Closed Circuit

First Hit:  An interesting education of the English court system.

Terrorism, spying, closed circuit cameras, and English law are featured in this film. Martin Rose (Eric Bana) is a hard nosed independent English Barrister. He’s divorced, his former wife despises and controls when he can see his son and for how long – we guess for good reason.

This part of the film sets up the type of guy he is. Above all he’s independent. He’s had an affair with Claudia Simmons-Howe (Rebecca Hall) another Barrister who has a long tradition of strong independence. They must both lie to be assigned to defend a perceived terrorist from prosecution by the government.

Briefly, in cases such as this, there is a public defender (Rose) and a private advocate (Simmons-Howe). When assigned, neither person can have contact with each other nor can they have had a past conflicted relationship with each other.

Because they were lovers, this means they couldn’t legally take these roles. However they both want to try this case, they lie to the judge and say there is no reason why they cannot work on this case. The interesting part of this film is that the evidence that each Barrister collects cannot be shared with the other. The worst part is that is that all secret evidence obtained by Simmons-Howe cannot be made public.

As the respective Barristers learn more about what really happened, they discover that it was the government’s own MI5 that was pulling the strings and that they don’t want to be embarrassed.

Bana is very effective as the smart, bull-headed, independent Barrister that wants the truth and really has a heart. Hall is wonderful as the Advocate and some of her interactions with a particular MI5 agent are priceless. Jim Broadbent, in a very limited role as the Attorney General, is sublime and cements the way the government deals with issues like this. Steven Knight wrote a good script in that it was also educational besides entertaining. John Crowley made effective use of portraying how spying and government control gets in the way of the truth.

Overall:  Not a great film but certainly worth a look some Sunday evening.

Drinking Buddies

First Hit:  Better than expected film about an alcoholic comfort zone and relationships.

Kate (Olivia Wilde) likes her independence. She chooses when to see and have sex with her boyfriend Chris (Ron Livingston). She works at a brewery with Luke (Jake Johnson) with whom she has a close, flirty drinking relationship.

Luke is obviously attracted to the beautiful Kate but also has stable, grounded, thoughtful girlfriend named Jill, (Anna Kendrick). Immediately the story lets you know that Luke doesn’t want a lot of responsibility, lives in Jill’s home and likes the laid back boozy life of making beer, drinking any time at work and after work with Kate and their work mates.

Jill is a responsible teacher, wants a long term plan, marriage, and a family. Kate is lost and although we never get why she is so afraid to commit to Chris or any one, Wilde makes the audience want her character to find happiness.

Chris, with limited screen time makes his presence known that he’s looking or more than a boozy late night booty call. The lynch pin of the film is a 2 day trip the four of them take together to a mountain cabin, where it becomes obvious who is better matched to whom.

The obvious issue of functional alcoholism is never addressed directly, but we see where it is going although the protagonist may or may not.

Wilde is excellent at being the beautiful girl who is afraid to commit personally. Livingston, makes his presence known in his few pointed scenes - good job. Johnson is superb at being the laid back, nice guy, and friend to all while being a functional alcoholic. His verbal manipulation not only tricks others but belies himself as well. Kendrick, is very good as the controlled woman, who has a plan for her life and seems to love Luke for all the wrong reasons. Joe Swanberg wrote and directed this film. He’s writing is spot on for the characters although they might be too clearly defined, he cannot be faulted for this. His direction and scenes are set up well and work really well.

Overall:  A surprisingly enjoyable and thoughtful film.

The Butler (Original Title)

First Hit:  Some of the performances were outstanding while others were miscast and poor.

I do not like the ego of directors or writers who name their film with their name as part of the title. This film was originally called "The Butler" and now it is called and marketed as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”.

I’m sure there are reasons why, but for me it taints a films’ integrity. Why? Because it means that the director (in this case) views himself as or more important than the film itself.

The best thing about this film was viewing changes in the civil rights movement through Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) life. Where he watched his mother being abused by the slave owner, his father shot by saying something about it to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and finally a black man being elected President of the United States. How it was portrayed by Whitaker, David Oyelowo, and Oprah Winfrey was excellent.

What didn’t work about this film? The representation of the Presidents Cecil served during his time in the White House. This is a great story about how a man learned how to serve with great strength of character and gained respect for his service and being of service. Although his home life was hard at times with his wife being an alcoholic and his oldest son becoming a radical of the sixties with the Black Panthers, he persevered these things as well as losing his youngest son in Vietnam and through it all he continued to be an honorable man.

Whitaker is wonderful and electric in this role. Winfrey is difficult to watch at the beginning because it is hard to separate Oprah from the role. If she acted more, she would be able to have the audience transcend her television persona more easily because she is a very good actress. Oyelowo is absolutely great as Whitaker’s son. Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t capture Dwight’s pace or energy. John Cusack did get the creepiness of Nixon but paled as the film moved on. James Marsden seemed more like Bobby Kennedy than John F. Kennedy. Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson was pathetic. Alan Rickman was slightly worse than Schreiber as Ronald Reagan. However, I though Jane Fonda was a priceless and fabulous choice as Nancy Reagan – she caught the look, feel and ways of Nancy. Danny Strong wrote a good script. Lee Daniels got good performances from some actors but the choice of others for their roles was very weak.

Overall:  The real story got slightly demeaned by the actors chosen to be Presidents.

Jobs

First Hit:  Moments were very good, but it didn’t hold up as well as the man himself did.

There are moments when there are close-ups of Ashton Kutcher’s version of Steve Jobs that he looks exactly like Jobs, but where the film fails in my book, is completeness of character.

It seemed like we were given snippets and views of Jobs but not a real cohesive story. Example: When Jobs denies being Lisa’s father, how did we get her sleeping on the couch later on? Where was the story?

We are treated to some famous Jobs’ outbursts, but where do they come from? Where were the storylines behind them and Steve’s kindness? Where was the story as to why Steve didn’t give his original workers part of the stock action? Was it selfishness?

It is the lack of real developmental continuity that hurt this film. Why did the screenwriter and director only focus on the story of the start of Apple to Jobs coming back? It might have been more interesting to include more recent events as well. Lastly, at more than 2 hours, the lack of a deeper story made the movie feel long.

Kutcher got many of Jobs mannerisms down well. In fact some of the close-ups showed Kutcher did his homework regarding how Steve looked and walked. Dermot Mulroney as Mike Markkula was good at being the person who supported Steve from the beginning but turning against him later on. Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak was superb and was clearly the best actor in the film in their role. Matthew Modine as John Scully was OK, but again there seem to be a lack luster level of interest or “drama” to make it engaging. Lastly, where were the women in this film? Matt Whiteley wrote a weak script which focused on some less interesting aspects of Jobs’ life. Joshua Michael Stern seemed to lack direction and didn’t have a clear vision of what the point of this film was to be.

Overall:  As much as I wanted to see this film, was the same level it disappointed me.

Lovelace

First Hit:  Surprisingly engaging film although it lacked a certain depth.

Deep Throat grossed some $600+ million dollars. Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried) made less than $2,000 for her part and she was a porn star actress for less than 3 weeks of her life. 

Being used by her husband Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard) and other men was the basis for her book “Ordeal”.

The film develops Linda from a young teen, who didn’t like being controlled by her strict parents. As we learn, their restrictiveness came from Linda and family having to move because she became pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption which was a family embarrassment (back in those days that wasn’t uncommon).

Linda gets mesmerized by Chuck at a roller rink where she was dancing as a go-go dancer for a local band. As she experiences the freedom of being away from her parents she also discovers the controlling restrictiveness of being married to a controlling man. Chuck needs money so he convinces Linda, with her ability to not have a gag reflex, to do a porno film – and Deep Throat was born.

As her fame increased her husband got more restrictive and abusive. Except Linda, this film doesn’t dig into any of the characters too deep and even then Linda’s own personality isn’t explored too much.

Seyfried is engaging and pulls off, the innocence, lack of self-worth, and slow at finding her own voice character she needed to be. Sarsgaard is good as the menacing Chuck, although it would have helped having some background on his character. Sharon Stone as Linda’s mother was excellent and one of the better aspects of this film. Robert Patrick as Linda’s father was also very strong by coming across as smoldering, shamed, and withdrawn. I didn’t think James Franco as Hugh Hefner worked as there wasn’t the air that Hef created around him with this character. Andy Bellin wrote this script which felt like it needed to dig into the characters more. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman co-directed this film and for the most part it was OK but lacked a solid idea.

Overall:  Not really worth seeing in the theater but maybe at home.