Trailer: Aloha from Cameron Crowe, with Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, and Bill Murray
Posted on February 15, 2015 at 8:00 am
I love Cameron Crowe movies, and this looks like one of the best.
Posted on February 15, 2015 at 8:00 am
I love Cameron Crowe movies, and this looks like one of the best.
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 6:00 pm
“Promised Land,” written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski is smart, sincere, and timely, well directed by Gus Van Sant and with thoughtful, intelligent performances by everyone, especially Frances McDormand (“Fargo”) and Titus Welliver (“The Good Wife”). It’s a very good movie until it goes completely off the rails at the end.
Steve Butler (Damon) is about to get promoted for his outstanding record selling fracking to farmers. He says what makes him successful is that he grew up in communities like the ones he is selling to (“football Fridays and cow tipping”), and he knows enough to stop at the local bar (Welliver is the bartender) when he gets to town to get acquainted and buy clothes from the local store to help him fit in. He’s a modern day Professor Harold Hill, telling the people in the town that they’ve got trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with B — for bankruptcy. The answer is a capital G for gas, and that may not rhyme with M for millionaire, but it still sounds pretty good.
But what really makes him successful is that he truly believes that he is helping them. No, more than helping them; he believes he is saving them. Steve saw his own farm community collapse when a factory closed down. So when he sits across the kitchen table from a farm family and says he understands exactly what their financial struggles feel like, he is telling the truth. “I’m not selling them natural gas,” he says, “I’m selling them a way to get back.” When he tells the farmers — or lets them believe — that this is a great way for them to make money selling something they never even knew they had and will never miss, he almost believes that, too.
Steve’s partner is Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), who cherishes very few illusions about what she is doing, and is very clear about why she is doing it — to support the son she Skypes with from too many hotel rooms. She knows how to talk to the women, mom to mom, about what the fracking money can mean to the community. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t have a state-0f-the-art high school,” she tells them. More money means better opportunities for the next generation. And Steve and Sue have a couple of additional and very powerful means of persuasion. When the local mayor says he might put up a fight, they pay him off (but not too much). And when farmers hesitate, they bring up that special quality of the gas they want to “harvest.” If the farmer says no, they can go to his neighbor and get it that way. So, it isn’t will you or won’t you say yes. It’s will you before they do? And Steve reminds them that “if you’re against this, you are for oil and coal, period.”
All seems to be going smoothly until two people who are not going to be bought off start to object. One is a local science teacher with a PhD (Hal Holbrook) who says that “the potential for error is just too high” and “money can lead very often to bad decisions.” The other is an cheerful environmentalist named — wait for it — Dustin Noble (Krasinski) who says that he, too, is from a farm community, and he has pictures of dead cows that he says were killed by fracking. He visits local schoolrooms and shows the children what it looks like when fields go up in flames. And because this is a movie, it isn’t enough that Steve and Dustin are on opposite sides in the struggle for the gas drilling rights and the soul of the town. There’s also a pretty teacher (Rosemary DeWitt) in town and both of them like her, too.
The battle escalates as Steve and Sue spread some money around and Dustin’s pictures shake up some of the local people. There is a Frank Capra-esque gathering in the school gym as everyone gets together for a big vote and Steve has to examine his own soul. As soon as Steve says, “None of this can be true, right? We would have heard about it,” we know that his essential goodness and passion for doing the right thing is creating an intolerable conflict. Up to that point, the movie has some respect for its audience and the complexity of its subject. But then it takes a big, dumb, veer into Hollywood nonsense that cheapens its message and leaves us feeling sullied.
Parents should know that this film has constant very strong language, some sexual references, drinking, a drinking game, and drunkenness. A character throws a punch.
Family discussion: How did Steve, Sue, and Dustin differ most in their priorities? What made them effective in persuading people in the town? Did you change your mind about who was right?
If you like this, try: “Gasland,” the documentary about fracking, and do some research into the extent of natural gas extraction and the scientific data about its impact. The movie “Local Hero” is a lighthearted story about a similar situation.
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm
B+Lowest Recommended Age: | 4th - 6th Grades |
MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for language |
Profanity: | Brief strong language |
Alcohol/ Drugs: | Alcohol, character gets tipsy |
Violence/ Scariness: | Human and animal characters in peril, references to hunting and eating whales, sad animal death |
Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
Date Released to Theaters: | February 3, 2012 |
Date Released to DVD: | June 18, 2012 |
Amazon.com ASIN: | B005LAIGQ4 |
“You’re not as easy to hate as I thought,” an oil man tells an environmental activist in “Big Miracle,” the heartwarming true story of a 1987 effort to rescue three Alaskan whales. It could just as well have been said by any of the more than a dozen lead characters who find themselves part of a “cockeyed coalition.” People who viewed each other with suspicion, if not downright animosity, are brought together to save a family of whales affectionately named after Flintstones characters.
The obstacle for the whales was five miles of ice that had to be cut away in sub-zero temperatures so the whales could get to the ocean. The bigger obstacle was the struggle for the humans to try to find a way to work together.
“Big Miracle” is the story of a rescue operation put together by people who each wanted something different. Native Inupiat whale hunters wanted to “harvest” (kill and eat) the whales. Environmentalists wanted to protect them. The US military did not want to ask for help from a Soviet ice cutting ship. An oil developer wanted to improve his reputation. Two Minnesota entrepreneurs wanted to show off their ice melting machine. Politicians wanted to look good or look innocent. And journalists wanted a story.
Director Ken Kwapis and screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler deftly keep the multi-character story from getting too cluttered with the help of appealing performances that give us an instant connection to the humans who are literally trying to save the whales. Standouts in the cast include John Krasinski as a television reporter who is tired of being stuck in a backwater where nothing exciting happens, Kathy Baker as an unexpected supporter with inside information, Dermot Mulroney as a frustrated military officer, and John Pingayeck on his first movie role as a grandfather trying to teach his grandson to listen to the world outside his earphones.
When the reporter’s story is picked up for a national broadcast, the first to arrive is Rachel (an earnest and believably bedraggled Drew Barrymore). She is an environmental activist with no resources but a good story. One by one, those who resist getting involved revise their positions when they are in the spotlight. No one wants to risk bad publicity–or pass up the chance to look heroic.
Even as the people come together, the logistical challenge becomes overwhelming and — parent alert — the ultimate rescue is bittersweet, not entirely triumphant.
The people stories, especially a trumped-up romantic triangle, are not as intriguing as the portrayal of pre-Internet news media. With only three network news broadcasts just half an hour each evening, everyone from school children to White House staffers watched the same stories. The archival footage is like the hub that holds all the parts of the story together, and there are some pointed jabs at media focus on the sensational over the significant.
A turning point comes when White House aide Kelly Meyers (based on Bonnie Carroll) persuades President Ronald Reagan, at the end of his term, to call on his counterpart in the USSR for help from a Soviet ice cutting ship. (Be sure to watch for photos of Carroll’s real life wedding to the military officer she met at the rescue over the closing credits.).
Meyers sets up a “Hello Gorby, this is Ronnie” phone call that serves as a literal ice breaker for the whales and a metaphorical one for two nations in the very earliest stages of post-Evil Empire relations. The people saved the whales, but the real miracle was that they learned their differences were small compared to what they had in common with each other and with the giant mammals who needed their help.
Parents should know that this movie includes animal and human peril and references to hunting and eating whales. One of the whales dies (off-screen).
Family discussion: How many different reasons did the characters have for helping the whales? How did the risk of bad publicity or the benefits of good publicity change their behavior? What is different now from the era when this took place?
If you like this, try: “Free Willy” and “Whale Rider” and the book about the real-life rescue by Tom Rose