the disco era of the 70s were waning in interest,  Fame set a gold standard for themes and presentations of movies released during the decade that followed with adored soundtracks and well edited needle drops that memorialized classic scenes in other films like Flashdance, The Breakfast Club, Back To The Future, Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters and Dirty Dancing.  

Ironically, those other films, at least for me personally, have the staying power to…ahem…”live forever.” Yet, one thing is certain.  Whatever those movies accomplished…

…ultimately…

…Fame did it first!  

THE BRUTALIST

By Marc S. Sanders

Before I started writing this article, I had to marinate on my impression of Brady Corbet’s magnum opus film, The Brutalist.  It has the makings of a biography but it’s fiction.  It indulges practically every inch of a Holocaust survivor’s life after immigrating to America.  It takes daring approaches in its photography particularly since it was filmed using an antiquated 35 mm print in Vista Vision. (The director found it appropriate to use the filming methods that were available during the mid-century decades when most of the film takes place. Wise and insightful choice.) Despite using questionable AI techniques, two of the leads use impressive dialects and fluently speak in Hungarian and Hebrew as well.  Set designs, score, sound, visuals.  It’s all here.  Yet, I don’t feel I wholeheartedly enjoyed the experience of watching the picture, and this is coming from a guy who had the entire AMC auditorium #16 to himself on a chilly Thursday afternoon at 4:45pm.  Not a cell phone lit in my line of sight or a crying baby within earshot.  The theater was my oyster.  The Brutalist was not.

Adrien Brody won his first Oscar at age 29 for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist.  He earned his accolades for a heartbreaking performance.  He arguably works even harder as a visionary architect named László Tóth.  This nuanced creation from Brady Corbet is a most convincing historical character…of fiction, that is.  

László arrives on Ellis Island, separated from his wife and niece by concentration camp assignments during the war.  The ladies remain in captivity while he reunites with his brother, Atilla (Alessandro Nicola) and Christian sister-in-law who reside in Philadelphia, operating a custom furniture and carpentry shop.

Enter a raving mad and wealthy industrialist named Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) who arrives home to find out his son Harry Lee (Joe Alwyn) has hired the carpenters to redo a library as a big surprise.  Harrison is outraged at the finished product and denies payment for the job, thus causing a permanent rift between László and Atilla.  László is kicked out of his brother’s home following an accusation of making a pass at the wife, and he can only find refuge within a church shelter.  

Harrison has a change of heart however when his socialite friends take a special liking to the new room.  He tracks László down, pays him for the work, invites him to a Christmas party and subsequently insists he stay on the property while also connecting the Hungarian with an attorney who will make efforts to reunite him with his wife and niece who remain overseas.  

Meanwhile, an ambitious Harrison conjures up big plans right off the top of his head.  He wants to commission László to design an enormous building consisting of a library, a gymnasium, theatre and a chapel on a wide expanse of Pennsylvania land nearby his grand estate.  The building will be erected in honor of his loving mother’s memory.  A humble László accepts the assignment though he’s funding a heroin addiction with the monies given to him by Harrison.  

Though The Brutalist is fiction, I believe it should still be considered a lesson in north eastern American history.  As building gets underway, a perfectly timed intermission in the middle of the film arrives when we learn of Pennsylvania state’s aggressive campaign to manufacture and build with the precious commodity of US steel.  Fictionally speaking, we have Harrison Lee Van Buren and László Tóth to thank for these newly created jobs of construction and commodity developments.

There is a whole lot of story to tell in this three-and-a-half-hour picture that traverses through decades.  Brady Corbet’s depiction of his main character, László, runs the gamut of so many circumstances.  He’s a stranger in a strange land, even towards his newly Americanized brother who has shed his Jewish identity for prosperity.  The Anglo Christian mentality of Harrison Lee Van Buren, along with his family and fellow socialites, curiously study László as the alienated man he appears to be.  Loneliness is not a direct message that Corbet offers in the film, but how can László not feel lonely in this new land without the sensibilities of a wife to help him mind his boundaries and stay away from the poisons of heroin or personal betrayals that will challenge him?

The second half of The Brutalist oversees László growing accustomed to reuniting with his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), who has drastically changed in her physicality since they were last together.  Their primarily mute niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), has arrived as well.  The problem is that László has had opportunity to shed his weakness of being a Holocaust prisoner while taking charge of his most mesmerizing architectural design yet. His family’s arrival does not feel conducive with his new way of life, both intimately and religiously. The Brutalist covers a lot of conflicts while also showing massive progress for Harrison’s grand investment and László’s treasured work.  

After providing all of this exposition for the film, I think I’m ready to deliver my point.  It’s too much.  There’s so much story here that some of it feels unwelcome.  László’s heroin addiction never seems to add up or intrude effectively enough.  Because of the long running time of the movie, there are long sections where any reference to his yearning for heroin feels neglected.  This man of energetic and artistic passion is hardly ever weighed down by his vice and I questioned just how important it was for the drug addiction to be included in the film.  The script goes in so many different directions at times, it feels like it forgot about this important monkey that should be on László’s back.

László also gets challenged by Harrison’s American business and architectural partners which is one more conflict.  Unexpected fallbacks also occur that affect both László and Harrison’s years-in-the-making plans.  Then there is László’s friendship with an assistant who started as a fellow drug addict.  Finally, there is László and Erzsébet and the problems they face intimately and as common partners. The reunification of the married couple has new, unexpected dynamics to face.

It’s a lot.  While I never minded the running time of The Brutalist, all of these layers of storytelling become exhausting.  

Guy Pearce actually impressed me the most.  I loved his character and the shrewdness he exhibits to everyone he shares a scene with.  His gruff dialect with a pencil thin mustache, slicked back hair and perfectly tailored suits are distinct, but his presence in a room is always felt even when the camera is not on him or if he has nothing to say.  His stature gave me an impression of Rockefeller, a man with the appropriate and seemingly out of reach dreams that will deliver a future of advanced American building and development.  I may have loved Harrison Lee Van Buren’s story more than László Tóth’s.

However, I got angry with the film as the story was beginning its descent towards the end. Harrison commits a truly unexpected and heinous act that arrives out of nowhere.  This is a fictional story. So, I feel comfortable with my stance that what Brady Corbet opts for Pearce’s character seems wrong and unjust; a downright inappropriate take that did not add up for me.  Guy Pearce is giving a career high performance, but I did not care for how his character’s trajectory concluded.

Felicity Jones is a powerhouse actress as Erzsébet.  She appears so confident within the skin of her character as a defiant woman, unhinged by any sort of attempted intimidation from her husband or the Van Burens.  

Adrien Brody is the sure front runner to win a Best Actor Oscar, though I wish Ralph Fiennes would finally get his due recognition for Conclave.  There are so many directions that László Tóth is pulled in.  This is a very challenging personification for an actor to belabor.  For this one character alone, The Brutalist feels like five different movies are being played at once.  If you have read my reviews before then you may know that I’m a big admirer of multi-dimensional characters.  It’s hard to find a character this nuanced.  Michael Corleone is a comparison that comes to mind.  As I write this review, it astounds me how much depth I’m reflecting on within Corbet’s script and Brody’s performance.

I told a friend who has also seen the film that The Brutalist feels like a marriage between Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Milos Foreman’s Amadeus.  While these characters are considered audacious, great artists beyond comparable realms, they are never the most powerful people in the room.  The power belongs to those with the resources of wealth and those who proudly carry the rank and titles bestowed upon them.  For the artists, men of power stand in the way of the achievements they strive for, forcing them to vent their frustrations with self-harm and abuse towards the ones closest to them.

Everything I saw in Brady Corbet’s film is interesting.  Beginning with the arrival on Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty towering over a lost László, all the way to a visit at the seemingly unreachable mountains of Italy where beautiful, white porcelain exists in the highest reaches of nature.  You feel like you have traveled to places uncharted by most people of this Earth.  It’s breathtaking.  

The Brutalist follows the trajectory of a man arriving in America to accomplish his dreams and obtain a destiny he feels worthy of.  Only there are obstacles that will divert his path and thus a different outcome may arrive. 

Visually and with Brady Corbet’s ambition for this picture, The Brutalist is often astonishing to absorb.  Still, at least on my one and only viewing thus far, the film was overwhelmingly abundant, and I could not feel comfortable with all of it coming at me once.  Then again, that is likely how László and Erzsébet Tóth felt upon their arrival in the land of the free.

THE LEOPARD (Italy, 1963)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Luchino Visconti
CAST: Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Paolo Stoppa
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 98% Certified Fresh

PLOT: The Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860s Sicily.


Visconti’s intimate epic The Leopard evokes the spirit of so many other films, in all the best ways, that it’s hard to know where to begin.

It’s epic in scope and intimacy, like Doctor Zhivago.  The opulent costumes reminded me of Amadeus, and the lush scenery reminded of Barry Lyndon.  The final ballroom sequences must have influenced the wedding party in The Deer Hunter.  The literate screenplay refining tons of background exposition resurfaces in movies like JFK and Nixon.  The theme of a grizzled older man facing his own obsolescence is echoed in scores of Westerns from The Wild Bunch to Unforgiven to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In short, The Leopard takes bits and pieces of many of my favorite films and consolidates them into an absorbing movie that held my interest from beginning to end, despite its esoteric setting: Italy during the tumultuous years of the “Risorgimento,” when the aristocratic ruling classes were faced with extinction as the middle classes rose up, rebelled, and created a democratic Italy.

We first meet Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) as he and his extended family are attending vespers in an upstairs room of their palatial mansion.  Their ritual is interrupted by sounds of commotion and argument coming from outside the room; turns out the dead body of a soldier has been found in the garden.  (In retrospect, this seemed to me an elegant metaphor for the entire rest of the film: a family’s stability and comfort in ceremony and formality being interrupted by outside forces intent on tearing down the old order in favor of the new.)

The dead body is forgotten very shortly amid the return home of a beloved nephew, Tancredi Falconeri (the dashing Alain Delon).  His return is short-lived as he intends to leave and join the middle-class army under General Garibaldi.  Meanwhile, Prince Salina comprehends the way the wind is blowing in his country and befriends a man, Don Calogero Sedara (Paolo Stoppa), who USED to be in a lower class, but who is now on the same social footing as the Prince himself.  As the newly instated supervisor of elections, Sedara wields considerable power in the imminent new society on the horizon, and the Prince knows what must be done, despite his misgivings.

From there, The Leopard evolves into a vivid tapestry of life in the rustic Italian countryside, set among some of the most beautiful Tuscan/Sicilian backdrops I’ve ever seen.  Some of the exteriors, showing seas of wheat or olive groves with peasant workers in the foreground, looked like museum-quality oil paintings.  Some soapy material is introduced, but it never panders, never descends into schmaltz.  For example, Tancredi falls in love with Don Sedara’s daughter, the luscious Angelica (Italian knockout Claudia Cardinale), at the expense of breaking the heart of Concetta, one of Prince Salina’s daughters.  We watch as the Prince boldly strides into a seedy quarter of town to visit the rundown apartment of his mistress.  When his priest rebukes him for this transgression against his wife, the Prince explodes: “What do you want from me?  I’m a vigorous man.  I can’t be content with a woman who crosses herself before hugging me!  …I had seven kids with her.  You know what?  I never saw her navel!”

While this dialogue is both funny and not, it highlights the way the Prince has always viewed himself: as a man of noble birth whose behavior is no one’s business but his own, regardless of morality or social niceties.  But this same man is intelligent enough to know which way the wind is blowing and how to modify his behavior accordingly.

Everything concludes with a magnificent ball held by a neighboring nobleman, attended by “anybody who’s anybody” including the Prince, his family, Tancredi and Angelica, and literally hundreds of others, decked out in some of the greatest costumes I’ve ever seen on film.  During this lavish party, some final decisions are made, and the Prince contemplates what will happen to him and his family, and his entire class, after his death.  The live orchestra plays several waltzes and dances by the one and only Nino Rota, the scorer for Coppola’s The Godfather and numerous Fellini films.  As a result, yet another great film is evoked: as the celebrants dance in a line and weave their way throughout the great house, I was reminded of the famous ending of Fellini’s 8½ [1963] and its conga line of circus performers.

Some time ago I read Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Goldfinch.  While it didn’t deliver breathless thrills like a Crichton technothriller, it was nevertheless engrossing.  The language of Tartt’s prose transported me into the world of her hero and his morally complex journey like few other books had before or since.  That’s exactly what happened with The Leopard.  I expected it to be a “spinach” movie [good for you, but yucky taste], so my expectations were a bit low, despite its massive reputation in film circles.  But, like the other Visconti film that I’ve seen [Rocco and His Brothers, 1960], it breaks free of the mold I had created for it and becomes something grand and operatic.  I have a slight issue with the very final scene (I was hoping for something a little less open-ended), but if you have the patience for it – and if you don’t mind watching Burt Lancaster overdubbed into Italian – The Leopard is a treasure worth digging for.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

By Marc S. Sanders

“You had thirty thousand dollars, and a way to Somalia. It wasn’t enough?”

– Captain Richard Phillips

Paul Greengrass is a director with a documentary style technique.  Look no further than his salute to the hero hostages of United flight 93 on 9/11.  United 93 depicted an ordinary Tuesday of people going about their business on commercial airlines and in working in radio towers. Eventually, it was nothing but ordinary.  Greengrass reminded us of the day the world permanently changed.  He applied the same technique to his film Captain Phillips when a commercial cargo ship was hijacked by Somali pirates looking for a large amount of American dollars to bring back to their tribes. 

Tom Hanks is Captain Rich Phillips, an Irish American Naval captain residing in Vermont.  When the film starts, the captain is packing up one last bag and signing off his computer.  The screen shows a trajectory course that he will command the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama around the horn of Africa and make do on his delivery of hundreds of corporate cargo containers.  Though he’s well aware, he is given official warnings to be mindful of Somali pirates in the area.  When he rides with his wife (Catherine Keener) to the airport though, it is not international threats that concern him.  Rather it is whether their son is going to start taking his life seriously with grades and aspirations.  Whatever Captain Phillips does faces professionally is simply routine.  No matter how dangerous, it’s his family back home that concerns him most.

Even in this opening throw away scene, Greengrass looks like he’s shooting reality TV with a cameraman placed in the back seat of the characters’ SUV, getting shaky side shots of the husband and wife taking a drive to the airport.  The handheld technique will carry over the course of the film and sometimes it will relax itself when caution is of utmost importance.  Other times, it will emote frenzied chaos when desperation and time have overloaded the senses.

The film allows time for the Somali pirates led by an unknown, but eventual Oscar nominated actor named Barkhad Abdi to assemble a group of four to lead a charge into the deep waters seeking out a target to hijack and pillage.  They are armed with machine guns and foolish gusto, which will be hard to negotiate.  After one day’s failure, the pirates manage to overtake the ship and then Captain Phillips must subvert the pirates away from the majority of his crew hidden within the confines of the large engine room of the ship. 

As the second half of the film takes over, it becomes a claustrophobic encounter aboard a small lifeboat.  The pirates have taken Phillips as their hostage along with thirty thousand dollars in cash and their plan is to return to the shores of their country and negotiate with the United States for the Captain’s release.

With no navigation for the pirates to follow, the Navy intercepts the lifeboat with a battleship and an aircraft carrier in nearby waters. Now it becomes a strategic plan for Phillips to stay alive while the armed services try to peacefully end this conflict with no harm to the hostage.

The length of Captain Phillips is close to two and a half hours and you realize it because that is the point.  The main subject at the heart of this true story was held in this tiny boat with limited vision of what was occurring outside, fighting rough seas while constantly being berated in a foreign language by his captors.   It’s also never easy for any authority to negotiate with powers that are operating with dizzying confusion and helplessness.  The only advantage these pirates have is to hold on to their prized captive.  There is nowhere to run, or swim, or much less spread out in this tiny ocean vehicle that lacks any kind maritime direction or security.  Paul Greengrass makes sure you know this as he often points his camera upwards from tiny crevices on the floor, lining up at the pirate players along with Barkhad Abdi and Tom Hanks.  Sometimes a cameraman must have been standing and pointing a handheld down at Hanks watching his captors while he tries compute his next move.  Within these cramped quarters, you can smell the body odor and feel the desperate need for a shower, a drink of water or a morsel of food as these people remain contained within this floating box.

Elsewhere, I’m especially impressed with how Paul Greengrass observes the routines of the Navy and US Seals who are doing their best to end this situation.  The Seals, who are also sharpshooters, covertly parachute on to the nearby aircraft carrier, gear up and position themselves.  It’s so routine even though I know they are being especially careful.  Some tactics for easy movie narration are likely adopted here.  The commander makes clear that they need green targets, not red.  I’m sure it is more complex than that. How these military men speak and carry stoic expressions like it is another day at the office works in converse to the chaos occurring in the tiny boat that everyone has their eyes set upon.  Yet, Greengrass’ documentarian strategy remains consistent in both environments.  You are getting a “You Are There” experience to uphold the film’s authenticity.

Tom Hanks is great and easy to rely on as usual.  However, his performance does not seem so impressive until you finally witness his sensible and alert demeanor deteriorate and crumble to pieces.  You might know the ending to this heart pounding story, but I won’t spoil it here. A final scene bears the right side of an equal sign to all the hysteria you watched add up before. Tom Hanks’ penchant for improvisation is what strengthens the epilogue of the film, following a harrowing climax.  It might just be his best scene ever on film.  Knowing his celebrated career, I gave that declaration quite a bit of thought.

Captain Phillips is a taut, sensational thriller where common sense cannot easily win against irrational thinking. Still, that is exactly what took place. You involuntarily hold your breath until the film suddenly goes quiet, the director’s camera stops in place, and a sharp order is given.  Only then do you finally exhale and slowly sit back in your seat.  Paul Greengrass is a master at timing out the tension.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

By Marc S. Sanders

The genius was always easier than living with the monsters in his mind.  So was the dilemma that consistently plagued Nobel Prize winning Professor John Nash.

Ahead of seeing A Beautiful Mind for the first time, what you don’t know about Professor Nash is what will dazzle you the most when Ron Howard uncovers the mysteries he lived with during graduate school and on through his fellowship at MIT and with his enduring and loving marriage to his wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly in an Oscar winning role).  John Nash is masterfully portrayed by Russell Crowe in a celebrated, nominated performance.

Dr. Nash comes off like a genius savant when Howard’s film introduces him in 1947 at Princeton University.  The director adopts a technique of presenting much of Nash’s depths and highlighting patterns and numbers in magazines or on chalk boards or even within the reflections that appear before his eyes in bright sunlight.  On a clear night, see if you can find an umbrella within a starry sky. 

For many of us, I presume it’s hard to decipher what it means to live the life of a mathematical genius. Ron Howard with Akiva Goldsmith’s hailed adapted screenplay does not expect anyone to comprehend formulas or equations.  The filmmakers simply ask you to witness how discovery is processed.  Nash writes endlessly on his dorm room windows.  He fills up every inch of the chalk boards at his disposal.  He tears apart articles in magazines and wallpapers his room and office with them.  Even when he is not writing, he is computing how situations will end up best towards his and his peers’ advantage. There’s one curvaceous, blond woman standing in the center of a bar for one of the men to hopefully have a tryst with, but then who will be left to pair with the dark-haired ladies that surround her?  Nash finds the logic in all of the men abandoning the blond.  The genius realizes what none of us can see.  Go for what no one would ever expect to have occurred.

Despite the professor’s odd ticks, unwelcome vernacular and his lack of social skills, a well-established livelihood works out for him.  He falls in love with a former student that he marries, Alicia, and he obtains a fellowship for himself and two Princeton comrades to practice out their theories at MIT.  Personal companionship arrives with his former roommate, Charles (an energetic Paul Bettany), and his niece.  On the other hand, John has also been recruited to become a code decipherer for the government and he must answer to a mysterious gentleman named Parcher (Ed Harris) who is using John to stay a step ahead of the Soviets.   John’s work must remain top secret and as his clandestine activities become more threatening and intense, so does the paranoia get increasingly overwhelming.

I’ve only covered the first act of A Beautiful Mind because when the truth of John Nash’s purpose and how he is regarded is revealed, this biography becomes something much further from how it began.  Akiva Goldsmith’s trickery in his script is capable of surprising an audience when some veils are lifted for both the primary subject of this piece and those who come in and out of John Nash’s life.  This is a true story but it’s incredibly surprising that a mathematical wizard like John Nash could be living a whole other life that makes little sense at first.

Ron Howard is doing some fine work here reaching for material that might feel familiar with other cinematic geniuses in film ranging from the fictional Will Hunting to more recently real-life figures like Mark Zuckerberg. Characters like these stand out for their quirkiness and oddities.  With Russell Crowe’s brilliant characterization of awkwardness in his uneven walk and how he carries his papers and briefcase, it is not hard to adapt to the man on film.  What he says and how he speaks would leave any one of us to roll our eyes at his behavior.  You’d likely chortle at John just as his Princeton classmates do.  Later though, you understand how valuable his accomplishments are to a greater good, and at the same time you become alarmed at how Dr. Nash is being used both from his own perspective as well as by those figures who unexpectedly enter his life and will not just leave.

Jennifer Connelly’s role does not amount to much at first.  With her alluring looks that have graced other films in her earlier career, she initially comes off as a token spouse to the main character and you remind the person sitting next to you that is actress Jennifer Connelly who got her start in Labyrinth with David Bowie, and Once Upon A Time In America with Robert DeNiro.  Yet, as more dynamics are revealed about her husband does the character Alicia show through, and she has no choice but to survive with her spouse’s torment.  Connelly has a scene that will crush you when she must unleash her frustrations in the middle of the night as well as sporadically throughout the film. She has to be carefully observant of her husband’s behavior for the safety of their child and herself.  Ron Howard sets up scenes that haunt Alicia only, and his wide camera work is absolutely eye opening as it lends to her personal performance.

It’s fascinating to observe John Nash’s willpower as he persists to live with personal demons while upholding the demands of his genius.  This film works on so many levels of enhanced editing and perspective, but without unforgettable work from Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and a supporting cast of character actors like Christopher Plummer, Josh Charles, Judd Hirsh, Ed Harris and Paul Bettany it could not sustain its staying power. 

A Beautiful Mind is a thoroughly effective biography.