Movies to Watch After You Vote

Posted on November 4, 2024 at 7:59 pm

After you vote, take a break from red and blue maps to enjoy some movies about politics and portrayals of real US Presidents on screen.

Fictional movies about elections include The Best Man, with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson as rivals perhaps inspired by Adlai Stevenson, JFK, and Richard Nixon. There is an unforgettable scene with stand-up comic Shelly Berman as someone accusing a candidate of then-career-ending homosexuality. The screenplay is by Gore Vidal, who knew something about being gay in a homophobic world and something about politics as the author of books about history and as a relative of Jackie Kennedy. Vidal appears briefly in the film as a delegate.

Wag the Dog is a satire with Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro. Ryan Gosling is an idealistic campaign staffer in Ides of March.

The War Room (Clinton) and Primary (JFK) are two of the best Presidential campaign documentaries. Primary Colors has John Travolta and Emma Thompson as characters inspired by the Clintons. Game Change has Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, VP candidate selected by John McCain.

Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for Lincoln. I’ve already written about some of the many other movie versions of Lincoln’s life. “Wilson” stars Oscar nominee Alexander Knox in a dignified tribute to the 29th President. Gary Sinese gave a powerful performance in the HBO movie, Truman. Rough Riders has Tom Berenger as Theodore Roosevelt, leading Cuban rebels against Spain.

Perhaps the most fanciful portrayal of a real US President is “The Remarkable Andrew,” with William Holden as an honorable accountant who discovers a discrepancy in the town books and is visited by the ghost of his favorite President, Andrew Jackson (Brian Donlevy), who provides guidance and support.

President Kennedy’s WWII experience was the subject of PT 109, starring Cliff Robertson. He was also the subject of 13 Days, about the Cuban missile crisis. Oliver Stone has directed movies about Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins (who also played a memorably cagy John Quincy Adams in “Amistad”), and George W. Bush, played by Josh Brolin. President Nixon has been portrayed in a number of other films, from the acclaimed Frost/Nixon to the humorous but touching Elvis and Nixon and the wild satire Dick. And of course he is the subject of the Oscar-winning Best Picture All the President’s Men, though he is only glimpsed in archival footage.

The Butler is based on the true story of a man who worked in the White House for eight Presidents, and we see everyone from Eisenhower to Reagan portrayed in the film. Of course Reagan himself was an actor before he went into politics. His best films include “King’s Row” (his own favorite), “Hellcats of the Navy” (co-starring with Nancy Reagan), and, yes, “Bedtime for Bonzo.”

There are some great President movies made for television: Gary Sinese gave a superb performance in Truman and Bryan Cranston was outstanding in the role he originated on Broadway, Lyndon Johnson in All the Way.

President and Mrs. Obama were portrayed in a film about their first date, Southside With You. (For the real story of what happened that night, see this adorable column by my dad, who was there.)

According to TIME Magazine, Lincoln has been portrayed most frequently on screen but perhaps the President most memorable on film is Franklin Roosevelt, the only man to be elected four times, with Sunrise At Campobello, Eleanor and Franklin and its sequel, Warm Springs, Hyde Park on Hudson, and, of course, Annie! (TIME notes that the only US President never to show up as a character in a movie is Warren G. Harding.)

Here

Posted on October 31, 2024 at 12:33 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	ated PG-13 for thematic material, some suggestive material, brief strong language and smoking
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and alcohol abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad deaths and medical problems, references to wartime injuries and deaths
Diversity Issues:	Treatment of BIOPC characters superficial
Date Released to Theaters:	November 1, 2024

Near the end of the multi-generational saga “Here,” a character mentions that the time he spent caring for his difficult father in his last years helped them have a better, more understanding relationship. This is tell, not show, the opposite of what a movie is supposed to do. In this case, that really important part, the show part, is a lower priority than the movie’s conceptual and technology gimmicks.

“Here” is based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire. Its conceit (in both senses of the word) is that the whole story takes place on one spot, going back millions of years, before there was any life on Earth, then with plants, then dinosaurs trampling across, then people, an indigenous couple, a Colonial era man (the royalist son of Ben Franklin) and the enslaved people who resignedly salute him as his carriage passes. A house in what will be the suburbs is built in 1911. Its first owners are a Victorian couple, then an inventor and his devoted wife, much later a Black family in contemporary times, and, in between the central focus, a WWII veteran and his wife, and their three children, one who grows up to be played by Tom Hanks, de-aged by CGI, then looking like he lives now, then aged to show how he may/will look in 20 years. The content of these stories is designed to trigger reactions more based on our own experiences of the big life moments — love, loss, job woes, marriage, family conflict, Thanksgiving, babies, aging parents, more Thanksgivings, a wedding, a funeral — than on any connection to these characters. Our hearts may be tugged at because we are humans who cannot help identifying with these touchstones, but it’s all as synthetic as astroturf.

This film reunites the “Forrest Gump” team, Hanks as Richard and Robin Wright as his wife, Margaret, along with composer Alan Silvestri, cinematographer Don Burgess, screenwriter Eric Roth, and director Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay. Zemeckis, as he does too often, seems far more interested here in the technology than the storyline. The camera placement is static, always the same location in the house’s living room, facing the bay window across from what was once the Colonial plantation. Unlike the images in a graphic novel, movies have to have movement; it;’s in the name. So what we have is a lot of boxes coming in and out of the screen with glimpses of what is happening or did happen that may be contrast or commentary on the cyclicality of events or may just be there to remind us what time we’re in: the Beatles on Ed Sullivan! Jane Fonda’s exercise tapes! And then there are the technology touchstones. Radio, then television. The first cordless phone.

It reminded me of the Carousel of Progress at Disney World, and to be honest, the animatronic characters in that revolving audience show created for the New York World’s Fair in 1964, have more personality than most of the one-attribute characters in “Here.” That is unfortunately even more true of the characters of color in the film. The Black family seems to be there only to show us The Talk with their teenage son about how to behave if he gets pulled over by the police for a traffic violation. Their Latina housekeeper exists only to show us the pandemic. The indigenous people are like the dinosaurs — they exist only to disappear.

Parents should know that this film includes many family ups and downs including conflicts, divorce, serious illness, and death. There is a teenage pregnancy. A WWII veteran with injuries and PTSD self-medicates with alcohol. A young husband and father dies. There are sexual references, scanty attire, references to racism, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What would you want to say to the families who live in this house? Why didn’t Richard want to move? How did the characters decide to compromise on their dreams?

If you like this, try: the book by Richard McGuire, the Thornton Wilder play “The Long Christmas Dinner,” and the 1961 short film “The House”

Juror #2

Posted on October 25, 2024 at 5:46 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for PG-13 for some violent images and strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drunkenness, and alcoholism
Violence/ Scariness:	Murder trial, graphic and disturbing descriptions and images of dead body
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	November 1, 2024

“Juror #2,” directed by Clint Eastwood, has a preposterous premise and a first-rate cast valiantly trying to make it seem less preposterous. Nicholas Hoult plays Justin, a teacher whose wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) is nearing the end of a high-risk pregnancy. Justin has just been called for jury duty. He tries to get out of it by explaining his situation, but the judge (the always excellent Amy Aquino), dryly points out that his hours in the courtroom will keep him away from his wife no longer than his hours at work.

He is assigned to a criminal case. James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso) has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Kendall (played in flashbacks by Eastwood’s daughter, Francesca Eastwood). Arguing the high-profile case are prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) and Eric Resnick (Chris Messina), Faith’s law school classmate and sometime drinking buddy, a public defender trying to persuade the jury that his client is innocent.

As the lawyers make their opening arguments, telling the story of the night Kendall was killed following an argument with Sythe in a rowdy bar (the bar is even named Rowdy’s, just to make sure we get the point), it begins to dawn on Justin that he was at Rowdy’s that night and saw the argument. As someone who really does not want to be there and told his wife he would do whatever it took to get out of serving, he completely ignores the fact that that memory in and of itself would be a reason to alert the judge that he is a material witness and cannot serve as a juror. But no, instead he thinks more about what happened that night and realizes that while he thought he hit a deer as he was driving home from the bar in a heavy downpour, he may have, indeed he probably did hit Kendall and is responsible for her death. And he decides on two equally important goals: not letting an innocent man be convicted of murder and keeping himself out of prison.

That’s a LOT! And then everything keeps getting melodramatically ramped up even further. Faith is running for District Attorney on a platform of protecting the community from crime, with the election just days away and apparently the vote depending on the outcome of this case. Justin is in recovery and his AA sponsor is a lawyer (Kiefer Sutherland) who advises him not to come forward. And then we are in jury deliberations a la “12 Angry Men,” with an assortment of characters. On the first round of voting, Justin is the only “not guilty.” He has to try to persuade the rest of the jury that there is reasonable doubt without letting them know about his own involvement.

One of the other jurors is a former cop (J.K. Simmons). Another is a med student. Their expertise shifts the balance, but the central question ends up being whether anyone can change.

Eastwood is 94 and outspoken about his political views (remember his debate with the empty chair?). A few cranky old guy elements flicker in and out of the film. It’s more than a low-grade potboiler with high-grade actors for him. He wants to say something about his worldview and he is not subtle. The first image in the film is Allison wearing a blindfold as Justin leads her into the room he has prepared for the baby. This is the part of a movie where usually, in the least time possible, we get to know the main characters well enough to care about whatever challenges lay before them. But Eastwood wants to say something beyond the adorable couple so excited about the new baby and so devoted to each other. The blindfold comes back a few more times in the statue of Justice in front of the courthouse, the one of the woman holding up the scales, with a blindfold over her eyes.

If he wants what may be his final film to make a statement about the inadequacies of the criminal justice system, though, it is one that is muddled by (1) a retired police detective who is dedicated and capable (though willing to act outside the law), and (2) see “preposterous” and “melodramatically” above.

Parents should know that this is the story of a murder case and there are graphic and disturbing images of the body as well as flashbacks showing the suspect and the victim drunk and fighting with each other.

Family discussion: What should Justin have done and when? What should Faith have done and when?

If you like this, try; “12 Angry Men,” “Reservation Road,” “The Judge,” and John Grisham films like “The Rainmaker” and “The Client”

Venom: The Last Dance

Posted on October 24, 2024 at 2:00 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language
Profanity:	Very strong language for a PG-13
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic-book action-style peril and violence, characters injured and killed, some disturbing and graphic images, sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 25, 2024

Now that Tom Hardy has taken over Venom the way the comic-book outer-space symbiote took over journalist Eddie Brock, the one-time Spider-Man universe super-villain is now…the good guy? Hardy co-wrote and co-produced this final (maybe final-ish?) chapter, its foundation is still comic-book, but its heart is a goofy buddy-movie, with Eddie (Hardy) happy to call on his wisecracking “friend” Venom to kick bad-guy butt and just to keep him company.

If the toothy Venom is going to be a good guy, we need a new bad guy. On wherever Venom came from, he/they/it was one of many whatever-they-ares that managed to imprison a super-evil, super-powerful something called Knull that can only be freed with a MacGuffin unimaginatively named the codex. And so the mysterious villain deploys some flying scorpions through various portals that take them throughout the universe to find this codex, which can only be found guess where.

We first see Eddie drinking sullenly at a bar in Mexico (look for “Ted Lasso’s” Dani Rojas, Cristo Fernández, as the bartender). He and the co-inhabitant of his body, the toothy Venom, have a companionable relationship, as we see when Eddie calls on his inner Venom to take care of some scary animal-abusing bad guys. As we also see when a convenient newscast comes on a nearby television screen, Eddie is the target of law enforcement and needs a place to hide. Venom wants to see the Statue of Liberty. He/they/it is, after all, a huddled mass yearning to breathe free, tempest-tossed, and, yes, something of a wretched refuse, and grateful for being welcomed to a new home.

And so we’re off to a buddy road trip, as our single body/dual-personality heroes set off for the east coast. They don’t get very far in terms of miles, but they meet up with some interesting characters along the way, including Rhys Ifans as a hippie, alien-seeking dad named Martin, traveling in a van with his wife, daughter, and young son. As the government announces the shut-down of the notorious Area 51, it secretly opens an underground real alien study lab nearby called, unimaginatively, Area 55. It is presided over by unimaginatively named Dr. Payne (“Ted Lasso’s” Juno Temple), who finds the pulsating plasma they have collected fascinating and is unscientifically optimistic about its dangers. And it is fumed over by General Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who considers whatever they are studying to be an extinction-level threat until proven otherwise. “Something terrible is always imminent,” he intones.

But we’re not here to debate policy; we’re here to see creatures fighting creatures, punctuated with over-the-top, wackiness, and that this movie delivers. “I got stuck with a superhero who can’t fly,” says Eddie, and next thing we know, Venom, who seems to be made of a substance that is part Silly Putty, in part rubber cement, has him glued to the side of an airplane, and later, thankfully, into a parachute. Then there is the Cinderella-like series of lost shoes Eddie has to cope with. And the many familiar needle drop songs, from Cat Stevens to, I’m not kidding, a dance number to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

The action scenes are okay. The human characters are so thin that one’s decision to wear a Christmas tree brooch in summer is considered a trait worth commenting on (it also helps to identify post-transformation). The world-building is near-non-existent. But the film’s commitment to its off-beat goofiness makes it kinda fun.

NOTE: There is an early-credit extra scene and, for those who wait ALL the way to the end, one more scene after the credits.

Parents should know that this film is a close-to-R PG-13, with very strong language and extensive comic book/action-style peril and violence. Characters are injured and killed, with a sad death, and there are some graphic and disturbing images.

Family discussion: Why did Eddie come to think of Venom as friendly? Who should oversee science, scientists, politicians, or the military?

If you like this, try: the comic books, the other “Venom” movies and “Transformers One”

We Live in Time

Posted on October 17, 2024 at 5:28 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
Profanity:	Rated R for language, sexuality, and nudity
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Cancer and cancer treatment, sad death of a parent, car accident with injuries
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 18, 2024

“We Live in Time” tries so hard to be a better movie that it seems churlish to point out that it just isn’t. The movie goes back and forth between three different time periods in the relationship of guy with soulful eyes and a boring job with a cereal company Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and successful and very creative chef and life force Almut (Florence Pugh). If it was told in a straightforward chronological manner with less talented and charismatic actors, it would just be a soapy second-rate streamer.

But it is told elliptically, so at the very beginning of the film, before the “how did they meet” and rest of the backstory, we learn that Almut has cancer for the second time. She knows how brutal the treatment will be and this sets up the existential questions of the movie: will/should she choose quantity of time or quality of time? How will she make the time she has meaningful? This sets the stakes, and then we go back to learn their story. This is where the movie star gloss may keep audiences from noticing that there is less than meets the eye.

Tobias, in something of a daze as he tries to sign divorce papers in a hotel room, leaves in a bathrobe to find a working pen and is hit by a car when he wanders onto a highway. Almut is the driver. This is one of the most contrived and least appealing meet-cutes in movie history, especially factoring in an awkward misunderstanding about Tobias’ marital status.

Almut has her own restaurant, specializing in Bavarian-English fusion cuisine. This is one of the many details in the movie that are intended to be meaningful and/or character-defining but are not. We do not understand why her job is important to her or what it reveals about her, and the same goes for a mid-movie revelation to us and Tobias about something she excelled at in her teens and then left behind. Tobias has a job that seems meaningless to him. We suspect it may be lucrative or demanding, but none of that matters to the story. Nor does his brief description of what happened to the wife he was divorcing the night Almut ran into him. His job in the story is to have his eyes well up with tears and be lop-sidedly supportive of his wife, and Garfield does as much with that as a top-level movie star can do.

The primary indicator signaling the different time periods is Almut’s hairstyle and where they live. We see them meet. We see her first diagnosis, when she is given a choice between lowering the risk of recurrence or keeping the possibility of giving birth. We see her pregnancy and the emotional and hilarious childbirth in an unusual location. And then we go back to what she does after the second diagnosis and the strain it puts on her marriage. But even with the existential questions about what we do with the time we have and how we cope with terrible loss, the movie does not earn its jumbled storyline, which is more confusing than illuminating. More important, the screenplay is not up to the level of its vastly talented and charismatic stars.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, explicit sexual references and situations, nudity, cancer and cancer treatment, the sad (offscreen) death of a parent, and a car accident with injuries. Characters drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Almut was faced with two difficult decisions following her diagnoses. What do we learn about her from the choices she made? What did she learn about herself? What does the final scene tell us about Tobias?

If you like this, try: “Love Story,” “Terms of Endearment,” and the stars’ comic book movies, “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “Black Widow“