Vice - Movie Review

Starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Jesse Plemons, LisaGay Hamilton, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, Shea Whigham, and Bill Camp.
Written & Directed by Adam McKay.

★★½

There's a certain flavor of political movie Hollywood likes to churn out. There's the HBO model, that likes to retell recent history under the prism of "Democrats are the good guys; Republicans are the bad guys." This one escalates it to "Democrats are righteous but naive; Republicans are pure evil."

The angry fervor Adam McKay brought to The Big Short worked well. He wanted to inform and enrage but also entertain. I would argue it worked on a bipartisan level. But that movie was based on a book and he had a co-writer. Here he's doing writing duties by himself with no book blueprint, and he can't help himself. It's an angry, sloppy diatribe that blames everything that's wrong with this world on Dick Cheney (Christian Bale), whom he will have you know is the most evil human being on the planet today. At one point, he puts the creation of ISIS fully on Cheney's shoulders.

Bale thanked Satan for inspiration in how to play Cheney, and he wasn't kidding.

It jumps around on the timeline, but we see how influential Lynne (Amy Adams) is in getting Dick to have some ambition and be a better husband and father than her own father was. We at least see that Dick loves his daughters, but that would be a human thing, so naturally they have to sabotage that by the end.

All the characters in this movie are evil or stupid or Democrats. It's like watching House of Cards where Frank Underwood doesn't say anything to the camera or other people, but we get this narrator (Jesse Plemons) who assures us that Dick is evil and here's what he was probably plotting. (The ultimate reveal as to who the narrator is another cheapening trick.)

Even the most minor of characters like pollster Frank Luntz are blasted as evil. When Luntz figures out that "death tax" works better in focus groups than "estate tax" he practically twirls his mustache and cackles "Mwa ha ha!"

Granted, Cheney did enormous damage to this country and the world with some of his misguided policies and cherry-picking of intelligence. And I was certainly never bored by what was going on. Bale and Adams deserve the nomination buzz they've been getting. Bale transforms himself, and Adams just feels like she's due. Carell's Donald Rumsfeld is an amoral clown, and Sam Rockwell's George W. Bush might as well drool and wear a propeller hat. Tyler Perry captures the indignity of Colin Powell recognizing he's in the minority of an increasingly wrong-headed Cabinet.

Even in the middle of the closing credits we get one final self-congratulatory scene from McKay that undercuts whatever points he thought he was making.

Deep down, what is Cheney's motivation? His personal ethic? His driving force? McKay doesn't know and doesn't care. Cheney's just evil. If these are why events transpired the way they did, yes, it's horrifying. But this makes Michael Moore look like Dinesh D'Souza.

My Top Ten Films of 2016

Of the 104 movies I saw in 2016, these were the best.

Honorable Mentions: Deadpool, Don't Breathe, Fences, Florence Foster Jenkins, Hail Caesar!, I Am Not A Serial Killer, The Jungle Book, Life Animated, The Lobster, Loving, Midnight Special, Sully, 10 Cloverfield Lane, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, The Witch.

My Top 11-20 (in alphabetical order):

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR - DC Comics may not have figured out the movie business post-Nolan, but Marvel's humming along. Civil War brought together some old favorites and new and featured one of my favorite fight-scenes ever in a comic book movie.

DEEPWATER HORIZON - Director Peter Berg's tribute to blue-collar consequences to white-collar greed may be the most respectful disaster movie ever.

THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN - Hailee Steinfeld has arrived.

GREEN ROOM - This claustrophobic thriller stars Anton Yelchin as a band member where he and his mates barricade themselves in a green room at a Nazi club after they witness a murder. Patrick Stewart is the skinhead leader who just wants these rockers disposed of. The sense of dread builds at the right pace and there's a realistic feel to how everything goes down.

THE INVITATION - Low-budget indie drama that starts like a thriller and keeps audiences guessing where it's going.

THE NICE GUYS - Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling made for 2016's most surprisingly funny comedy duo.

ROGUE ONE - This Star Wars stand-alone answers one of the big questions from the original trilogy and just adds depth to the franchise in general.

SING STREET - John Carney once again writes and directs a movie about people writing music, but by setting this in high school in the 1980's, there's the extra pleasure of nostalgia.

WEINER - Fascinating documentary about one of the most self-destructive politicians of the decade.

ZOOTOPIA - Disney had great success with an all-animal cast for Robin Hood, so they do it again with Chinatown.

And now....

..... My Top Ten:

10. HIDDEN FIGURES - Inspirational true story about the African-American women who helped put John Glenn into space.

9. LOVE & FRIENDSHIP - Kate Beckinsale blazes through this Jane Austen adaptation from her old pal Whit Stillman. She says so many cruel things but with such a smile on her face that no one around her knows how to handle it.

8. MOONLIGHT - A very distinct, unique character study of a boy who doesn't say much, but we can still get what he's going through. Writer/director Barry Jenkins is going to be someone to follow.

7. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA - Heartbreaking drama about a messed-up guy who's named guardian of his nephew after his brother dies. Career-best work from Casey Affleck.

6. HACKSAW RIDGE - Director Mel Gibson is back, giving us a story of a conscientious objector to WWII who still found a way to serve in the military without firing a shot.

5. LA LA LAND - This throwback to old musicals is delightful, but especially when you consider it's from the guy who made the verrrry different Whiplash.

4. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS - Tom Ford knows exactly what story he wants to tell here and I was on board. On its surface it's just a story-within-a-story about a woman reading a new novel by her ex-husband, but the way that story weaves in with flashbacks of their relationship is superbly done.

3. LION - Moving true story of a little boy lost in India, and how as an adult he tries to find his mother.

2. ARRIVAL - This contemplative movie makes an alien arrival almost a subplot, to the more focussed story of how a linguist (Amy Adams) deals with the complications of trying to decipher an alien language.

1. HELL OR HIGH WATER - This modern-day Western is perfectly paced, with a pair of young bankrobbers and a pair of old cops trying to stay ahead of the other. it was my favorite movie of the year.

Golden Globe Nominations List

Best Motion Picture – Drama:
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell Or High Water”
“Lion”
“Manchester By The Sea”
“Moonlight”

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy:
“20th Century Women”
“Deadpool”
“La La Land”
“Florence Foster Jenkins”
“Sing Street”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama:
Casey Affleck – “Manchester By The Sea”
Joel Edgerton – “Loving”
Andrew Garfield – “Hacksaw Ridge”
Viggo Mortensen –  “Captain Fantastic”
Denzel Washington – “Fences”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama:
Amy Adams – “Arrival”
Jessica Chastain – “Miss Sloane”
Isabelle Huppert – “Elle”
Ruth Negga – “Loving”
Natalie Portman – “Jackie”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy:
Colin Farrell – “The Lobster”
Ryan Gosling – “La La Land”
Hugh Grant – “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Jonah Hill – “War Dogs”
Ryan Reynolds – “Deadpool”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy:
Annette Bening – “20th Century Women”
Lily Collins – “Rules Don’t Apply”
Hailee Steinfeld – “The Edge of Seventeen”
Emma Stone – “La La Land”
Meryl Streep – “Florence Foster Jenkins”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture:
Mahershala Ali – “Moonlight”
Jeff Bridges – “Hell or High Water”
Simon Helberg – “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Dev Patel – “Lion”
Aaron Taylor-Johnson – “Nocturnal Animals”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture:
Viola Davis – “Fences”
Naomie Harris – “Moonlight”
Nicole Kidman – “Lion”
Octavia Spencer – “Hidden Figures”
Michelle Williams – “Manchester by the Sea”

Best Director – Motion Picture:
Damien Chazelle – “La La Land”
Tom Ford – “Nocturnal Animals”
Mel Gibson – “Hacksaw Ridge”
Barry Jenkins – “Moonlight”
Kenneth Lonergan – “Manchester by the Sea”

Best Original Screenplay:
“La La Land”
“Nocturnal Animals”
“Moonlight”
“Manchester By The Sea”
“Hell Or High Water”

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language:
“Divines” – France
“Elle” – France
“Neruda” – Chile
“The Salesman” – Iran/France
“Toni Erdmann” – Germany

Best Motion Picture – Animated:
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Moana”
“My Life As A Zucchini”
“Sing”
“Zootopia”

Best Original Song – Motion Picture:
“Cant Stop The Feeling” – “Trolls”
“City Of Stars” – La La Land
“Faith” – Sing
“Gold” – Gold
“How Far I’ll Go” – Moana

Best Original Score – Motion Picture:
Nicholas Britell– “Moonlight”
Justin Hurwitz – “La La Land”
Johann Johannsson – “Arrival”
Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka– “Lion
Hans Zimmer, Pharrel Williams, Benjamin Wallfisch – “Hidden Figures”

Best Television Series – Drama:
“The Crown”
“Game Of Thrones”
“Stranger Things”
“This Is Us”
“Westworld”

Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy:
“Atlanta”
“Black-ish”
“Mozart In The Jungle”
“Transparent”
“Veep”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama:
Rami Malek – “Mr. Robot”
Bob Odenkirk – “Better Call Saul”
Matthew Rhys – “The Americans”
Liev Schreiber – “Ray Donovan”
Billy Bob Thornton – “Goliath”

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series – Drama:
Caitriona Balfe – “Outlander”
Claire Foy – “The Crown”
Keri Russell – “The Americans”
Winona Ryder – “Stranger Things”
Evan Rachel Wood – “Westworld”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy:
Anthony Anderson – “Black-ish”
Gael García Bernal – “Mozart in the Jungle
Donald Glover – “Atlanta”
Nick Nolte – “Graves”
Jeffrey Tambor – “Transparent”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy:
Rachel Bloom – “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – “Veep”
Sarah Jessica Parker – “Divorce”
Issa Rae – “Insecure”
Gina Rodriguez – “Jane the Virgin”
Tracee Ellis-Ross – “Black-ish”

Best Limited Series:
“American Crime”
“The Dresser”
“The Night Manager”
“The Night Of”
“The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Riz Ahmed – “The Night Of”
Bryan Cranston – “All The Way”
Tom Hiddleston – “The Night Manager”
John Turturro – “The Night Of”
Courtney B Vance – “The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Olivia Colman – “The Night Manager”
Lena Headey – “Game Of Thrones”
Chrissy Metz – “This Is Us”
Mandy Moore – “This Is Us”
Thandie Newton – “Westworld”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Felicity Huffman – “American Crime”
Riley Keough – “The Girlfriend Experience”
Sarah Paulson – “The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”
Charlotte Rampling – “London Spy”
Kerry Washington – “Confirmation”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television:
Sterling K Brown – “The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”
Hugh Laurie – “The Night Manager”
John Lithgow – “The Crown”
Christian Slater – “Mr. Robot”
John Travolta – “The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”

Nocturnal Animals - Movie Review

Starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Armie Hammer, Karl Glusman, Laura Linney, Michael Sheen and Jena Malone.
Written & Directed by Tom Ford.

★★★½

When we get the opening credits, these grotesquely obese women are dancing naked, in slow-motion, in front of a red curtain. After the actors were listed, I closed my eyes for most of the rest. Once the opening credits are over, the movie backs away, and the jarring opening does make sense in the overall story being told here.

Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, an art gallery owner. She's wealthy but in a second marriage on its last legs. One day she receives in the mail a manuscript from his first husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal). The book is called "Nocturnal Animals" and he has dedicated it to her.

Susan reads the book, and we get the story-within-the-story about Tony (also Gyllenhaal), his wife Laura (Isla Fisher, who looks a lot like Adams), and their teenage daughter India. They get run off the road by some ne'er-do-wells led by Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and the dreadful suspense builds and builds.

As Susan gets more involved in the story, we see flashbacks of her own life. We see her and Edward when they first started dating, and when they were married, and what led to their split.

The impact of the story as a whole is one I keep thinking more and more about. This is the type of movie where you want to talk with other people about it. The acting's great. Adams and Gyllenhaal are solid. Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla), who isn't one I always enjoy, is seriously creepy here. And Michael Shannon, who shows up as a cop in the book, is just one of my favorite working actors. I'd watch him in anything.

Arrival - Movie Review

Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Written by Eric Heisserer.
Directed by Denis Villenueve.

★★★★

Denis Villenueve (Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario) is quickly becoming one of my must-see directors. Actually, he's already there. I'm excited for where he could go.

This film is about an alien invasion of Earth, but it's really about Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams). In the beginning we watch her with her daughter. We watch her daughter grow to be a teenager and then die from disease. The next time we see Louise, we see the sadness in her eyes, and we see the semi-lonely existence she's carved out for herself as a college linguistics professor. But as she goes to teach, most of her class is gone. Why? There's been an invasion.

Due to previous work she'd done for the government, Louise is at the top of the list for the military to seek as a linguistic expert. The aliens are making sounds, and they want her to determine if Earthlings can somehow communicate with them.

The movie takes a slow, reverant approach to the reveal of the aliens. (I'm really glad the previews never spoiled what they fully look like.) Once she sees them, she goes through the process of trying to figure out how they communicate.

The movie is about the process, about finding common trends or signals in order to establish communication. There are 12 alien ships hovering over different parts of the globe. Each country that has one is trying to determine the best course of action. Should we preemptively strike in case their intentions are malevolent?

This movie is the antidote to Independence Day: Resurgence's summer stupidity. It's smart sci-fi that you hear about from time to time.

Her - Movie Review

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlet Johansson, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pratt and Portia Doubleday.
Directed by Spike Jonze.

★★★½

Jonze is a unique voice in cinema. He's only directed four movies, but each one (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are, Her) goes places we don't expect.

This explores a near-future that shows the natural progression of the over-saturation of social media, where people are more and more socially awkward yet yearn for genuine human interaction.  Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a man who works at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, a company that writes heart-felt hand-written letters from one person to another. I love the irony of that, and yet it's something that seems like it would eventually be a successful site.

Theodore is one of the first customers of the new Artificial Intelligence Operating System, about ten generations past Siri.  Theodore's personalized OS is Samantha (voices by Scarlett Johansson), and she is programmed to fit Theodore's needs and personality, but as an AI, she learns and progresses in her own right.

It's funny, it's touching, and it's a movie Ron Swanson would hate.  "Just date a real woman, son." I've seen a lot of good movies lately. If only Hollywood would release them all year round.

2013 Golden Globe Winners

BEST PICTURE DRAMA - 12 Years a Slave
BEST PICTURE COMEDY - American Hustle
BEST DIRECTOR - Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity
BEST ACTOR DRAMA - Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
BEST ACTOR COMEDY - Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
BEST ACTRESS DRAMA - Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
BEST ACTRESS COMEDY - Amy Adams, American Hustle
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
BEST SCREENPLAY - Spike Jonze, Her
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - The Great Beauty
BEST ANIMATED FILM - Frozen
BEST ORIGINAL SONG - “Ordinary Love,” by U2, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - All is Lost

BEST TV DRAMA - Breaking Bad
BEST TV COMEDY - Brooklyn Nine-Nine
BEST ACTOR DRAMA - Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
BEST ACTOR COMEDY - Andy Samberg, Brooklyn Nine-Nine
BEST ACTRESS DRAMA - Robin Wright, House of Cards
BEST ACTRESS COMEDY - Amy Poehler, Parks And Recreation
BEST MINI-SERIES OR TV MOVIE - Behind The Candelabra
BEST ACTOR MINI-SERIES OR TV MOVIE - Michael Douglas, Behind The Candelabra
BEST ACTRESS MINI-SERIES OR TV MOVIE - Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Jacqueline Bisset, Dancing on the Edge
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Jon Voight, Ray Donovan

Cecil B. DeMille Award - Woody Allen

The Golden Globes are known for being a little wacky, the speeches a little looser, the winners a little cool-kids. When they announced they were giving the Cecil B. DeMille Award to Woody Allen, I thought, "Wow, are they really going to get him to attend an awards show?" but no, Diane Keaton comes out and accepts for him in intentionally surreal fashion.

Movie-wise the love was spread.  The Globes have been looser in what they consider a comedy to help strengthen the category. American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street have a lot of funny stuff in them, but are they really comedies? Eh, I'm not complaining. Happy about all the results, at least for the ones I've seen.

TV-wise, I was shocked that Brooklyn Nine-Nine won, but very happy for the show. It's the best rookie comedy out there, and it could use the boost. Also thrilled Amy Poehler finally won.

American Hustle - Movie Review

Starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, Shea Whigham, Alessandro Nivola and Elisabeth Rohm.
Directed by David O. Russell.

★★★★

The true story would have been meaner and more black and white. I like that Russell took the basic elements and made it a lot more ambiguous and gray.

Russell's now directing three great films in a row - The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and now this. This might be his best yet.

It comes down to the actors, and under a director who clearly gives them a lot of freedom, they all step up. Bruce Wayne and Lois Lane make a great team. If Christian Bale didn't already have an Oscar, he might be getting front-runner chatter for his work here. And Amy Adams hasn't won one yet but I'll be rooting for her.

Bale plays Irving, a con man caught by the FBI, who then work a deal with him to use his con skills to help him catch some bigger frauds. It eventually leads to a web of corruption that may land some US congressmen.

The movie has those gloriously scuzzy details of the 1970's, and Bale's belly and combover are characters in themselves. Every scene crackles. It's lively and vibrant and a lot of fun.

Man of Steel - Movie Review

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★½

This Christopher Nolan reboot adds some gravity to the Superman story. Maybe a little too much.  There's a lot of brooding, and it could have used some more fun.  Overall I liked it but it had its issues.

First, we'll start with Krypton. (Ever notice how all other planets have one government running the entire planet?  Earth has something like 180 countries, but how come other planets...?) Anyway, Krypton is about to be destroyed by a people too stupid to stop mining its core for energy.  Now to demonstrate how Krypton is run by the folks from Idiocracy, they have sent out scouting ships to other planets to test sustainability, but all of the projects were abandoned. Not really clear why.  But Jor-El (Russell Crowe) manages to sneak his baby boy on a capsule before the whole thing blows up.

Oh, but before that happens, General Zod (Michael Shannon) tries to overthrow the government and fails.  He and his followers are sentenced to 300 years in the Phantom Zone, a safe place that isn't about to blow up.  So Kal-El isn't the only surviving Kryptonian.  Those resourceful Phantom Zone dwellers survive as well.

Kal-El grows up to be Clark Kent, a drifter who goes from town to town trying to find himself, but as soon as he uses his powers to save lives, he moves on.  He just has to find the right time to go public.  Well, the right time is when Zod shows up and lets the whole world know an alien lives among them.

I just wish it hadn't been so brood-tastic.  This is Superman!  He's an alien!  We started out on another planet that looked like Dune meets Attack of the Clones.  I like that it actually digs into how alienating it must've been for Clark to just pretend he doesn't have powers.  Thing is, Clark's still trying to find himself at age 33.  C'mon, Clark.  Be a man already.

Zod is the villain, and Michael Shannon had no chance of outshining Terence Stamp's "Kneel Before Zod."  This Zod doesn't make the smartest decisions and he doesn't seem to understand anything about diplomacy or leadership, but he thinks he does.  He's like the Santa Anna of space generals.

The rest of the cast does the best they can with what they're given as well.  I liked Cavill; I think in the next movie he'll be allowed to have a little more fun.  Amy Adams wasn't right as Lois Lane, but this Lois wasn't anything like what Lois should be.  This Lois was a device to advance the plot.  She didn't really seem like a reporter.

Couple other points:
- Pa Kent's death was stupid. They should have left it as a heart attack.
- The final battle must have killed a lot of people.  You'd think Superman would have tried to get the fight into a more rural area.
- I did get a kick out of a couple Easter eggs in there.

The Master - Movie Review

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Jesse Plemons and Laura Dern.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

★★★

I have liked all of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies up to this point, and I can't really say I liked this one so much as I respect it.  I read one review that said Anderson was "freed from traditional narrative." I need to pay closer attention to phrases like that.  There's a growing trend in "artful" movies, where they're ditching common hooks like plot, story, and resolution.

PTA is not as egregious a violator of narrative like Terrence Malick, a director who has less story with every movie he makes.  But here is his least conventional movie to date, and I have a hard time imagining even coastal movie critics coming out exhilarated.  It's more of a "so... that happened."  The first metaphor that popped into my brain during the closing credits was the caucus race from Alice in Wonderland.  Round and round we go, and once it stops, we're about where we started.

The movie starts with Freddie Quells (Joaquin Phoenix), a drunken WWII sailor who concocts different formulas for getting inebriated.  Paint thinner being an ingredient sometimes.  Freddie isn't bright in most respects.  He is pure pubescent id, unable to control himself, full of raw emotion.  After the war we see he gets psychiatric treatment but he's left to drift on his own, and his temper doesn't allow him to keep a job long.

(Now some have referred to this as a fictional take on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, but the comparisons are vague enough that Tom Cruise saw the movie, and he and PTA are still friends.  I'm inserting this here to get it out of the way.)

Freddie eventually drifts into the life of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), though his name is rarely said.  He's more often referred to as "Master."  Dodd, it turns out, is leader of "the Cause," a religious movement that posits you can recall past lives and use them to cure disease and achieve a form of enlightenment or perfection.  Dodd's wife Mary Sue (Amy Adams) is a true believer and as much a driver of the Cause as Dodd himself.

Freddie starts to develop a sense of purpose in Dodd's service, and Dodd's techniques for "processing" expand Freddie's mind in ways he hadn't been tested.

But Freddie is a man who lives on the surface, in the moment.  If he wants to get drunk, he gets drunk.  If he gets mad, he hits someone.  If he hears a fart, he giggles.  Dodd is his opposite, a well-groomed superego, a charming charlatan who lives the life of benevolent leader 24/7.

Phoenix gives a ferocious performance.  His body is contorted in ways that made me wonder if he dislocated his shoulders for the entire shoot or what.  His face has the squint and snear of a sailor who had one side of his face against the sun too long.  Hoffman, meanwhile, is the terrible flip side to the coin.  Patient, charismatic, believing every word he peddles, even as his philosophy unravels.

Dodd's wife is pregnant most of the movie, as if vessel for the Jacob-and-Esau dynamic with Freddie and Dodd, two men who struggle with yet complete each other.  Freddie gets intellectual stimulation and friendship, Dodd gets vicarious enjoyment from his henchman's emotional freedom.  In the end, when time's passed, and when she confronts Freddie, the baby gone (we're never told when it was born), she calls their efforts in helping him "pointless."  Some may have the knee-jerk reaction to say the same thing about the movie.

The final shot made me wonder how much of it was real. Was some of it just a dream?  Is Freddie in some sort of Jacob's Ladder limbo?  None of the characters are really different from when we started.

Phoenix and Hoffman should be nominated for their work here, and depending on the depth of the field, so should Adams.  It's also gorgeous to look at, having been shot in 70mm.  I just hope this doesn't represent a new direction for PTA where he abandons those enjoyable little tools like "plot advancement" to be more artsy in his work.  I would caution most people to see at your own risk.  I wouldn't say the ending answers any questions, and you have to think about it for a while.

The Muppets - DVD Review

Starring Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones and Jack Black.  Directed by James Bobin.

★★★

This movie embraces the old and makes it... not new again, but at least a return to form. It uses the tried-and-true "let's get the band back together" story with our old friends The Muppets.

Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (a puppet) are brothers who love the Muppets, but the Muppets have since broken up and faded into obscurity. When they learn of a plan of an evil Texas oilman named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to tear down the old Muppet theater, they spring into action to track down Kermit and the rest to save the theater.

There's humor and fun in seeing where they imagine each has wound up (loved Animal's subplot), and there are plenty of good cameos.

The Fighter - Movie Review

lll 1/2

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo.
Directed by David O. Russell.

This movie triumphs in many areas, but the biggest is the acting showcase it provides. Christian Bale has long been one of the most versatile actors of his generation, but his work in movies like Rescue Dawn just never quite got the awards attention. Now here's one where he can shine. He's lost weight and made to look skeletal, pale, really burying himself of a former boxer turned crack-addict. Also duking it out are Amy Adams, in her toughest tough-gal role yet, and Melissa Leo, a mama bear who can't quite see when she does more harm than good.

It also succeeds in being a realistic boxing movie. By that I mean the choreography isn't elevated to this unworldy Rocky sequel where the fight would have been called off ten rounds before it actually is.

This movie's really more about family. Boxing's secondary. It's about older-brother screw-up Dicky (Bale) and younger brother Micky (Mark Wahlberg) who still might have a future. It's all filmed in Lowell, MA, with actors that look like real people, on locations that don't look like sound stages.