Live By Night

Posted on January 12, 2017 at 5:45 pm

Ben Affleck the director picked the wrong screenwriter and the wrong star for “Live By Night,” based, like his far better “Gone Baby Gone” on a book by Dennis Lehane.

Unfortunately, this time Ben Affleck the director picked Ben Affleck the screenwriter and Ben Affleck the actor for this crime drama set in post WWI, prohibition-era Boston and Florida. Affleck the director has a good eye for detail. He understands the pacing of individual scenes, selects a great cast (other than himself), cinematographer (Robert Richardson), and composer (Harry Gregson-Williams) and has a good sense for visual storytelling. But in this case he was let down by Affleck the screenwriter, who allows the storyline to become so episodic it loses energy. And Affleck the actor gives the weakest performance in the film. He wants to be strong and stoic but comes across as blank and unfocused. It is disappointing to see Warner Brothers, the studio behind gangster classics, produce a film that has nothing of their grit or vitality.

Affleck plays Joe Coughlin, son of an Irish-American cop (Brendan Gleeson) who returns from fighting in WWI determined not to answer to anyone again. He wants to make his own rules. So he becomes involved in crime. Even criminals have rules, and Joe breaks those, too, having a passionate affair with Emma (Sienna Miller), who is supposed to be the girlfriend of the boss of the Irish mob. She betrays him (revealed early in the film, unlike the book), and is reported killed in a chase that ends with her car going into the water. He is badly beaten and then sent to prison.

When he gets out, he goes to Tampa, where he and his friend Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) muscle their way into the crime scene there. Joe becomes involved with Graciela (Zoe Saldana) and she encourages him to take over the rum distribution. Immediately after telling him she will not sleep with him, she sleeps with him, discomfiting even in a retro story. More thuggery. More killing.

A local cop named Figgis (Chris Cooper) explains that he associates with crooks but is not one himself. His compartmentalization is geographic as well as moral, and he outlines for Joe with a map where he can operate. Later, when Joe needs leverage, he shows Figgis photos of his adored daughter Loretta (willowy Elle Fanning), hooked on drugs and prostituting herself. Joe will tell Figgis where she is in exchange for redrawing those moral boundaries. We later see Figgis punishing her by whipping her bare behind. And she becomes an Aimee Semple McPherson-style evangelist, showing the needle scars on her arms to the crowd as proof of her redemption, and calling on her followers to stay away from the demon rum that Joe is selling.

Joe’s run-ins with cruder thugs, including the KKK, are intended to show that he, too compartmentalizes and perhaps to raise the question of how each of us draws lines, and then redraws them, as we make choices about how far we will go. The excellence in production design and cinematography only show by contrast the superficiality of the story which like the other recent period film from an actor-turned-director, Warren Beatty’s “Rules Don’t Apply,” puts form above substance, or, worse, thinks they are the same thing.

Parents should know that this is a gangster film with extensive violence, including many graphic and disturbing images and characters who are injured and killed. The film also has strong language including racist epithets and sexual references and situations.

Family discussion: Why did Joe want to talk to Emma? How was Joe different from some of the other gangsters? How did his experience in the army influence him?

If you like this, try: “The Godfather,” parts 1 and 2

Related Tags:

Patriots Day

Posted on January 12, 2017 at 5:28 pm

Writer/director Peter Berg and actor/producer Mark Wahlberg have now made their third film in a row on the same theme: real life stories of everyday people showing exceptional courage and dedication in the direst and most tragic circumstances. “Lone Survivor” was the story of a disastrous Navy SEAL operation. “Deepwater Horizon” was the story of the BP oil rig explosion. Now “Patriots Day” is the story of law enforcement from the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon to the killing and capture of the brothers responsible.

In all three films, Berg takes a story we know — or think we do — and creates a gripping, tense drama centered on a man who exemplifies American values of decency and integrity and shows exceptional ability to rise to the occasion. Wahlberg is a perfect choice to play those roles, and here he gives grace and dignity to the role of Tommy Saunders, a composite character based on the Boston cops who were on the ground when the bombs exploded, oversaw triage to manage the crowd and oversee emergency services and then tracked down the people responsible in just 19 hours.

And as in the earlier films, Berg’s focus is not on the people making the big policy decisions but on the people who are dealing with the consequences. He begins a brief but vivid chance to get invested in some of the key players just before Boston’s annual Patriots Day race, including some of the participants who will later be injured and Saunders, unhappy about being assigned to the race and struggling with a bad knee. Everything is the usual benign chaos until suddenly it becomes terrifying and catastrophic as the bombs explode near the finish line and no one knows what happened, who caused it, or whether more attacks are coming, with an anxious score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as Saunders and the other cops have to try to figure out what is going on, surrounded by severely injured people and panicked crowds — and, probably, somewhere, the bombers.

The minute-by-minute procedural section is engrossing, with territorial squabbles and conflicting priorities involving the police force and the FBI. The injured people may have crucial information the cops need right away but they also have injuries that need treatment right away, treatment that could make it difficult or impossible for them to talk or remember. The press insists on releasing photos of possible suspects despite law enforcement’s concerns that it could impair the investigation. And what do you do when a key witness insists on a lawyer, or decides to leave the police station? One of the most powerful scenes in the film is the interrogation by a hijab-wearing FBI agent of the wife of one of the suspects, an incendiary performance by “Supergirls” Melissa Benoist. The film does not take a position on the abandonment of Constitutional rights in an emergency with perhaps hundreds of life at stake; it just presents it as the immensely complex problem with no right answer that it is.

And then, with ultimate respect, it concludes with footage of some of the real heroes. That’s the crying part, as it should be.

Parents should know that the theme of the film is a real-life terrorist attack with many characters injured and killed and some graphic and disturbing images of bodies and wounds; also very strong language, some bigotry, and some drug use.

Family discussion; How did social media affect the way this attack was investigated? What does this movie have in common with the two other fact-based stories from the same director and star?

If you like this, try: “Lone Survivor” and “Deepwater Horizon”

Related Tags:

Based on a true story Drama

Monster Trucks

Posted on January 12, 2017 at 5:21 pm

When my son was eight, he and his friends would have loved this movie. That is just one of the reasons I enjoyed “Monster Trucks,” a charming fantasy in the always-appealing genre of a young person befriending and being befriended by a creature even more powerful than whatever adults are around. Plus, big trucks. So, think “Pokemon” with wheels, “Fast and Furious” for kids, “Speed Racer” with a plot you can follow, and “Free Willy” for gearheads with a touch of “Scooby-Doo.”

Tripp (Lucas Till, game but about eight years too old to play a teenager) lives in North Dakota with his mom (a barely seen Amy Ryan) and still misses the dad who abandoned them (Frank Whalley, suitably seedy). He does not like his mother’s boyfriend Rick (Barry Pepper), a cop who is fussy and by the book. And he does not like school, which he barely acknowledges. He spends much of his time working at the junkyard run by Mr. Weathers (Danny Glover) and spending his spare time using the parts he finds there to build a truck he can drive.

Nearby, a big oil drilling company run by ruthless Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) is under pressure to produce. Their scientists locate a water table above the oil reserve. Under environmental and endangered species laws, they should not drill without further investigation. But Reece insists they go ahead, and the drilling releases three squid-like creatures who live on oil. They capture two, but the third escapes and ends up in Mr. Weathers’ junkyard, where Tripp is at first terrified, then fascinated, then, after they bond over throwing stones at one of Reese’s trucks together, captivated by a creature he names, without much imagination, Creech.

Somehow, the best way to hide and transport Creech turns out to be using him as the engine of a tricked-up truck with big wheels. Soon Tripp and his classmate (Jane Levy as Meredith) are on the run to keep Creech from being captured by Reece’s enforcer, Burke (Holt McCallany) so they can poison the creatures and keep drilling for oil.

There’s nothing new here, but it is good-natured fun, with special effects that seamlessly integrate Creech into the action. It would have been nice to see Meredith as something more than the brainy girl with a crush and a credit card, and the film is half-hearted at best when it comes to Tripp’s careless treatment of a kid who wants to be his friend, expecting us to laugh at his presumption. As a January Saturday matinee or an outing for a third grade birthday party, it hits the spot.

Parents should know that this film has extended mild peril, with chase scenes and threats. No one is badly hurt. There is some schoolyard language and brief bodily function humor.

Family discussion: What qualities of the creatures made Jim decide they were worth saving?

If you like this, try: “Transformers” and “Free Willy” — and a Monster Truck rally!

Related Tags:

Not specified

Behind the Scenes: Pinocchio

Posted on January 12, 2017 at 8:00 am

One of the greatest animated films of all time is Disney’s Pinocchio, possibly the most beautiful hand-drawn film of all time. It is remarkable to think that it was made just three years after the groundbreaking but much simpler “Snow White.” It also has one of the all-time classic Disney soundtracks, with songs like “I Got No Strings” (featured in last year’s “Suicide Squad”) and the song that is still the Disney theme: “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

The Signature Edition is available today on Digital HD and Disney Anywhere, and will be out on Blu-Ray January 31, 2017, featuring extras like these:

Walt’s Process

Pinocchio – Creating Pleasure Island

Trailer: Harold and Lillian, A Hollywood Love Story

Posted on January 11, 2017 at 3:44 pm

Anyone who loves movies — and anyone who enjoys a love story — will have a wonderful time at “Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story.” It’s a love story in two sense of the word. It is the story of a deeply connected marriage of 60 years and it is the story of a love for the world of film.

You know the scene in “The Birds” with Tippi Hedren in the phone booth? And the one where all the birds are ominously perched at the playground? The movie was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, but it was Harold Michelson, the storyboard artist, who imagined the way those scenes would look. He also came up with the idea for one of the most iconic shots in film history, this one:

His wife Lillian headed up research for several different studios. When the “Scarface” producers needed to know what a drug kingpin’s home looked like, they came to her. When the “Fiddler on the Roof” team needed to know what shtetl girls wore for underwear, they came to her. And she always found out.

The story of how they met and fell in love is worth a movie of its own. While they almost never received screen credit for their contributions, Dreamworks did pay tribute to their decades of essential work in “Shrek.” These characters are named Harold and Lillian in their honor.