Movie Review: Evan Almighty (2007)

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Brian Wright

Evan Almighty ____________ 6/10
Engaging satirical flick for the whole family

No, Evan Almighty is not a contender for the Oscars, much less a serious threat to unseat political satire-comedy classics such as Wag the Dog, American Dreamz, or Man of the Year. But it’s a reasonably intelligent family-friendly spoof of power politics and an extremely funny deflation of the socially ambitious political personality.

Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) is one such ambitious, though well-meaning, poli-person. The film begins with Evan leveraging his TV news persona to win a race for the United States Congress. It’s always been his dream to reach this pinnacle of public service, and he’s also firmly attached to the frills of the job: a monster trophy home in the hills of Virginia, first-class office and staff, chauffeur and special parking privileges.

His first day on the job, neighboring Congressman Chuck Long (John Goodman), who has been in office for a long time, approaches Baxter to pre-endorse Long’s self-serving land-use bill. Long feels Baxter’s notoriety and his cultivated anchor-man good looks—we see Baxter spending 10 minutes over the sink shaving and removing his nose hairs—will give Long the credibility he needs to push the bill through. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Michael Clayton (2007)

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Brian Wright

Human costs of the corporotocracy 7.5/10

Politically probing George Clooney’s Michael Clayton arrives on the big screen just in time to greet the winter. And it has a theme that befits the falling of the leaves and the dimming of the light: a topnotch Mr. Fixit working for a high-powered New York law firm (Kenner, Bach & Ledeen) runs into an assignment that causes him to consider whether the way of life he has chosen is the way his life is meant to be… or the way his particular corporate world is meant to be.

We get a profile of Clayton (Clooney) early as his fast-lane excellence is contrasted with a personal life going down the tubes: divorced, financial troubles, gambling problems, having difficulty relating to the son he adores. On the fast-lane side, we see how deftly he resolves incidents that can be deeply embarrassing for his big-money corporate clients: traffic accidents, addictions, infidelities, immigration barriers.

But as smooth and polished as Clayton is, the true secret to his success lies in his honesty and realism. One client complains that Clayton isn’t the miracle worker that Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s (KBR’s) CEO Marty Bach, a hard-headed, grizzled weasel played perfectly by Sydney Pollack, has represented him to be. Clayton replies: Continue reading →

Movie Review: Black Book (2006)

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Brian Wright

Zhivagoesque epic for Nazi-occupied Europe 8/10

Black Book (from the Dutch Zwartboek) is a wonderfully casted and executed World War II movie about the Nazi oppression of conquered peoples that doesn’t stereotype anyone. It also doesn’t pull any punches about the brutality of the Nazis toward the Jews, the brutality of the Nazis toward any of the locals—in this case the Dutch—who dared to object to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to worship the Fuhrer, and the treachery within the ranks of the Reich’s victim classes.

Apparently, this latter quality—that many individuals secretly collaborated with the Nazis, even when they weren’t under special duress—is somewhat controversial among some Jewish (and Dutch) viewers, but it shouldn’t be: anyone who’s been in a concentration camp, just as people who’ve been in military combat, will tell you there’s no way to predict how a man or woman will stand up under persistent threats of force. Simply watch Saving Private Ryan… or Bridge on the River Kwai. The same guy who cowers in a foxhole one day, the next day takes on a whole brigade singlehandedly. Certainly no ethnic group is immune from individuals caving, too easily, under pressure, and doing nasty things to their own.

But aside from some PC reservations, this movie doesn’t make a false step; it deserves a ranking among the best noncombat World War II movies I’ve seen—many of which were made in a different era, closer to the war. What distinguishes Black Book, for movies war and nonwar, is the lead role: like Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien, Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) is a true-to-life heroine. The story is her story, conveyed in a retrospective as Rachel takes a timeout from teacher duties at an Israeli kibbutz in 1956; the sentimental journey is triggered by a tourist who turns out to be a coworker Ronnie (Halina Reijn) of Rachel’s in Holland during the Occupation. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Brian Wright

Mystic River meets Who Will Love My Children (7/10)

Gone Baby Gone (GBG) is based on a recent installment of Dennis Lehane’s series of crime novels set in the grimy reality of South Boston. [Lehane also wrote Mystic River (2003), which became a movie netting an Oscar nomination for director Clint Eastwood and an Oscar victory for leading man, Sean Penn, and supporting actor Tim Robbins.] GBG climbs right into the rather bleak yet homey apartment of Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro, who mix business with pleasure by doing freelance private investigations.

A child has disappeared, and her aunt Beatrice McCready (Amy Madigan) and uncle Lionel McCready (Titus Welliver) are unhappy with police progress on resolving the whereabouts. Feeling someone from the neighborhood will be more inclined to get answers, they make an earnest plea to our young, relatively inexperienced PI couple. Patrick and Angie, being advised by the head of the Crimes against Children task force Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) to “work with us,” proceed to check out the local haunts and blind pigs that the cops don’t much know or care about.

And that whole process of experiencing, through Patrick and Angie’s eyes, the local color of South Boston lends the film a unique “you are there” authenticity. These are the real people… and a lot of ’em are pretty sleazy and/or scary hombres and hombrettes—you want to keep one hand on your wallet and the other ready to reach for your .38. Helene McCready (Amy Ryan), the mother of the missing kid, is a mean little drug-abusing slut; while expressing obligatory faux grief while the news cameras are rolling, she really isn’t motherhood material. Continue reading →

Movie Review: 7 Men from Now (1956)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Brian Wright

Good for what it tells of the times, how a real man takes care of business
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

7 Men from Now is the quintessential western, the first of a series of six made at a time when westerns vied with romantic comedies and musicals for moviegoers’ bigger dollars. As children of the 50s we were surrounded by John Wayne/John Ford panoramas, other big movie productions, and dozens of television serials (Cheyenne, Have Gun Will Travel, Johnny Yuma, Maverick, Wanted: Dead or Alive, geez the list is practically endless and I sure watched most of ’em). For many boys, images of what constituted heroism were shaped by these celluloid icons. [Only recently have I concluded that Hollywood has always been a major propaganda dissemination and conditioning center for the masses, including yours truly. When I was only a few years older the perceptions and images that shaped me could have killed me: I watched the film Patton and The Green Berets would have tried to enlist in special forces except for being talked out of it by a close friend who told me how psychotic and irrational most of the American military experience really was.]

But for one reason or another—friends tell me I’m missing some key gear teeth in the noodle—I had not remembered any of the Randolph Scott westerns. It was Mom who testified to the special suitability of Mr. Scott to the genre; then one night while I was over visiting, Turner Classic Movies came on with Robert Osborne hosting 7 Men and we watched it. (Then just the other day I ordered the DVD via Netflix, which more or less prompts this review.) What I recall from the original viewing is the film’s marvelous economy: the stoic, fluid efficiency of Ben Stride’s (Scott’s) actions and words as well as the “just the essentials” movement of the story. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Selena (1997)

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Brian Wright

Tejano Hope __ 8/10

Note: Potential spoiler for those unfamiliar with events surrounding the star in 1995.

So why should we watch a movie about the “Madonna” of Mexican Americans? (Actually, I made up that comparison, but I’m pretty sure Selena has been compared to Madonna many times in the entertainment media.) Well, all the conventional reasons:

The movie features Jennifer Lopez in the title role, a definite career launcher
The movie speaks the universal language of music, a unique, buoyant style that doesn’t make it into mainstream pop very often.
In these days of Cider House Rules Immigration Policy, the film reminds us that people of Hispanic ancestry, particularly Tejanos[1], (regardless of government paperwork) are people, too.

The movie starts with Selena’s famous concert in the Houston Astrodome on February 26, 1995, where a record crowd of 61,000 young fans show up to listen and cheer. She’s at the top of her form with Spanish-speaking fans all through Mexico and Latin America and around the world, as well as Anglos everywhere, too; she grew up predominantly in English-speaking society as she was born in Lake Jackson, Texas in 1971 to Mexican-American citizens. The issue of perceived identity—between Mexican culture and American culture—is a constant throughout the movie and something Selena comes to flow between naturally… less so her father and mother, who definitely consider themselves part of the Anglo world. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Friday Night Lights (TV Miniseries: 2007-2011)

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Brian Wright

Friday Night Lights (TV Miniseries) _ 9/10
The religion of Texas high school football
Review by Brian Wright

Written by Peter Berg and Buzz Bissinger (34 episodes)
Directed by Jeffrey Reiner (12 episodes)

Looking around Amazon.com for something for Mama for Christmas, it occurred to me she’s a huge fan of Kyle Chandler… esp. his role in the mid-1990s series, Early Edition, where he plays a young man who for mysterious reasons receives a newspaper every morning with news of events 24 hours into the future. (An innovative idea with more plot possibilities than Star Trek! Mom rarely missed an episode.)

So that settled it: I’d track down a DVD collection with Kyle Chandler in it. Turns out CBS hadn’t yet released the DVDs on Early Edition, but the actor was heading up the cast of a critically acclaimed new series based on the book Friday Night Lights (FNL)… which had also been turned into a movie of the same name starring Billy Bob Thornton. So with Mom also having spent some time in a small East Texas town (Tyler) and being fully aware of the fanaticism Texans bring to their high-school football experience—recall the incident of the mother in a town near Houston who wanted to kill her daughter’s rival on the cheerleading squad (made into a movie)—I figured Mom’d appreciate the first season of the Friday Night Lights miniseries. Did I ever get that right! Continue reading →