"Sleeper" - Film Review

Sleeper is a silly movie, but it’s a movie that knows it’s silly. It feels like a live-action cartoon. Benny Hill-esque music plays at a number of points. Woody Allen comes off as though he’s playing a caricature of himself, as he does in so many of his films.

Part of this silliness comes from the goofy satire of science fiction in the film. It’s not always attacking any given film (though there’s an obvious one directed towards 2001 that’s spot-on, and some vaguely reminsicent tinges of 1984), but the film takes fun in aiming its sights on sci-fi clichés more generally including technology, bureaucracy, cryogenics, and dystopian dictatorships. The humor of this largely stems from how corrupt, inefficient and idiotic so many things have become 200 years into the future. The robot servants are more trouble than they’re worth, and the weapons utilized by the police and military end up doing more harm to themselves than the people they chase.

Allen’s Miles Monroe was cryogenically frozen for what was meant to be a few days and ended up being two centuries. Scientists, part of a resistance movement against the current autocratic government, awake him to use him in part of their scheme to overthrow the government. This quickly goes awry and Myles finds himself on the run. He disguises himself as a robot servant, which leads to him being employed by a ditzy woman Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton – his frequent film collaborator and complicated real life romantic interest). Luna is a great foil to Miles. She, of course, misunderstands all his sarcastic comments.   

So much of what makes the film funny is how understated the humor is. Allen is constantly underselling jokes and never feels the need to explain a joke. Much of the humor is irrelevant to the genre its set its eyes on. Many of the funniest moments are just Allen making a well-timed quip. It’s the exasperated off hand comments as his protagonist Myles traverses an unfamiliar future society that really sell the film. 

The film’s satire isn’t all aimed at sci-fi though. Many of the best moments in the film are satirically pointing their attention at contemporary society. The film keeps returning to mocking how Myles ran a health food store. In one memorable scene, scientists show photos to Myles from contemporary culture and he has fun at the expense of the questioner’s lack of knowledge.  

Myles is assigned by the scientists to meet up with the resistance movement to discover what the government's secret project is. This is the film’s Macguffin. It hardly matters what the project is, and we only learn within the films last twenty minutes or so what it is. The plot is simple and not entirely that interesting. But it doesn’t really matter. Allen is more interested in making us laugh. Myles attempts to escape the government, reveals his identity to Luna, has to deal with her being hysterical, gets caught, has his memory erased, gets rescued, remembers everything, and stops the secret project from succeeding. 

But what you really need to know is there is a point where Myles holds a gun at the disembodied nose of the dictator as if it’s a hostage. Everyone takes this absolutely seriously despite how ridiculous it is. That’s the sort of movie this is. Allen strings the film along through a series of wonderfully executed sight gags and slapstick.

This is all thinly strung together but it’s also so funny, irreverent, and intelligent that it doesn’t matter. There's an absurdity to it, but Allen is aware of the absurdity, constantly acknowledging it through the way scenes are shot or how he undercuts them. It's at once a film that parodies sci-fi and yet embraces the elements inherent to the genre. And it's all filtered through Allen's hilarious and inimitable worldview.

Grade: A-

"Swing Time" - Film Review

I’m not sure how to classify Swing Time. It’s a comedy, a romance, and, most importantly, a musical. It’s one of those Old Hollywood crowd pleasers that throws in many different elements to entertain everyone.

Swing Time is best remembered as one of the films that paired together Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This was the sixth film they starred in opposite eachother. There’s a sense of ease between them; they work well with one another and they know how to bring the best out of the other. The chemistry between the two is electrifying, and it carries the film during its more dated moments. 

The dance sequences are the films best, most memorable scenes. Astaire and Rogers are such magnificent dancers that they make the tricky routines feel effortless.  They're complicated acts, but Astaire and Rogers are so graceful, so elegant that it feels spontaneous even though we know it isn't.

There’s also some musical numbers sung by them. The musical numbers aren’t noteworthy but they have their own charm about them, particularly in the hands of these performers. Though the number "Never Gonna Dance" is fairly devastating due to how convincingly the two sell it.  

Much of the film feels hokey and predictable, which gives it a clunky feel at times. But it’s not meant to be logical or tell a fantastic story. It’s clichéd and thinly put together, but sequences taken on their own are such pleasing and fun bits that they make it worth the price of admission. 

The film is still rather funny. Victor Moore especially as the bumbling Pop is fairly amusing. The way Moore mumbles his words and makes him awkward is a great bit of character work. 

The romance is one of such obvious by the numbers that the film is really putting the plausibility on the shoulder of Astaire and Rogers, but they’re absolutely game for it. They meet up by accident, resent one another, grow to have feelings, and then dance around (quite literally) acting upon them. The film throws an interesting wrench into it though. Astaire is engaged to another woman from back home, but he’s split as to whether he wants to still be with her. 

The most dated, and most offensive, part of the film is a blackface routine. It’s a low point for the film and it almost detracts from the goodwill the film has built up elsewhere. The film remains good in spite of this, but it’s a little upsetting to watch.  Though that number "Bojangles of Harlem" has its own impressive dancing.

This is a film largely meant as a showcase for Astaire and Rogers’ talents. They’re great stage performers. The film has a stagey quality. The sets are grand and clearly on a sound stage. They recall the decadence of Old Hollywood. The film is theatrical in the sense that you could imagine this being some sort of play. Everything flows with the logic and timing of a theater performance, and that is part of the film’s effectiveness and charm.

Everything is expressed through song and dance. Astaire and Rogers fall for eachother through the music, through the dancing, and through the beauty of these acts. The dances are virtuoso, and Astaire and Rogers danced like few people have or ever will. There was a spark between them that went beyond dancing well-together. They made the dancing somehow more than just dancing. Something magical.

Grade: A

"Holy Motors" - Film Review

Sacrebleu! 

I have no fucking clue what happens in Holy Motors. I sat there increasingly baffled and, more importantly, delighted by my baffledness. And you know what; I don’t want to know what happened or what it all means. It’s not really one of those movies you comprehend but that you contemplate. And the more you contemplate, the greater the pleasures of its weird mysteries and ambiguousness become.  

The film is about a man Mr. Oscar (Denis Levant) pretending to be (or who actually might be) several other people. He goes around in a limousine, and every so often gets out dressed up as a new person. He has costumes, make up, and disguises in the back of the car. And along the way he becomes more people. Initially it appears as though it might be some strange profession. He keeps calling the jobs as “appointments” that he needs to be at, at precisely the right time. As the film moves along it begins to get weirdly metaphysical, and it feels as though there might be more to these assignments and odd jobs than appears on the surface. It seems to be simultaneously a commentary on the nature of life, the nature of acting, and the nature of films. 

I won’t go into too much detail on the specifics of these people he poses as. It’s far more interesting to go in without much knowledge of what’s to come. It’s just that sort of movie. The different sequences play out like little vignettes. The film lets these various sequences meander around, discovering their own rhythms. The intriguing thing is how everyone in these different sequences buys into the reality of them. In some of them the man has a strong connection with the people he interacts with. At times it’s easy to forget that this is a man in costume and buy into him being the person he claims to be. These sequences are often oddly mesmerizing, occasionally exhilarating, sometimes hilarious (if only due to shock value), and certainly never ever dull.

The film does give glimpses of what’s behind the curtain of the disconcerting logic to its mysteries, and we’re provided just enough to get the gist of it, but the mystery is left unresolved in all the right ways. The film devolves further and further into strangeness and mystery, providing us dozens more questions for every answer it gives us. The strangeness continually ramps up, the weirdness multiplies, and then the film ends.     

This lack of answers might sound frustrating, but it’s all so thoroughly engaging, entertaining, and beautifully shot throughout that it’s a pleasure to simply go along for its odd, twisty ride. 

Grade: A

"Stoker" - Film Review

Stoker isn’t always a good movie but it’s at least almost always an interesting one, which saves it during its less well-handled moments. The general offbeatness of the film isn’t surprising from director Park Chan-Wook whose film are known for their arresting, strange imagery with excessive stylistic touches. This is best seen in Oldboy which is a great movie but also gruesome and bizarre.

The film is immaculately framed and composed by Chan-Wook. It has a picturesque feel. The look of the Stoker’s family home and the costume choices all recall a simpler, 1950’s era (the film also coincidentally has some complicated gender depictions). This is all juxtaposed against a brooding, dark undercurrent. The film buzzes with a dark sexual energy, one that’s often unsettlingly incestuous. 

India Stoker(Mia Wasikowska)’s father passes away in a car crash on her 18th birthday, and suddenly her uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) whom she’s never seen (nor has her mother) appears. He starts living with India and her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). Evelyn is a little unstable. She’s overbearing towards India, and not the most understanding or caring of parents. Evelyn’s easily taken advantage of by Charlie. Soon a weird sexual triangle forms between the three. India is oddly attracted to her uncle (seeing a kindred spirit to her loner self) but she’s also a good deal wiser than her mother, realizing that there’s something not quite right with the guy. 

The reveals later in the film don’t entirely work, and the film is much more interesting in its first half where a greater sense of mystery exists. There’s a sinister quality to the film, particularly early on. Later on though, the film becomes at times too outright strange and occasionally hard swallow. The film would have benefitted from a greater continuous sense of mystery. The film is at its best when its great, opaque imagery is matched with a sense of surrealness.  

As is, it’s not entirely certain why characters behave the way they do, and it all feels like a way to disturb us (which it does). Charlie is a frightening character played with charisma and understated anger by Goode like Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. Wasikowska is never really given much to work with but her nubile appearances are important to how unsettling the scenes between Charlie and India are. She feels like a lamb being preyed upon, but she’s also smarter than her youth would suggest. Stoker is creepy, atmospheric and interesting to experience but it's not always very good as an actual story.   

Grade: B

"Side Effects" - Film Review

Side Effects is a “rabbit hole” movie. It takes us down the rabbit hole further and further, becoming increasingly cerebral and intense.

Emily (Rooney Mara)’s husband Martin (Channing Tatum) was just released from prison for insider trading. Soon after his return Emily starts acting strange. Her old mental problems resurface and she attempts suicide. She drives into a wall and claims it was a brief lapse. The doctor on call Jonathan (Jude Law) asks that she take psychiatric sessions with him.

The medications he prescribes for her depression don’t seem to be working. They start having wonky side effects that change her behavior. She erratically sleep walks; something that goes incredibly awry when Jonathan starts giving her a new drug still in the clinical trial phase. He recommends the drug Ablixa at the behest of Emily’s former psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta Jones). The end result is that Emily in a sleep walking state murders her husband.

Soon a trial begins that jeopardizes Jonathan’s career and sends Emily away to a mental institution. Something isn’t right though, or so Jonathan seems to believe, in time to the point of obsession. He’s seeing a conspiracy. Is he right, or perhaps he’s just as mentally unstable as the patients he treats?

As Jonathon investigates the film becomes headier. It turns into a fluttering pulse, pounding in time to its score by Thomas Newman. Here the film becomes an exciting, dark thriller. Director Steven Soderbergh nicely balances the contemplative side of the film with its tenser one, and in turn the film becomes mind-bending and riveting. The examination of pharmaceuticals, and mental and drug culture is a fascinating one, smartly looked at by Scott Z. Burn's script. The film at times has the adrenaline of a drug trip and the murkiness of someone mentally unstable.  

Part of what makes the film so compelling in Mara's performance. The other actors are great but Mara is given the meatiest role. There's a wonderfully seductive ambiguity to her performance. She's beautiful but dangerous; intelligent but vulnerable. We're never certain how much of what we know about her is true.  

Side Effects is a smart, dark, gripping psychological thriller.

Grade: B+

"Magic Mike" - Film Review

The first inspired decision of Magic Mike was to cast Channing Tatum in the titular role. Tatum plays against type undercutting our expectations from his pretty boy romance days. It’s fitting that the film does this as it’s a movie that’s concerned with expectations. Tatum gives a darker, more cynical side to the performance than we might anticipate possible from an actor who starred in Dear John. Behind those chiseled features is a scared person who’s been bullshitting for so long that he’s not sure what’s true anymore.

Magic Mike tells the story of how Mike takes in Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a rudderless, susceptible nineteen year old, under his wing and brings him into the male stripping enterprise that Mike’s life revolves around. On the surface, it seems like the type of lifestyle that’s pretty great for a young guy. You make a lot of money, you sleep with a lot of women, and you drink and party all night. Adam is quickly caught up in this lifestyle. He’s a nervous, shy guy when we first meet him, but he’s also a little cagey. He doesn’t realize what Mike knows deep down: this is all a little empty. 

Mike doesn’t really want to lead this life. He’s thirty, looking to start up his own business (custom furniture in fact). He wants to save up enough money and then get out of dodge. He doesn’t want to end up like the owner of the strip club Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) who’s in his forties and spiraling the drain. How long can you keep at this lifestyle? Eventually, you have to grow up is the underlying argument of the film. There’s an element of man child-ism brewing in the film. 

In the relationship between Dallas and Mike, the film finds one of its twisted mentor-mentee relationships. There’s a predatory, manipulative quality to Mike’s relationship with Dallas, and later Dallas’s with Adam. Mike pretends to have it all figured out and have all the answers when he’s with Adam, but it’s increasingly obvious that it’s all bluster. Mike and Adam’s relationship eventually breaks down as Adam becomes more engrossed in the stripper lifestyle. Adam starts doing more drugs and even selling drugs, and it’s not long before he’s trapped. Just another Magic Mike, destined to keep reaching for dreams that will never come; allured by money, pseudo-fame, and easy sex. 

The camerawork in Magic Mike is unintrusive. In the non-dance scenes, the camera seamlessly disappears for the most part; it rarely draws attention to itself. It’s simple, distant, direct. The script by Reid Carolin is the real star here. Outside of the elaborate dance sequences, the film is one of people speaking, and the dialogue is what gives the film its panged nature. The camera is just an observer of these people, as they self-deceive and try to make connections.

These connections are unsurprisingly not very successful. Mike’s relationship with Adam becomes increasingly complicated as Adam starts to fuck up. Mike’s romantic track record is also in need of examination. He sleeps with numerous women casually, but there’s an emptiness to it all. He sleeps on-and-off with Joanna (Olivia Munn), a psychology grad student doing a study of the strip joint, but there’s no real intimacy there, as much as Mike would care to think otherwise. Mike’s best chance to connect comes with Adam’s levelheaded sister Brooke (Cody Horn), who has little time for Mike’s bullshit. She sees the sincerity and goodness underneath all the gusto but she’s also just at arm’s length. We can see where Brooke might be won over by Mike. Tatum is such a generally charming and good looking person that it’s hard not to root for him through all his bullshit.

The film has a glossiness to it. Everything is made to look just a little prettier, a little more glamorous than it actually is. The strip club isn’t a dirty, dank place; it’s open, colorful, strangely inviting. It’s telling the dirtiness is more apparent in the wings backstage where the performers wait. At face value this is a nice, clean, sexy place. Just behind the curtain, behind the facade, it’s all a little darker, a little sadder. 

Magic Mike is an intriguing character study that takes its characters seriously even though they’re just male strippers. Beyond it's elaborate dance sequences and other funner moments is some thoughtful exploration of masculinity and capitalism.

Grade: B+

Mad Men - "In Care Of" - Review

One of the arguments Mad Men has persistently made throughout its run, and in this season in particular, is about change. For much of season six it appeared as though the argument was that people couldn’t change, but, in fact, we saw plenty of people changing, they just weren't Don Draper. His protégée Peggy was becoming more confident and business-like, turning herself more Don Draper at heart then she’d care to admit. Pete learned from the mistakes of his past and didn’t expose Bob (although that may have proven more trouble than it’s worth – but more on that later). Joan took up the Avon account to get more out of her career that had been missing previously. Sally stopped monolithically loving her father. Betty lost her weight and took more charge in her life. Meghan got fed up with Don and walked out. Bob Benson reinvented himself and got a job at SCDP.  

And yet Don is perpetually calcified. This season for myself and many others has been a frustrating season for the show. Many argued that the show had a “Don Draper Problem”. It’s easy to see why; dramatically speaking, it’s not entirely the most interesting thing to watch someone hit the rock bottom that Don has been mired in this season. Don often became the least interesting part of the show. Intellectually, it was still interesting to see, but emotionally my mind was intently hoping for more Joan stories or more Peggy or more Roger (all of whom didn’t seem to get nearly enough screentime this season). But the finale appears to make a case for Don actually changing. 

Don in the episode’s last moments opens up to his children, and most importantly to Sally. He takes them to the whorehouse where he was raised, and had a shitty childhood. This childhood he recounts at a sales meeting with Hershey. This scene is sort of surreal; it feels almost as if it comes from another show. Don is revealing information that he’s kept so close to the vest for so long that it’s like the show breathing a sigh as a great weight is lifted from it. May be Don is ready to change. 

Not all that change is coming directly from himself though. The partners have a meeting where the topic is “Don Get Your Shit Together”. The partners tell Don that he needs to take some time off because he hasn’t been doing anyone any good this whole season. He’s been flailing at best and destructive at worse. It’s been a long time coming, but this is an episode that attacks long time coming plot points and jumps at them with relish. 

Peggy and Ted finally act on their feelings (helped along by sexy dress and some knowing cleavage). But instead of this being a happy moment (this is Mad Men after all), the event turns Ted into crisis mode. When he returns home to his wife, the look of guilt and pain is despairing. I was struck in this episode by how much Ted comes off like Don (not entirely surprising from a season obsessed with doppelgangers and posed Ted as another version of Don). There are some incredibly pointed pieces of dialogue spoken that aren’t about Don, but might as well be. For instance, when Ted tells Peggy “I don’t want anyone else to have you”, it’s exactly how we know Don feels and acts towards Peggy. Similarly, when he later tells Peggy he’s leaving for California, he says about his family, “I need to hold onto them or I’ll get lost in the chaos”. When Don lost Sally this season, he spiraled downward. It was the worst we’ve ever seen him at. The chaos also can doubly refer to the state New York is falling into with the race riots and general violence arising. 

Pete’s trouble with Bob Benson and his mother also come to a head. His mother marries Manolo, before he apparently throws her into the ocean killing her (um, because why the heck not). Pete in his anger and frustration goes after Bob. But Bob is shrewder than Pete gives him credit for. Pete said last episode that confronting people like Don and Bob, who have thrown away their former past, never ends well. And here we see that on full display. Bob takes advantage of his knowledge that Pete can’t drive stick to make Pete look like a fool in front of the Chevy executives. There’s a Camaro on display in the hotel lobby, and Bob insists that Pete get behind the wheel. In a very funny scene, Pete flustered backs up into a display sign, toppling it over and barely avoids hurting anyone. He’s immediately taken off the Chevy account, and soon after decides to head out to California to head up the Sunkist account. Pete has proven good time and again at recognizing trends and embracing them, but rarely is he ever good at affecting change himself. He can change with the times but he can’t change the times. To quote David Bowie, “Time can change me. But I can’t change time”. 

Change is happening all over (I haven’t even gotten to Roger or Meghan). But by far the strangest element to this episode and the one that is likely a deal breaker for whether you really liked it are the flashbacks and the thematic material they bring into the episode. Mad Men has struggled with flashbacks lately. They haven’t felt organically placed into the episodes they’ve been in, and they’ve also felt somewhat unnecessary. They have shown Don’s time growing up in a whorehouse; he watches his step-mother whore herself out to his douchey uncle, and he gets deflowered (and technically raped) by a well-meaning prostitute who was the closest thing to a mother figure he had. It’s some fucked up stuff and it played into the season’s interest with prostitution. At the end of “The Crash”, Don bluntly equates the office with a whorehouse. He’s whole relationship with Sylvia had a quality of prostitution (he pays her off at one point) and when Sally walked in on them Sylvia was repaying a favor. 

The flashbacks, howeverm aren’t about prostitution but religion and faith. Don’s uncle throws out a priest from the whore house who was attempting to help save the prostitutes from eternal damnation. When we return from the flashback, we learn that Don has gone to prison for drunkenly punching a priest who was describing freedom from pain through Jesus. In the flashback, as the priest left he tells Don “the only unpardonable sin is to believe that god will not forgive you”. So Don believes he’s beyond saving. He’s beyond forgiveness. This is for a host of reasons  but the crucial one is for fucking things up so bad with Sally. The way he dances around avoiding picking up her and calling her demonstrate just how strained his relationship has become with her. When he calls her, Sally is as fiery and spiteful as ever. She spits in Don’s face: “I wouldn’t want to do anything immoral”. The scene ties into the larger question of salvation and doing the right thing.

Can Don be saved? That’s sort of been the question the show has always been asking. Can Don change? Can he find inner peace and just lead his life without all this self-loathing? We won’t know for sure until the final season, but “In Care Of” seems to suggest there may just be hope for Don. It’s not complete and total hope. The way the partners confront him suggest he still has a lot of work to do to fix himself, but taking his kids to the whorehouse also feels like a necessary step towards acceptance and forgiveness. Perhaps Don has accepted the priest’s advice. Perhaps he has forgiven himself. Perhaps he can change. 

Stray Thoughts:

*Peggy sits in Don’s office with the shot from behind her. She is Don Draper. She just doesn’t realize it. Also the line about Don's office: “It’s where everything is” is a great one.

*Stan wants to go to California until he learns Don is going. Don is rotten and he hurts everything he comes in contact with. Why would people want anything to do with him?

*Roger gets to have Thanksgiving with his son. It’s a small step forward. Baby steps people. Though, he’s going to have to get used to Bob’s presence.

*The Grandma Ida burglary has not yet been forgotten. It’s the reason Don has to call Sally to tell her that she’s been subpoenaed to make a statement.

*Roger giving a performance review to Bob (who of course has never had one) is a great little scene. Roger’s struggle to accept his relationship where it is with Joan plays out really briefly in this episode.

*Sally is suspended for buying beer with a fake idea. Sally is such a rebel.  

* When Ted tells Don, “I know there’s a good person in there”, it really seems to trigger something in Don. It also ties in nicely to the religious/salvation themes.
*There’s Don’s initial ad pitch to Hershey which is a comforting lie (and, not coincidentally, his best sales pitch this season) and then his story about his real childhood which in juxtaposition just reminds us how bad Don’t life was. The monologue about his childhood is one of the best scenes and Jon Hamm, not unexpectedly, nails it. It’s not the right time or place to tell such things but Don needs Ted to understand where he’s coming from before letting him take the spot to California.

*Meghan was pretty happy about moving to California but she’s done with Don’s crap once he tells her that the plan has change. And how terrible and stupid it is that Don thinks they could live on opposite sides of the country and it would be work.
*Pete's scene with Trudy another great scene. Trudy suggest that Pete has finally gotten what he want all along. If only he had accepted what he wanted sooner. As if the Don parallels weren't strong enough!

*Of course, Peggy thinks it’s Don fault that Ted is leaving, but nope Ted’s own initiative. Next season very well could be very large on the relationship between Don and Peggy which still hasn’t really been confronted entirely.

Grade: A