42

First Hit:  A very good and enjoyable film that covered most all the necessary bases, sort-of-speak.

Jackie Robinson made history by being the first black man (“negro” in the film) to sign and play on a major league baseball team.

Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers and he foresaw the day, ahead of everyone else, that putting the best players on the field is what is important. Later on in the film Jackie (Chadwick Boseman) sits down with Branch and asks him to give him the real reason why he took this chance; the answer is heartfelt.

Overall this film is set up to please everyone. It isn’t a dark film, which it could have been, nor does it gloss over the pain Jackie went through; it is placed in the middle. I think this was done to bring in a wider audience.

There are scenes in this film that are beautifully done: Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black) returning to his home town and realizing he has to make his truth known on the field; and Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni) dressing down the team for the petition they were signing. The film is filled with them. Yes, some of it is sugar coated, but the diatribe by the Phillies manager was clearly enough to give the film audience a taste of what Robinson went through.

The baseball scenes were well shot and brought the beauty and intensity of baseball to the screen.

Ford was amazingly gruff, focused, driven and a joy to watch as he truly made this role his own. Boseman was really great as Jackie. He gave us an amazing view of the emotional ups and downs that Jackie might have gone through. Nicole Beharie gave us a solid performance as Jackie’s wife Rachel. Being of strong nature herself, the shock of the south required her to find other ways to fight back. Meloni was fantastic as Durocher. John C. McGinley as radio announcer Red Barber was really good. Andre Holland playing black sports writer Wendell Smith was really good and at times inspiring. Brian Helgeland wrote and directed this with an eye and ear for baseball and the social commentary required to pull this off.

Overall:  This was a very good full family film.

Hitchcock

First Hit:  This film is for older people because if you don’t remember his films or TV show, this film isn’t much to watch.

Alfred Hitchcock (played by Anthony Hopkins) directed many great films from thrillers to mysteries to horrors to dramas.

This film begins after the success of his film North by Northwest which starred Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. He’s searching for a film to do and finds the book Psycho which is a horror story. He buys all the available copies so that no one will know the ending until they see the film.

However Paramount films won’t finance the film because, to them, they think it is a cheap type of film. They want another North by Northwest. Anyway this story focuses on his relationship with this wife Alma Reville (played by Helen Mirren), how they work together, and his fantasies about being with sexy blonds. This point is made in the film because his previous films co-star (Eva Marie Saint) won’t work with him again. The film is also about his creative genius and abilities to make a film work.

In Psycho Janet Leigh (played by Scarlett Johansson) is the femme-fatal and has a wonderful working relationship with Hitchcock. Alma has an admirer who likes working with her, but although she likes working with him she doesn’t want to have an affair.

Hitchcock has some very odd mannerisms and his way of speaking is halting and direct. He is also shown here as obsessed with food and ice cream. I do recall his films when they came out and I also use to watch his television program – but here I saw a version of Hitchcock the human and it was interesting.

Hopkins played an interesting Hitchcock and without knowing much about the man, I found it interesting and disturbing in the way he acted and responded to people. Mirren was fabulous as Alma, the woman who loved and was a major creative force in Hitchcock’s life. Johansson was really good as Janet Leigh’s character. John J. McLaughlin wrote an interesting and informative screenplay. Sacha Gervasi did have a clear vision for this film but it felt limited in execution.

Overall:  I enjoyed the film but it is probably for a selected audience.

Lincoln

First Hit:  Fantastic acting in a wonderful slice of Americana.

I was overwhelmingly amused that we had just finished an election where the Republican Party devastatingly lost its credibility and mojo while this film showed Republicans at their finest.

Make no bones about it; Lincoln’s Co-Republican group were what drove the 13th Amendment into the law of the land while Democrats floundered in a generic stupidity of beliefs. Who learned from this lesson – the Democrats and it was the Democrats that brought our first black President back for a second term.

In Lincoln the focus is on a short few months from when he was elected to a second term until his assassination. Lincoln’s task was to ensure the freedom of blacks in America before the ending of the Civil War.

His premise was that if the war ended prior to passing the 13th Amendment, this law would fall by the wayside and blacks wouldn’t have their deserved freedom. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln as a thoughtful complex intelligent man whose single-minded focus kept the Republican dream alive.

He cared not so much for what was on the outside, but what was in a person's heart and what was right. Wife Mary (played by Sally Field) was, in this time of her life, grief stricken by the loss of one of their sons and despite her strength and intelligence was prone to fits of despair over loss. 

Day-Lewis is extraordinary and will certainly get an Oscar nod for his portrayal of Lincoln. He embodied the drive to create equality for the blacks in America. Field was strangely complex and powerful in her role as Marry Todd Lincoln. David Strathairn was pointedly strong and loyal as William Seward, Secretary of State. Tommy Lee Jones was amazing and perfect as Thaddeus Stevens the long time proponent of the 13th Amendment. Jackie Earle Haley was great as Alexander Stevens the Southern States representative during negotiations with Lincoln. Tony Kushner wrote a powerful and compelling screenplay while Steven Spielberg delivered a Oscar worthy turn as director.

Overall: If Republicans want to get their mojo back they need to watch and learn from this film – the Democrats obviously learned through history.

The OSCARS and Other Notes

It is that time of season again and although this year wasn't an especially great year for films, a couple of interesting and outstanding "out of the box films" caught my eye: "The Artist", The Tree of Life" and "Melancholia".

On the other side of the coin, I'm grateful that the Harry Potter series has ended as they became painful to watch. And the Sherlock Holmes film was also very bad.

Some performances I would have like to have been honored but weren't would include: Michael Fassbender in "Shame", Kirsten Dunst in "Melancholia", Charlize Theron in "Young Adult", Carey Mulligan  in "Shame" (cannot give enough credit for her singing "New York, New York" as though she was standing on the edge of a cliff ready to fall at any moment), Christoph Waltz in "Carnage", and Albert Brooks in "Drive". 

Given the selected honorees by the academy, here are my picks for some of the categories:

• Best Picture: "The Artist"

• Actor in a Leading Role: Jean Dujardin in "The Artist"

• Actor in a Supporting Role: Christopher Plummer in "The Beginners"

• Actress in a Leading Role: Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn"

• Actress in a Supporting Role: Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

• Cinematography: "The Tree of Life" Emmanuel Lubezki

• Directing: Michel Hazanavicius for "The Artist"

• Film Editing: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall

• Adapted Screenplay: "The Descendants" Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

• Original Screenplay: "Margin Call" J.C. Chandor

To all of you: Thank you for coming to my site and reading my reviews. The number of views has grown tremendously over this past year. There are now over 550 reviewed films and it is fun for me to post and read your comments.

May this new year bring on better films with new ideas tested and old ones enhanced. I know I'll be there in the 5th or 6th row center ready to suspend belief into someone else's story.

May you

Be Well...

Michael

J. Edgar

First Hit: I left the theater thinking that this film only scratched the surface of this man and will not be memorable over time.

Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s J. Edgar Hoover’s name was synonymous to patriotic righteous law enforcement. As many found out, it was a somewhat twisted view of what America was, is and should be.

This film shows him as gay, a liar, pushy, and a self-righteous believer that he and he alone knew the truth. He was the appointed king of his domain, the F.B.I. How and why he got this way is what I was hoping this film would explore. This is what I believed director Clint Eastwood was attempting to show. However, either he did his best with the limited material he had or he had an unwillingness to make an educated guess at what he thought and believed.

There may be a dearth of records about J. Edgar because he was a secretive and spiteful man, but he believed he was truly right. He didn’t want people to know him, he wanted to know people and how they could either hurt or help him or the country. It is known he kept many damaging files on people he might want to have leverage on or over (the Kennedy’s) and this film makes note of this throughout. J. Edgar (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) plays Hoover both young and old.

The effective use of makeup allowed for a continuity of young and old Hoover as the film flashes back and forth between these time periods. Clyde Tolson (played by Armie Hammer) is Hoover’s lover, and this film seemed like it focused on this more than any other one thing.

There is also a lot of film time to the solving of the Lindbergh child kidnaping. This was one of Hoover’s claims to fame because it got the attention of the public and congress and prompted the kind of funding and power for the FBI he wanted.

DiCaprio did a nice job with what he had. To me it was either the material or director that let him down. Hammer was solid as his faithful friend and lover. Unfortunately his makeup as an old man made him look like a mummy and not realistic. Judi Dench played Hoover’s mother as steely, cold and manipulative. Dustin Lance Black wrote this script which had little intrigue. Eastwood had wonderful sets, scenes and pictures but the idea and substantive hope that the public would learn something about Hoover was lost.

Overall: This film was a nice film, with nice shots but non-committed to making an opinion about one of the most reviled and revered people in government law enforcement.