Mad Men - "A Tale of Two Cities" - Review

Don Draper is getting old. His clean-cut, classically handsome good looks are beginning to feel more and more out of place. He’s a man of another generation, another time, and he is being replaced. He and Betty and Roger, and everyone who’s from the generation born and bred on the old code of the postwar United States are being outstripped by a younger generation.

Now let’s talk about instant milk for a moment. Don and Roger go out to settle an account for an instant breakfast company Carnation dissatisfied with the ad campaign for instant milk. What is instant milk? It’s a substitute; it can never really replace real milk. But it’s presumably less costly, and it’s convenient. It’s certainly got its advantages (not that I’d ever use it). It’s stepping in to fill the role of something else. Throughout the episode we find that happening constantly. 

But this is the story of Don Draper. Dick Whitman stepped into the part of Don Draper, took his identity and his life. Don is an opportunist of the first order. He’s consistently looked for ways to advance and better himself and often by putting himself into some role that needs to be filled or creating one from thin air. His initial employment at Sterling Cooper is one of many instances of this.  

Early on in the episode, the partners find themselves unable to choose a name for the new company. Cutler puts it plainly, “If we don’t choose a name, the world will”. It’s a statement that finds resonance throughout the hour. Those who take charge, who try to drive their own destiny and make something of themselves find opportunities and advance themselves, while anyone else is replaced or left behind. We see this most prominently of Joan in this episode, but we have also seen that all season long in Bob Benson. 

Bob has been hanging around on the fringes of this season until recent episodes, but there’s been one thing clear from the start. He’ll take advantage of any circumstance to better his position. He’s an opportunist, much like how the Carnation Instant Breakfast company executive derides Richard Nixon for being one. This pays off when an enraged Cutler has Bob go with Ginsberg to handle the Manischewitz account. Cutler, of course, himself is being an opportunist, taking this chance to pull one over on the SCDP side of the company. Now Bob finds himself the account man on the Chevy account. Bob just keeps getting his foot in the door with everyone around him. Now he’s done it by stepping into the role of Cutler. From the looks of his yelling at Ginsberg, Bob Benson isn’t a completely the nice guy he makes himself out to be (There’s something to be said here about appearances and how by filling a certain role, you have to play the part and make people see you the way you want them to). 

Ironically enough, the biggest opportunist there is (until Bob now) Pete Cambell finds opportunities closing around him at every turn. Cambell was ruthlessly effective at getting and keeping accounts, hence his position as head of accounts. But now Pete has lost accounts, his wife and his sense of grounding. By episodes end he’s no longer in the name of the company; he’s been replaced by simply “partners”. 

But the big story here is about how Joan foresees a chance to win over a client and have them answer to her. A friend sets her up on a date with a marketing executive from Avon (a reference to the notion of appearances and deception) and Joan jumps at the chance to get this client for the company. But when it becomes apparent that Pete will take all the credit for this account, she cuts him out of the meeting; she fills that role.  

Peggy is not enthused by this at all. In a fantastic scene, Peggy criticizes Joan for not working her way up to accounts. But Joan points out how she’s essentially been working accounts her whole time at the company. Peggy never had to replace anyone; she was given an opportunity certainly but it was a completely new position she was placed into. This doesn’t, however, stop Peggy from helping Joan out of a tight spot by sending the secretary to call Joan out of her difficult meeting with Ted and Pete over her course of actions. 

There’s also interesting things in the episodes about expectations versus reality. Everyone expects the Democrats to propose a plan at the national convention for getting out of the war in Vietnam. Peggy expects Ted to give Joan the account. Don expects his trip to California to be invigorating but instead it leaves him sick, tired and with a near-death experience. I bring up this new theme of discussion because dear lord at times I had no clue what was up with the Don storyline once we got to the party. Don has a bad drug trip and starts hallucinating crazy shit, including seeing himself dying. I guess seeing Meghan could sort of be tied back to the previously discussed ideas of replacement, deception and filling a role but I would sort of just be bullshitting you there. Roger’s storyline with a returning former employee Danny fits the thematic bill more, but in general the California stuff feels a bit more disconnected. But it does get us some great Roger Sterling one liners so we can all live with that. 

However, the ending to Don’s story fits into the issue of being real versus being fake. “Dying doesn’t make you whole, you should see what you look like,” the dead soldier tells Don in his drug trip. Don keeps filling the void of his unhappiness as if that’s comparable to actually dealing with his dissatisfaction. It’s not. Instant milk isn’t milk. Joan isn’t an accountant even though she does accounts. Bob isn’t a nice guy but an opportunist. We’re all would-be opportunist, until we get let down and stuck on a couch smoking some confiscated pot.  

Stray Thoughts:

-This episode was directed by John Slatterly, the actor who plays Roger, and once again it’s another great episode from him.

-The thematic stuff on divisions to me felt too slight and passing to really make it worth mentioning in detail. It’s there, but it feels more of plot interest than thematic.

-The sound design in Don’s drug trip was phenomenal and totally eerie.

-SC&P it is; though I feel like there’s better name in there somewhere.

-“Why are you always down here!”
-I've never been a big fan with how Mad Men deals with its California storylines and I feel similarly here. Also, it's drug trips are starting to become uninteresting. 

Grade: B+

"Orphan Black", Episodes 4-6 - Capsule Review

 Spoilers Below:

Orphan Black has continued to work well by fleshing out its world. For a large stretch of episode six, "Variations Under Domestication", Sarah isn't the focus of the story, but rather two of her dopplegangers. The show takes this time to suggest to us more of what makes Allison and Cosima* tick. This is important because it fits in with a lot of what makes Orphan Black successful. It helps turn these characters from plot devices into actual people with agency. The actions taken by Allison, in particular, knocking out her husband, forms the centerpiece of the episode; it fits in with what we know about this character but it also allows a character whose borderline caricature affect real consequences and change upon the plot. When Allison appeared it was hard to imagine her playing a bigger part in the narrative, nor did I necessarily want her to as she could, intentionally so, be shrill and difficult, but by making her, and Cosima, one amongst many characters worth caring about the show has raised the stakes for the narrative. We not only care about Sarah, but those people on the edges her life.

*Cosima still remains a bit of cipher (the reveal at the end of episode has my interest peaked however - even if it was sort of obvious), though I do like how Tatiana's Maslany plays the character. Also: she's a tinge lesbian, right?

This fleshing out has taken place in other directions as well. The series very early on made Felix an important character to the story. As the foster brother, and confidante, to Sarah he became a character worth following. However, the show has gone out of its way to make him not simply a excuse for exposition or a roadblock to Sarah's journey down the rabbit hole.** But the show has done this in all sorts of areas of its world, elaborating more on Beth's police partner Art (a really great supporting character) to other familiar but less developed faces such as police IT guy Raj and the morgue operator. Though these latter characters are just sort of there, they help give this world a sense of place. World building is a crucial aspect necessary for a series' long term survival, and it's especially necessary for a show like Orphan Black who is constantly delving into mysteries and mindboggling genre mythology. Some great expansion of the show was unexpectedly seen in Paul, a character the show wisely two-foldedly extrapolated as a character while building out its mythology. You might not care about Paul now but you're certainly interested in him due to this elaboration.

**It's a testament to how well the show developed and handled Felix and Sarah's relationship that we never question or are agitated by his appearance/presence even when it feels really slight or for comic relief.  
 
Sarah remains the protagonist but the show has demonstrated it can follow another character for an extended period of time and it can be just as entertaining and worthwhile as the time spent with Sarah. That being said, Sarah as the protagonist is nice sight as a character because she's smart. She may be a couple steps behind and everything may be falling apart around her at times, but she handles herself well under high-pressured situations. Whenever put into some impossible situation, we can see the wheels spinning in her head; her fast thinking on the fly has proven itself to be a great story element.    

To go back a bit beyond this group of episodes, there's a scene in the first episode of Orphan Black that is the whole show in a nutshell. Sarah, pretending she's Beth*** but having next to no knowledge about who this person is, finds herself dragged to the police station for an inquest. There's seemingly no way she can get out of this and there's no way she can speak at the meeting without blowing her cover. And yet she finds a solution by running to the bathroom and downing an entire bottle of soap. It's a practical solution to a character's problem that demonstrates Sarah's intelligence and resourcefulness.

***The show is at its most entertaining when multiple clones are pretending to be different or the same clone.

As the show keeps piling on, creating ever more elaborate complications for Sarah, it never loses this realistic, practical storytelling. Take episode six, where Sarah has to pretend to be Allison while Allison is passed out and her husband tied up, Vic shows up asking for money, and Paul shows up looking for answers. The show plays all these plots out at the same time and then converges them at just the precise moment. Obviously the party guests can't find out the truth behind any of these problems so it needs to find a solution so Sarah can fix this. There's no crazy last minute save here: she talks her way out of all of this (and not entirely as perfectly as she would have hoped/imagined). For a show with such heavy sci-fi, mystery, and conspiracy lunacy going on, the show never creates some out of left field solution to fix its problems. This is also a testament to how well plotted the show is.

The show remains as delightful as ever and I'm starting give it the simple benefit of the doubt. There's crazy, cool things happening but there's also some smart storytelling underneath it all to keep it from falling apart. 

Game of Thrones - "The Rains of Castamere" - Review

 Spoilers Below:

They did it. They actually fucking did it.

Welcome to the god damn “Red Wedding”!

For readers of the books this one was the biggie; the one event we’d truly waited for since season three began (or really since the show began). But even as someone who knew this was coming, it still hurts like hell. 

Game of Thrones is not a show without its flaws, but when it needs to get something right man, oh, man does it ever succeed. “Rains of Castamere” is the finest hour of this season and the best episode of the show since last season’s “Blackwater”. Much like “Blackwater” it’s one of the most tightly constructed episodes of the show. There’s a precision-like focus as the series hones in on three locations, two of which have converging storylines that pay off handsomely.  

Honestly, the major flaw of this episode is that it doesn’t focus in even more. The episode should have probably been all about the wedding itself, but that would have been a dead giveaway that something was about to go down. 

The other stories also play like a counterpoint to Robb and Catelynn’s. Jon and Dany’s stories are action packed where big events that have been much more clearly built towards finally go down. The wedding storyline is purposely slow moving and meandering; it takes its sweet time and lulls us into a false sense of calm. Jon and Dany’s stories are also at moments of triumph which also adds to a false sense of promise. “Perhaps,” we think to ourselves, “may be this wedding will go off without a hitch as well.” But sadly no; nope, that’s just not the way this world works.

George RR Martin is a cruel, brutal writer that paints a world of harsh realities rather than pleasant, deceptive lies, and nowhere is that perhaps more clear than in this episode.  

And so here we stand at the penultimate episode “Rains of Castamere” witnessing one of the most disheartening and saddening (and also best) moments the show has yet to depict. 

The real genius of Game of Thrones, and the books that they’re based on, is that there’s plenty of little moments that are rather entertaining, exciting and unpredictable (Jaimie getting his hand cut off, Dany sacking Astapor, Sam stabbing the white walker), but they’re really just a trail of bread crumbs to get you to moments like this. Those other moments are entertaining for sure, but these other ones, well, they’re the ones where Martin makes you feel as if he’s not playing by the rules he set out before you. And it’s in those moments that Martin, and this show, find themselves operating at a whole other level of storytelling. There are lots of things this show does very well, but pulling off a startlingly memorable moment is its specialty.

This moment in particular works so well because we've been trained for so long to root strongly for the Starks and a Stark victory in spite of how impossible or unlikely it might seem. The Starks are the closest thing we have to protagonists at this point. Sure, Tyrion isn't a bad fellow and Dany is also sympathetic, but the Starks are and have been the lynchpin to the narrative since its inception. Their story at this point might not have been the most engaging but we still had residual empathy and connection to them. And so it comes as a visceral gut punch when they're taken down.  

The foreshadowing of the deaths of Catelynn, Robb and the Stark host is laid on thick throughout the hour. We first see a hesitant Robb seeking council from Catelynn, and it’s in that instance that you can see the writing is on the wall. Catelynn notes how even if he does get the armies from the Freys, he still will have an exceedingly improbable time taking Casterly Rock, seat of the Lannisters. 

The Lannisters are, of course, the unseen presence lingering over this episode. The infamous titular song “Rains of Castamere” refers to the time that Tywin destroyed the entire bloodline of a house that rose against him, and it's this song that plays mere moments before the episode pushes the big red button and unleashes a veritable shitstorm. When Roose Bolton, traitor that he is, sends the regards from the Lannisters before stabbing Robb, it’s one of the most quietly devastating moments in an episode filled with them throughout its last twenty minute stretch. 

The Freys go through the motions, giving hospitality and putting on as respectable a wedding as one might expect from a family that makes Crastor look like he might be a decent human being. Everyone settles in, convinced that things have been fixed; that the closest thing left to the “good guys” the show has will come out on top after all. But then a sinking feeling begins to creep in. There are some wonderfully captured shots by director David Nutter. This is true of the whole episode but it's best seen in the moment where it dawns on Catelynn that something just isn’t right; the camera closes in on a close up of Michelle Fairley and now we’re seeing things from her perspective: she’s starting to panic. This in turn leads us to panic a bit. Suddenly a dread hangs over the rest of the episode. It's an uneasy episode at the wedding prior to this but it really thickly clings to the air from this point on. This unnerving feeling doesn’t give up and carries into a pretty haunting silent roll of credits.

The real kicker here is that Arya is heading to the Twins so that the Hound can return her for money. It should be a moment of relief, but instead, it becomes a way for the show to raise the stakes of the situation. The show cuts away from the chaos inside the Twins where Catelynn and Robb are dying to the Hound trying to gain entrance to the castle. Our minds are still on Catelynn and Robb, but now we find ourselves wondering if the show might just pile onto our already significant displeasure and anger. These scenes turn into another lesson to Arya as her fairy tale escape turns into another desperate and violent struggle to stay alive.

This is an episode filled with little tragedies though beyond the wedding itself (although that is the breadwinner here). Jon breaks away from the wildlings finally, with the help of Bran warging into a wolf to aid him. But in the process, Jon damages his always doomed relationship with Ygritte, whose heartbreak is written all over her face. Jorah helps take Yunkai for Dany, but Dany still only has eyes for ridiculously good looking Daario.

The really interesting thing though is how this episode is primarily the story of the Starks, in a way the show hasn't been in a long time. The two major storylines are Jon’s and Robb’s, two men who broke oaths. However, Jon did it to save lives and Robb did it for “love” (though don’t go telling that around Walder Frey). Their stories are contrasted here. Jon is in the more obviously dire set of circumstances and yet he survives, while Robb presumes he’s safe, never realizing the dangers surrounding him. We also see Bran setting out on his own, sending off Rickon with Osha to safety with the Umbers (though after the wedding who knows if that’s still a safe bet). Arya similarly breaks away but finds herself in the midst of what borders on being a battle and only barely survives. The Starks, to put it lightly, are at an all-time low. Jon has to own up for breaking his vows once he gets back to Castle Black, and even if he can get past that there’s wildlings after him. Arya has nowhere she can go any longer to be safe. And Catelynn and Robb are dead, betrayed by their own bannermen. That’s not even accounting for Sansa (who doesn’t appear this episode) whose a political prisoner in a political marriage with no hope for escape from either.    

This was just an excellent, but also deeply depressing, episode. Kleenex anyone?

Stray Thoughts:

-Sam’s storyline feels entirely unnecessary even though I rather enjoy the relationship of Sam and Gilly. They’re both child-like in their own ways.

-Catelynn discovering Roose Bolton’s chainmail and then slapping him is just a perfect moment. And then pretty much every moment from there on in was gloriously thrilling, maddening, wonderful and awful. Talisa getting stabbed repeatedly, the desperate pleas from Catelynn, Arya hiding from the soldiers and witnessing the wolf getting killed. Lots of well-handled moments.

-Orell finally gets what’s coming to him as Jon gets to kill him.

-Jorah telling Ser Barristan that you’ve got to do your duty even if you don’t want to is pretty much the theme of this episode wrapped up in a nice little bow.  

-My heart goes out to Ygritte. We knew it was coming, but still: very heartbreaking.

-Rickon gets lines, and isn’t totally useless! Who would have guessed?
-I short shrifted discussing Jon's story (for obvious reasons) but the fighting here is a lot of fun and the cutaways to Bran make it really intense.
-The show is smart enough not to cut to King's Landing whatsoever.
-Whatever you may have against Catelynn as a character, in those final moments I imagine we were all rooting for her like our own lives depended on it. Some of Michelle Fairley's finest acting of her time on this show is in this episode.
-David Bradley is wonderful as Walder Frey; crotchety, despicable, spot-on.
-Arya's scenes with the Hound remain marvelous. Choose your pick of which was the best one, but they're great for how the Hound challenges Arya's sense of honor. 
-Grey Worm is kind of a badass fighter.
-The reason the event is so tragic though is because the Game of Thrones universe does seem to exist in a universe where there is such a thing as good and evil. We're supposed to rightfully root for the Starks but also absolutely understand that there's no practical, logical way for them to win out.   

Grade: A

Alfred Hitchcock's Classic Thriller "Notorious" Is As Suspenseful, Fun and Romantic As Ever

 Patrick Versus Alfred Hitchcock

"Patrick Versus" is a format I pull out of the works every so often when there simply isn't enough time to write a full review. It relies more heavily on bullet points than actual critical analysis. I try to avoid it, but sometimes it can't be helped.

On this week's episode, Patrick takes on Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.

Notorious is cut from the same cloth that all Hitchcock movies are made from: suspense. This makes old Hitch sound like a one trick pony, but the real genius was how much Hitchcock played around with how he was leaving us on the edge of our seats. Each Hitchcock film has the signature suspense and perfectly calculated buildup and pacing. But what sets them apart is that they all also have fairly intriguing individual narratives that hold up well even without the titillating thrills.

Take Notorious' story. Cary Grant plays spy H.R. Devlin who convinces a traitor's daughter Alicia Huberman, played by Ingrid Bergman, to help the U.S. government get information from exiled Nazis in Rio. My mouth is drooling from all the awesomeness inherent to that sentence. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman playing opposite eachother! Spies! Nazis! Alfred Hitchcock! It's recipe for a fun time, and the recipe works stupendously my dear chap.

Devlin and Alicia fall madly in love, as they do. But their plans for a passionate love affair is cut short when the assignment turns out be that Alicia needs to seduce the Nazi general Alexander Sebastian, played unsurprisingly wonderfully by Claude Rains. This becomes ever more complicated when Sebastian proposes to Alicia. Is this the end for these two and their all-consuming chemistry?! Can they stop the Nazis' plotting and canoodle?

Stray Thoughts:
-"Suspense! Romance! Nazis!" I yelled that a lot at the screen (because I'm strange like that). And it's really the three things driving the story. In fact, what's most surprising is how large the romance looms in this narrative. The real big story here is the game of romantic chicken Grant and Bergman's characters play with one another.
-MacGuffin of the Week: The uranium powder. In wine bottles no less!
-For a film with a Nazi villain, this movie seems to have really little interest in anything related to Nazis, as none of the typical Nazi mythos is ever mentioned.
-The real genius of Hitchcock is how assured he tells his stories. Not much seems to be happening early in the going, but then it picks up speed and before you know it all the pieces fall together and his films become some of the most intense films that you will ever watch.
-That ending is a bit open ended, but, hey, no one died! So lets all be thankful that the poisoned coffee (or was that tea?) didn't kill our favorite German-American.
-That mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) was one amusingly crazy person. I could have done with more of her.
-More intense the end scene or the party scene? The ending struck me as somewhat anticlimactic so I'm inclined to lean towards the party scene.
-Drunk Ingrid Bergman is better than drunk anything else? Yes?
-I love that the first time we see Cary Grant, the film tries to hide his identity as if it's unclear who it is. It seems sort of unnecessary, especially since he's introduced in the very next scene.   
-Great shots: the glimpse into the courtroom, the poisoned drink sitting in the foreground of the shot, walking down the stairs in the end scene, Alicia stealing the key.
-For a film set in Brazil, this film seemed to hardly even take notice of the fact. We do get some "Brazillian music" at the party, but I got the sense it was probably not actually Brazillian music but what Americans must imagine Brazilian music is.
-Claude Rains is so good that you almost sympathize with his character at times.
-There's just no way I can properly do justice to how good of a director Hitchcock is. He puts so many other directors to shame because he just gets it. He makes it all seem so effortless.
-There's some underlying subtext that amounts to "America! Fuck Yea!" It's not enough to be distracting but it feels slightly out of place. 

Consensus: Notorious is a thrilling, fun film with taut direction by Alfred Hitchcock and great performances from Grant, Bergman, and Rains

Grade: A

"Orphan Black", Episodes 1-3 - Capsule Review

 

Don't know if I'll write anymore thoughts on individual episodes but I was enjoying Orphan Black far too much not to jot down cursory thoughts.
  
Minor Spoilers Below:

This early on the name of the game for Orphan Black appears to be consequences. In fact, the series in that regard that it most reminds me of is Breaking Bad. Sarah does one thing which leads to another which leads to yet another, and each reveal deepens and complicates the plot and our understanding of what's going on. This twistiness is part of the delightfulness of Orphan Black which as it expands becomes ever more fun and ever more crazy. The show has burnt through a fair amount of plot already only three episodes in, propelling forward, never content to stay still.

But even as the plot gets a little more holy shit-like, it continues to become ever more compelling. I'm not sure how the show can maintain this forward momentum. I feel as if this will fail the Homeland-test, where a great series pushes through so much plot that it can't sustain itself beyond a great first season. But for now, it remains to be thoroughly engrossing. The series started with a pretty crazy-cool concept with Sarah stealing the identity of a woman who could all but pass for her twin (oh little does she know) in order to runaway from her own life's problems. But turns out this woman, Beth, has some pretty burdensome issues on her end of things that make Sarah's life look like a a piece of cake by comparison.

So much of what makes this insanity work though (and I haven't even gotten to the standard bearer of crazy yet) is Tatiana Maslany's great performance. Maslany plays multiple parts, she makes every one of them have a unique flavor that sets them apart, and she makes it seem effortless. This is because as we learn in episode three that Sarah is *spoiler* a clone, one of many in some sort of scientific experiment that someone else (one of the clone's apparently) wants to shut down by killing all of the clones. *spoilers end*

This awesome but seemingly absurd premise sounds like it shouldn't work, but it somehow totally does. That's partly due to Maslany, but also partly due to the show taking seriously every knotty twist and turn. Rather than taking the easy way out with an explanation, say in deus ex machina fashion, the show tends to double down, always building its mythology out and making the corners it puts our protagonist into less cut and dry. For every corner the show puts Sarah into, it finds some brilliant, unexpected, but completely reasonable way out for her that you never see coming and makes all that backing into corners all the more exciting. Also, part of this success is that it's all pretty damn fun!

This all makes for a show that's part thriller, part science fiction, and part mystery (and occasionally a pretty good cop show). And thus far, it's a very smart, clever, and fun show. This could all go incredibly wrong but for now the mythology hasn't swallowed the series whole, and I can't wait for more.

"Downfall" - Film Review

Downfall is ostensibly a film about Adolf Hitler, and one level it really is a film about him and his spiral into madness during the last days of the Third Reich. But on another level it’s a film about Berlin, and particularly the people in Hitler’s bunker, during the final days of World War II. So little of the story is actually told from Hitler’s point-of-view. Even scenes featuring Hitler are typically from the perspective from another character, and the film goes extensively out of its way to tell unrelated stories outside the bunker, notably about an army doctor who puts his life at risk to save people and a boy playing at being a soldier; both of which are every bit as compelling as any of the more prominent drama in the bunker.  

The film gives an intimate, at times claustrophobic, portrait of the last few days of Hitler’s regime. As the Russian’s close in on Berlin and victory becomes increasingly futile, Hitler refuses to give up. His lieutenants are almost all aware that the end is nigh and continue to try to convince their dear, headstrong, crazy leader to surrender, or at least flee the city. But Hitler seems to know that this is it, either he pushes back the Russians here or he loses everything; he’s a captain going down with his ship, and in the process taking thousands more with him. 

The great thing about the film though is how sympathetic and humanistic the portrayal of all these people is. It would be all too easy to make Hitler into the evil boogeyman he so constantly is depicted as, but the film finds the right balance of ridicule and criticism while never forgetting to make this person above all else human. This is helped tremendously by the performance of Bruno Ganz as Hitler who is one of the film’s highlights and gives an unequivocal, unsettlingly committed performance.  Hitler was a monster, but he was one of the human variety.

But the film’s supporting cast runs deep. There are countless well-observed performances from the large cast, including memorably Ulrich Mathes and Corinna Harfouch as the sickeningly fanatic Joseph and Magda Goebbels. One performance worth noting is Alexandra Maria Lara as the film’s protagonist Traudl Junge, the young secretary to Hitler who finds herself in too deep. It’s a very understated performance where we mainly find her reacting to the chaos around her, and it’s a role that could be swallowed up in favor of Ganz's Hitler, but Lara gives the part a great deal of nuance and warmth. 

The film has a stark, brutal realism to it. It takes an exacting, calculating descent into the self-destruction that takes place in the bunker and city, which becomes more disturbing, pathetic, uncomfortable, and sad as the film progresses. There’s a scene where the Goebbels’s drug and poison their children that is one of the most depressing scenes I’ve ever seen in any movie. The film gives off a vibe of hivemind martyr-hero complex and insanity as people keep following the rules and orders even as it becomes flippantly ridiculous to keep abiding by this failing logic. Amongst all this bleakness however, the film finds a sort of somber beauty. 

In fact, the word I kept coming back to in order to try to describe the film is beautiful. There are so many moments of striking humanism that cut across the morbidness of the film’s subject matter that they become somewhat lyrical. This is perhaps most true of the film’s final sequence where Traudl tries to walk past Russian lines. She’s scared as all hell; you can tell she needs someone to be by her side, but the one other person who was with her refuses to go, and so she pushes on because she wants to live. And the boy who was pretending to be a soldier, now disillusioned and fatherless, grabs her hand. It’s a simple act of human decency and kindness that both of them need in that moment and it’s so hopeful, poignant and sweet.

Downfall is a sobering, thoughtful examination of the last days of Hitler. It’s a dark, poignant deconstruction of the titular downfall of Hitler and everyone around him.    

Grade: A

"Face/Off" - Film Review

Inimitable genre director John Woo doesn’t make movies so much as thinly veiled excuses for action. Face/Off is a great example of this. I could fault the film several times over if its action sequences weren’t so damn entertaining. The film, in general, is very entertaining (sometimes unintentionally so) because it’s so frequently loud, excessive and over-the-top.

So much of your ability to enjoy the film will depend on your ability to just role with it. The film seems to accept everything that takes place at face value. This is perhaps most true of the titular “face-off” wherein the two protagonists FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) and terrorist Castor Troy (Nicholas Cage) have a surgical procedure to switch faces and change their identity. It’s absurd certainly, but the film just keeps pushing forward as if this is completely logical. 

The film takes pleasure in its twisted take on the body swapping. Castor sleeps with John’s wife and creepily flirts with his daughter. Meanwhile John as Castor rots away in a prison where everyone, including the corrupt prison guards, is out to get him. The most fun found in this is how the turn of events allows for both Cage and Travolta to be completely, delightfully hammy. But this excessiveness is in line with the film’s sensibilities.

This excessiveness is best seen in the film’s many elaborate action sequences. They’re so operatic and ostentatious that sometimes you wouldn’t be remissed to be laughing at the brashness. Indeed the film’s exaggerated manner can make it feel like it falls into the realm of self-parody; this is perhaps best exemplified by the film’s final action sequence which has such an intricate Mexican standoff occur that it almost becomes a commentary on the lengths action movies will go to entertain us.  

At times, this excess seems to be at odds with how self-serious the film is. There’s a weird sentimentality to the film that feels like it belongs in a different movie. The emotional undercurrents are obviously there to keep the whole affair thinly strung together. But you never really get invested in the family drama on John’s end of this ordeal. Oh sure, you get unnerved about Castor stepping in and taking advantage of John's daughter and wife, but that’s more likely just because you’re a decent human being than because these are fully formed characters worth caring about. 

Throughout Face/Off I kept thinking to myself how for a film with such an uncliched premise, it’s a pretty clichéd film. Much of this is due to how heavily it relies on the body swapping premise, which plays out fairly predictably. In fact, so much of it plays out in a sort of aw shucks hijinks-y manner that you could potentially see this as a dark, masculine, action-filled spiritual successor to Freaky Friday without all the gooiness and messages about mother-daughter relationships. The moment both characters get to be the other person they go right ahead and take advantage of the new body in ways we could all but have guessed the moment the film began leading us down this rabbit hole. That’s not to suggest the body swapping, in all its predictableness, isn’t fun. There’s actually a surprising amount of entertainment to be gained from Travolta essentially playing an unhinged Nicholas Cage and Travolta seems to delight in his ability to play up every possible moment.  So in essence we get two people playing two different Nicholas Cages. As Film Crit Hulk (who you should all read) pointed out, Nicholas Cage can instantly make any film watchable, not necessarily better but at least interesting and potentially entertaining, and that’s definitely the case here. 

The simple truth of the matter is that parts of this film I liked while others parts I really disliked (at times in equal measure), but at the end of the day I really enjoyed it. I’m a sucker for a film that attempts to get a reaction out of me (not in an exploitative way, of course); film’s that use the spectacle of cinema in such a way where you can’t help but get on its wavelength and go along for the weird, goofy ride. 

It's beautiful to behold, exhilarating in its action and hilarious in its characterization. Its imagery, thrills and humor (sometimes unintentional) are enough to gloss over the absurdities inherent to its premise. 

Grade: B-