The Night Before

Posted on November 19, 2015 at 5:57 pm

Seth Rogen. Not very surprising guest stars. Many mind-altering substances. Many bodily fluids and functions. Many bad choices. No ability to allow women to be funny, even with some of the best comic actresses of our time in the cast. Haven’t we been here before?

That’s the question the characters in this film are asking, too. Isaac (Rogen), Chris (Anthony Mackie), and Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are friends who get together each year on Christmas Eve for a series of traditions, from visiting the tree at Rockefeller Center to a karaoke bar and a toy store to play on the giant piano keyboard from “Big.” Plus donning ceremonial holiday sweaters and getting wasted. Ethan’s parents were killed just before Christmas by a drunk driver 14 years ago, and Isaac and Chris promised him they would be his family for the holidays. More than a decade later, they’ve agreed this will be the last time. Chris is getting to be a big time athletic star in the NFL, and that means endorsement money and extending his personal brand via social media. He’s a spokesman for Red Bull, which has provided a limo for the evening. And he is hiding the secret of his recent jump in performance.

Isaac is married to Betsy (criminally underused Jillian Bell), and they are about to have a baby. She is refreshingly on board with his going out for a wild night with the boys that she gives him an early Christmas gift — a box of drugs, a sort of Whitman’s Sampler with everything from ‘shrooms to Molly, with some weed and cocaine thrown in for good measure (though, as Isaac points out with a tolerant chuckle, she does not know enough to get the proportions right). Ethan is drifting professionally and personally, never following through on his music and mourning a recent breakup with Diana (criminally underused Lizzy Caplan) because he could not commit to meeting her parents or moving in together.

Many years before, on one of their Christmas eve outings, they heard about a legendary party. I mean a PARTY. I mean THE PARTY, Platonic perfection of party-dom. It has always been their fondest wish to be there. Ethan, working as a coat check elf (his elf face really is very impressive), finds three tickets to the party in a guest’s coat pocket, steals them, and walks out. The party location won’t be announced until 10, so the trio has a few hours for their traditional activities, and plan to limo over to THE PARTY to cap off the evening.

This means encounters with old friends (Diana and her friend, played by the criminally underused Mindy Kaling, plus Michael Shannon as their weed dealer back in high school, Mr. Green), and odd substances (Rogen is actually quite funny as someone going through many different effects from many different drugs). There are cheap jokes about other Christmas movies and changes in technology over the past 14 years. A pay phone. A flashback with people amazed that an iPod can like hold “like 100 songs!” A revisit to Goldeneye on Nintendo 64 at Chris’ mother’s apartment.

There are some new friends, too. “Broad City’s” Ilana Glazer is a Christmas-hating fan who has sex with Chris in a club bathroom and then turns out to be Grinch-y. Various items and people are lost and must be searched for. Isaac’s bad trip is long, strange, and barf-y. And then there is a party with some not-so-surprising guest stars and some even less surprising Christmas-y confessions, apologies, and reconciliations.

“It’s hard to stay friends when you’re older,” Isaac says. It’s also hard to translate “Superbad”-style humor into something for actors in their 30’s. It should not be so hard to find a role for female characters that goes beyond infinite understanding and adoration. There are some enjoyably silly laughs here, and not all of them are in the “oh, no, you didn’t” category. There is a sense of groping toward something more — director Jonathan Levine worked with Rogen and Gordon-Levitt in the excellent fact-based “50/50,” and there are flickers that indicate a wish for something behind drug and barf jokes. One of my Christmas wishes is that the people making this movie learn something from the characters they put on the screen and give us something better next time.

Parents should know that this film is an extremely raunchy comedy with drinking, extensive and varied drug use, constant strong and crude language, some violence, explicit sexual references and situations, and very graphic nudity.

Family discussion: How do you decide which traditions to continue and which to give up? What did Mr. Green teach Ethan, Isaac, and Chris? Is it hard to stay friends as you get older?

If you like this, try: “The Hangover,” “Pineapple Express,” and “Ted”

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Secret in Their Eyes

Posted on November 19, 2015 at 5:28 pm

A girl is murdered. That girl, that crime and the man who did it are seen very differently by different people, all of whom are in law enforcement and all who have sworn to devote their professional lives to justice in this dark thriller based on an Oscar-winning Argentinian film (“The Secret in Their Eyes“). Just as that film used a long-unsolved murder to explore the shifts of politics and culture over the decades, this version, from writer-director Billy Ray, sets the murder in the frantic realigning of priorities following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. For those who loved her, justice for the death of the girl is all that matters. For those working on anti-terrorism, though, the suspect may be of more use out in the world as an informant than in prison as a murderer.

The story takes us back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder, in 2001. Claire (Nicole Kidman) is a District Attorney and Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an investigator newly assigned to the FBI’s anti-terrorism division. There is an immediate charged connection between them, though Claire is more reserved. Ray works with Jess (Julia Roberts), who teases him about his evident interest in Claire.

Then there is the report of a death, a body in a dumpster. Ray and Jess arrive, alert, professional, but detached, snapping on their blue latex gloves and talking about a possible connection to their work because the body was found near the mosque they are investigating.

And then Ray sees the girl and has to tell Jess that everything she cared about in the world has been destroyed. The shot of Roberts’ face as she has to go from thinking she has been called to see a body to understanding that it, that she is the one particular individual who means the most to her, “the thing,” she says, “that made me me,” is shattering to see. For the rest of the film, the radiant presence we know so well is haggard, numb, broken.

In the present day, the murder has not been solved. Because the suspect was an informant from a mosque that could have been harboring terrorists, the case against him was not pursued, and he has disappeared. But Ray has never stopped looking for him. He went through 1906 photos a night, searching every white male in the FBI’s system, for 13 years. He thinks he has found him.

More successful in mood than plot, Ray uses this story to meditate on loss, hopelessness, and the gulf between law and justice. Each of the characters wants something different from this investigation. Jess wants what she thinks of as justice but what looks more like revenge. “Death penalty would be too good for him,” she says. Ray feels somehow responsible, because he could have been with Jess’ daughter the morning she was killed. Claire wants the law to be enforced. And she still feels a connection to Ray. As for the suspect — in his own way, he is as controlled by his obsessions as the others.

Parents should know that this film includes a brutal rape and murder (off-screen) and some violence, with some peril and some injuries and abuse. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: Do you agree with Morales’ decision on how to treat Marzin? Should Ray have told Claire how he felt?

If you like this, try: the original film, “The Secret in Their Eyes” and Ray’s earlier films, “Shattered Glass” and “Breach”

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The 33

Posted on November 12, 2015 at 5:55 pm

There are other numbers they could have used in the title. 121 — that is how old the Chilean Copiapó mine was when it collapsed in 2010. 2300 — that is how many feet underground the men were when it collapsed. 12,000 — the number of miners who die in accidents around the world, we are told as this movie begins. 69 — that is the number of days before they were rescued. Or just 3 — the number of international drilling teams that came to help, along with more than a dozen corporations. And there is some unknown but surely astronomical number that calculates the cost of the rescue, I am sure. But the movie is called “The 33” because it is less the story of the rescue than it is of the survival, the triumph, of the miners who were trapped, who stayed alive by sharing the woefully inadequate scraps of food left for them, along with the even worse facilities for escape in the case of an accident. In one of the movie’s most searing scenes, they learn that the ladders they had been assured could allow them to exit safely in the event of a collapse were never finished. The intercom for emergencies is not connected.

Director Patricia Riggen brings the skill at visual storytelling and tender-hearted but resilient optimism she showed in “Under the Same Moon” to this story. She insisted on filming underground, and the beams of light from the miners’ helmets, so small against the immense darkness of the caverns, are a powerful symbol of the fragility of the miners’ situation. And she opens up the setting just as it becomes unbearable with a poignant fantasy sequence as the starving miners imagine a glorious feast.

We meet the miners at a party and get a sense of who they are — the one who is about to retire, the one who has moved in with his mistress, to the fury of his wife, the one who likes to sing Elvis Presley songs. And we see them go to work, the long, perilous ride, the ominous response of the manager to the complaints of the safety officer. The shards of mirror they lodge in the walls of the mine are shattering, showing that the ground is shifting. “It’s my job to keep them safe,” the supervisor (Lou Diamond Phillips) tells the manager. “It’s your job to keep them pulling out 250 tons a day,” is the reply. “It’s good for another 20 years.” It would not be good for another 20 hours.

Once it has collapsed, the manager refuses to take any action. Either the miners are dead or they will soon be, and there is no way to get them out. The government takes over the mine and sets up operations, with facilities for the families. Soon an entire village is operating outside the mine, including one miner’s pregnant wife, another’s estranged sister (Juliette Binoche), and the feuding wife and mistress. There is a school for the children, a commissary for supplies, a medical facility. They call it Camp Hope.

The first issue is finding out whether there are any survivors. The moment when the note is retrieved, “We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us,” is jubilant. Then there is the challenge of keeping them alive. Food and sleeping bags (and iPods) are sent down and Skype communications are established. But the greatest engineers in the world cannot figure out how to drill down enough of a hole for a rescue without endangering them further. International press has cameras everywhere.

Meanwhile, the stress on the 33 is severe. Who will be their leader? What if they do not agree?

This is a story that was made for the movies and Riggen tells it well. We join the vigil with the families, and the scene of the real miners at the end shows us why the number that really matters is the one that defines them as a group forever.

Parents should know that this film includes dire extended peril and near-starvation, some strong language, and sexual references, some crude, and alcohol abuse.

Family discussion: Was that the best way for the trapped miners to pick a leader? Who should make sure that corporate facilities are safe and what should the penalties be if they are not? Read about the current trial of the former Massey Energy CEO in the US, following a mining accident that killed 29 mine workers.

If you like this, try: the NOVA documentary shown on PBS about the rescue, focusing on the NASA scientists and engineers, and the documentary “Buried Alive”

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My All American

Posted on November 12, 2015 at 5:32 pm

If I wrote this review the way writer-director Angelo Pizzo wrote the script for “My All American,” it would be something like this: I saw a movie. It was about football. Freddie Steinmark worked hard and inspired his team, but then got sick. It was sad.

Pizzo wrote two of the best sports films of all time, “Rudy” and “Hoosiers,” but here, in another real-life sports story, he has decided that the audience needs a kind of running commentary from every character to explain — instead of show — the audience what is going on. In an early scene, Steinmark’s mother (Robin Tunney) tells him that because he is smaller than his friends, he will have to work harder. Later, other characters tell us repeatedly what we should be able to see: that he works harder than everyone else, that he is religious, even that he is handsome. This is a movie where a coach actually says that Steinmark has courage and guts. The dialogue is so exposition-heavy that it is like sawing lumber.

It is good to see a biopic that does not rely on the usual scenes of the girlfriend complaining that the lead character does not spend enough time with her. But Steinmark is portrayed as such an all-around saint that he is bland, without any character beyond niceness and determination. All of the characterizations are paper-thin. It is as though everyone on the screen is just another color commentator, not a character.

Steinmark (Finn Wittrock of “The Big Short”) is the son of hard-working Catholics. His father has two jobs, security guard by day, cop at night, but is so dedicated to his son’s athletics that he never misses a practice or a game. When a teammate suggests that perhaps Steinmark’s father is living his own dreams of an athletic career through his son, Freddie says no and the subject never comes up again. Freddie wants to play for Notre Dame and then the Chicago Bears. But college coaches think he is too small — except for Darrell Royal (Aaron Eckhart) at the University of Texas, who recruits Steinmark and his best friend. Steinmark’s devoted girlfriend, Linda (Sarah Bolger, one of the adorable Irish girls from “In America”), is accepted to UT as well.

Steinmark is so remarkable (as everyone keeps telling us and telling us and telling us) that he is made first-string in his sophomore year. He leads the defense so successfully that the championship is within reach. And then he begins to have a problem with his leg.

There are very clumsy attempts to do what “Rudy” and “Hoosiers” did in creating a sense of time and place. Here, the references to the war in Vietnam (and the protests), the moon landing, long hair, and 60’s songs are jarring and haphazard. The absence of any person of color may be authentic as regards the team, but on the campus? In the hospital? It is so strange that it becomes a distraction. The framing story of an interview decades later with Royal adds nothing. The football scenes are capably staged, but do not move the story forward.

There are references to Steinmark’s faith — he goes to mass every day and we see him pray and encourage his friend to pray. But we never get a sense of what the faith means to him or how it helps him understand his illness. There is more drama and more character in a throwaway scene involving another player who loses his position than there is in the portrayal of Steinmark’s story.

And there is only the slightest reference to one of the most interesting parts of the story; the lack of treatment options for someone with cancer in 1969. Steinmark’s diagnosis came just before the United States made its first major commitment to a “war on cancer,” with federal funds being used for research. This is the kind of context that could have provided the story with the impact it fails to muster.

Parents should know that there is brief strong language and a brief view of a bare tush, as well as discussions of serious illness and a sad death.

Family discussion: Were you surprised by Bill’s reaction to being replaced? What was it about Steinmark that made him so important to his coach?

If you like this, try: “Rudy,” “Hoosiers,” and “The Express”

Trumbo

Posted on November 12, 2015 at 5:29 pm

The post-WWII era was one of great relief and great fear. The Nazis had been defeated, but at the cost of bringing into the world the horror of atomic weapons. It was a certainty that the next war would be the last. The US could not last as the only superpower. The communists would do anything to get the bomb, and once they had it, no one was safe.

And that is why, just after the United States fought to preserve liberty and freedom of speech, those very ideals began to seem like a threat to our safety. And when there is a threat, there will be demagogues who prey on people’s fears to make themselves more powerful. That was the case in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s when Americans became so terrified of communism that the very idea someone might have been or known a communist was enough to get them fired and blacklisted — unless they were willing to “name names” and give investigators a list of other people to investigate. It was a kind of perverse pyramid scheme.

That is what happened to Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston), one of Hollywood’s most successful and highest paid screenwriters. He was also a member of the Communist Party. The idea that somehow screenwriters would brainwash moviegoers into becoming communists was such a threat that he and nine other writers who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee were blacklisted (not allowed to work in Hollywood anymore). Trumbo was sent to prison for contempt (refusal to cooperate).

When he came out, he managed to find work by getting other writers to put their names on the scripts he created (including two Oscar-winners) and by writing scripts at a fraction of his previous salary for a schlock producer (hilariously played by John Goodman).

Director Jay Roach creates the world of Trumbo, fiercely intelligent and committed. Cranston is excellent as Trumbo, every line of his posture and every gesture showing us the the active intelligence of the man who took his own struggle for freedom and turned it into one of the greatest lines in movie history: “I am Spartacus!” As he types madly away from his bathtub (to ease his back pain) and fights to find work for the other blacklisted writers, he never loses his sense of amusement at the folly around him. He is skeptical, even cynical at times but never loses his sense of optimism that even something good can be made better.

Parents should know that this film includes strong language, some crude references, brief non-sexual nudity, drinking, smoking, and drug use, and some tense and disturbing scenes.

Family discussion: What themes of this film are particularly relevant today? What should Trumbo have done? How did his experience influence his films? Why was it important to pay back the money?

If you like this, try: Trumbo’s films, including “Spartacus,” “Roman Holiday,” and “Lonely Are the Brave” and other films about this ear like “The Front” and “Goodnight and Good Luck”

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