Hell or High Water

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:40 pm

“Hell or High Water” is a modern western that reminds us why spare, dry landscapes have so often been the settings for grand American epics. Like frontier stories of ranchers, farmers, cowboys, Indians, masculinity, and bank robbers, this film has a gripping story that touches on the most profound American struggles — from guns to real estate, race, and income inequality — specific in detail but universal in scope.

One of the film’s wisest choices is in keeping important information from us until just the right moment, so I will be especially scrupulous about spoilers and keep the description of the plot to a minimum. There are four main characters, two bank robbers and two Texas Rangers. The bank robbers are Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine), and we can tell immediately that they seem less experienced than the staff at the small Texas Midland bank branch they are robbing, just before it opens on a dusty morning. Both bad news and good manners are so deeply ingrained in the bank manager that he courteously wishes them a good morning before turning over the small unmarked bills.

The Texas Rangers are about-to-retire Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham), who is of both Native American and Mexican heritage, as Marcus constantly reminds him with a stream of amiably delivered insults. As Tanner and Toby continue to rob banks, always Texas Midland branches, Marcus begins to discover a pattern that begins to reveal a plan.

The characters are skillfully drawn and performed with a deep and understanding humanity, not just by the four lead actors but by everyone in the cast. Every performance in even the smallest role conveys an arid and dusty world, physically, financially, and emotionally. Standouts include Katy Mixon as a waitress, Richard Christie as a bank loan officer, and Dale Dickey as the woman who opens the bank in the morning.

The outstanding screenplay is written by Texan Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario,” “Guns of Anarchy”), who knows these people and these places. He has a gift for finding the poetry in dialog as dry and spare as the setting. And he has the confidence in himself, his characters, and his audience to let the story unfold without telling us too much at first, and to present complex issues without feeling that he has to provide simple answers. Sheridan also has a gift for the small, telling details, the bank manager who courteously wishes the bank robbers good morning, the Indian casino, the ex-wife, the way some men say more in the pauses than the words. His deep appreciation for people overlooked by just about everyone makes this cops and robbers story into something real and meaningful.

Parents should know that this film has extended crime and law enforcement-related violence, with characters injured and killed, themes of moral and legal crimes, drinking, smoking, sexual references, prostitute, and a brief explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: Why does the movie keep some of the details of the plan secret for so long? Why does Marcus insult Alberto? Why does Tanner say he is a Comanche?

If you like this, try: “99 Homes” and “The Newton Boys”

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Equity

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:37 pm

“Equity” is a razor-sharp financial thriller about people who are themselves razor sharp. Their battlefields are boardrooms and trading floors but the stakes are high and the rules are just a starting point. There has been some understandable buzz about the background of the film, the first major national release to be entirely made by and about women. But this is in no way a stunt. It is a way to explore the way that the movie’s characters experience the ultra-testosteronic world of Wall Street, and, as we watch them, to explore our own assumptions and biases as well.

Anna Gunn (“Breaking Bad”) plays Naomi Bishop, an ambitious, even ruthless investment banker who knows she has to be twice as smart and work twice as hard in the ultra-competitive world of high finance. Her job is to persuade highly successful privately held firms to let her take them public by being listed on the stock exchange, which means huge fees for her company. That involves a lot of tricky arithmetic to come up with a valuation on the stock they will be selling that is high enough to entice the owners of the private company to agree to the deal, but low enough that the stock will gain in value as soon as the deal goes through. It also involves a lot of tricky diplomacy, stroking and soothing the egos of the clients, who are being courted by every firm on Wall Street.

Naomi appears on a panel before a group of young woman and is very frank about her priorities. When she is asked, “What’s that thing that makes you want to get up in the morning?” she says, “I like money.” She also says that she thinks the time has finally come when it is permissible to say so. On that, she could be wrong, especially from a woman.

Naomi wants and believes she deserves a promotion. But she has just made the first mistake of her career, mismanaging an important deal. It may be that a it would not be as serious a setback for a male in her position. Or it could be that her anxiety about the mistake has clouded her judgment about the best time to push for the promotion. But she needs a win badly. She has an equally ambitious deputy named Erin (producer and co-story writer Sarah Megan Thomas), who is pregnant. This triggers in Naomi, who is unmarried and childless, all of the conflicts we can imagine, though the screenplay is too smart to spell it out too explicitly. Can Erin make the kind of commitment the job needs and, just as important, how can she persuade the client that she will? Both Naomi and Erin know they have to come across to their colleagues, bosses, and clients as confident but not arrogant, dedicated but not reckless.

There is another ambitious woman, Samantha (producer and co-story writer Alysia Reiner), a classmate of Naomi’s, now a prosecutor who is looking for her own big win. At big financial companies, there is a “Chinese Wall” division between the investment bankers like Naomi and people who buy and sell stock, like hedge fund managers. It is illegal and absolutely forbidden for them to exchange “insider” information about deals and there are many rules and structures to make sure that they do not. Could that be why one of those hedge fund managers is romancing Naomi?

The story is taut and engrossing, fraught with moral hazard that would be just as compelling outside of high finance, in a factory or a university, but benefits from the high stakes and provocative details — and from a fresh perspective that adds dramatic heft and makes it clear how much we can learn from letting women tell their own stories.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, some sexual references, drinking, smoking, and criminal behavior.

Family discussion: What gets you out of bed in the morning? Would you want to work with Naomi? How would the character’s situation be different if she was a man?

If you like this, try: “Margin Call”

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Drama Gender and Diversity

Florence Foster Jenkins

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:29 pm

The charm of the popular “Lip Synch Battle” series is the way that the contestants, all very talented and successful performers, transcend the limits of race and gender — and other limits, too, like vocal range. In her way, real-life heiress Florence Foster Jenkins was doing the same thing a century ago. Her dedication to music was monumental. So was her lack of talent. But she lived a blissful life with a devoted husband, staging elaborate tableaux and concerts. Like the emperor with the non-existent and therefore invisible new clothes, she was surrounded by people who never told her that her singing was a disaster in every category, from hitting the right note to staying in any single key from measure to measure.

In the second film of 2016 based on the life of Ms. Jenkins, Meryl Streep gives (of course) a performance of exquisite humanity and precision. (Earlier this year, the French film, “Marguerite,” was also inspired by Jenkins.) You have to know how to sing well (see “Mamma Mia,” “Postcards from the Edge,” and “Ricki and the Flash”) to sing this badly and you have to be an actor of sublime perfection to make terrible singing funny and brave and poignant. Hugh Grant is also superb as the magnificently named St. Clair Bayfield, Jenkins’ consort, a failed Shakespearean actor who shares Jenkins’ passion for performance and almost envies her complete freedom from self-awareness.

There are lovely performances from Nina Arianda as a brassy showgirl who married a wealthy man, Rebecca Ferguson (“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation”) as Bayfield’s girlfriend, and “Big Bang Theory’s” Simon Helberg as Jenkins’ long-suffering accompanist, the equally magnificently named Cosmé McMoon. Jenkins is the ultimate exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome: those who are least able are also worst at assessing their own ability. The fun of this film, far more than laughing smugly at Jenkins’ cluelessness, is the fantasy of having endless resources to create our own fantasies of stardom.

Parents should know that this film includes drinking, smoking, sexual references and non-explicit situation, and a sad death.

Family discussion: Was St. Clair right to hide the truth from Florence? What do we learn from her visit to Cosme?

If you like this, try: The documentary “Florence Foster Jenkins: A World Of Her Own”

Don’t Think Twice

Posted on August 4, 2016 at 5:53 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and drug use
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad offscreen death
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 5, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	December 5, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01IV40HUY

Life is pretty much improv, after all. We are constantly challenged to respond to what we cannot predict. But we do not have the two foundational rules that make performance improvisation so compelling. First is “yes, and.” Whatever anyone on stage says or does, everyone else has to build on it. If someone says, “Wow, it’s cold in here,” no one is allowed to say, “What do you mean? We’re outside and it’s warm.” You have to say something that takes what the first person said to the next level, maybe “Yes, who turned the air conditioning down to 60?” Or even, “Well, there’s really no practical way to heat an igloo.” It is the high-wire without a net act of improv group’s lightning quick, sharply observed, and deftly funny scenes that audiences enjoy.

The other fundamental rule is what improvers say to each other before they go on stage: “I’ve got your back.” Improv is about the group, not the individuals. “Don’t Think Twice” is the story of an improv group called The Commune, suggestive of its familial, interdependent, collegial quality. They are something like a family, if a dysfunctional one. While they have very different backgrounds and goals, the way they come together on stage is, at least for now, enough to make them feel they have a home together.

The closest thing they have to a leader is Miles (writer/director Mike Birbiglia of “Sleepwalk With Me”), who is a little older and taught many of them. He is still teaching improv classes and often has brief affairs with the young women who are his students. Samantha (Gillian Jacobs) and Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) are a couple. Allison (Kate Micucci) is a quiet woman who is working on a graphic novel. Jill (“Inside Amy Schumer” writer Tami Sagher) lives with her parents and is the only one who does not have money problems. And Bill (Chris Gethard) is making ends meet by handing out hummus and chips in the grocery store. “Your 20’s are all about hope. And then your 30’s are all about realizing how dumb it was to hope,” one character says.

The group is presented with some bad news and some good news, two crises that expose the fragility of their connection. They are about to lose their performing space, and there are no alternatives they can afford. And Jack and Samantha achieve the most coveted of opportunities, the chance to audition for a television program that is the equivalent of “Saturday Night Live,” a sketch comedy show that is a major cultural institution. Both put enormous pressure on the group, and the sense of desperation, jealousy, and competition shatters their pretense of unity and endless support for one another. At the same time, Bill’s father becomes critically ill, which gives them a way to continue to connect.

Birbiglia’s “Sleepwalk with Me” showed great promise. The transfer from stand-up to screen was awkward, but the atmosphere and the specifics of life on the road as a comedian were exceptionally well handled and he is on screen, as on stage, an engaging character. Here he once again takes us unto a very specific world that we can all relate to, especially when it comes to the way the characters use humor to reach a place of honesty. Birbiglia takes a risk here, making Miles less likeable, but it works as he very effectively creates real and vivid characters who have to figure out who they are when they are offstage. While the first film gave us one perspective, this one expands with a clear-eyed but generous take on each of them. So, the individual stories work and they provide balance and counterpoint. Even family members have to grow up, accept responsibility, and decide when to change course.

Parents should know that this film has very strong language, sexual references and an explicit situation, rude humor, sad death of a parent, drinking and drugs.

Family discussion: Why is it important to say “yes, and?” Is it sometimes hard for you to be happy when your friends succeed?

If you like this, try: “Sleepwalk With Me” and Mike Birbiglia’s short film on YouTube, “Fresh Air 2: 2 Fresh 2 Furious”

Trailer: Loving

Posted on July 17, 2016 at 8:00 am

“Loving” stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the real-life couple who challenged miscegenation laws all the way to the Supreme Court.

Every family should see the outstanding documentary about the case, The Loving Story.