Doctor Strange (3-D)

First Hit:  I fully enjoyed the film and Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect as Dr. Stephen Strange.

What makes this film work and hold together is the acting of Cumberbatch. In fact, one could take out some of the special effects and this film still works.

Strange is a compulsive, arrogant, and a larger than life self-aggrandizing surgeon. His surety and cavalier way of performing surgery are displayed in opening scenes. He’s listening to music and then challenges one of his assistants to change up the music and give him a music quiz. The song his assistant hopes to trip him up on is Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” which the assistant says came out in 1978 while Strange argues correctly that it was released in 1977. This was a superb way to display who he is.

Then, to solidify the point, Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), rushes into the OR and asks Dr. Strange to look at a patient who they are about to harvest for organs. Her claim is that the patient can be saved and isn’t brain dead. Strange looks at the medical x-rays, scans and diagnosis documents, moves the patient to ER and pulls a bullet out of the patient’s head, thereby stopping the organ harvest, keeping the man alive. He only cares about his success at being right and competent and sort of rejects the patient's family's thanks. Lastly Dr. Palmer shows a deeper than friendship interest in him but he just sluffs it off putting his needs ahead of everything.

However, he gets hurt in an accident and destroys his hands. Without having his surgical skills available he ends up with nothing and takes one last trip looking for Kamar-Taj, a place that may be able to provide him help in getting his hands back. While in Kathmandu he ends up meeting “The Ancient One” (Tilda Swinton). She calls him out on his arrogance and self-centeredness and demonstrates that there is more to life than the physical world. She demonstrates alternate realities and it shocks Strange into curiosity and then wanting to become a student. As The Ancient One points out, Strange still thinks of only himself but takes him on as a student because he’s got abilities and really wants to learn.

The film ultimately is about two things: First, the fight between good (light) and evil (darkness). And two, about how to live by putting others first. To this end, the film is interesting, however, I do believe that the number of spectacular visual scenes to represent the fragility of most peoples’ perception of reality were not needed. At first the spinning of the streets and buildings into different spatial realities were cool and interesting to watch. But after a while it took away from the story and acting which was very strong.

Cumberbatch was extraordinary good in this fantasy film. He brought a serious, adventurous and human context to the character regardless of the topsy-turvy visual convolutions. Swinton was much better than I thought she would be. I struggled thinking that it needed to be an Asian spiritual leader because the film felt like it was sharing ancient Asian wisdom. However, from the get go, Swinton owned the role. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo, The Ancient One’s right hand person, was excellent. He put an edge into the film that made it better. McAdams was wonderful as Strange’s co-surgeon. Her humanness towards a difficult Strange was perfect. Benedict Wong (as Wong) was delightful. His protective seriousness of the spiritual path and library worked well against Strange’s behavior. Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill wrote a wonderful screenplay, which was enhanced by the use of humor and interesting dialogue among the characters. Derrickson had a strong hand on the tiller of this film. I only thought that he used CGI more than needed.

Overall:  Although the film is not Oscar worthy, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and that is the point.

Certain Women

First Hit:  A very thoughtful film that deepens and, at times, darkens with feelings just as the Montana winter closes in.

This film is, in essence, three separate yet interrelated stories of three women and their relationship with their inner self, work and the world about them. The film opens with Laura Wells (Laura Dern), as an attorney, having an affair with Ryan (James Le Gros) who happens to be Gina Lewis’s (Michelle Williams), husband. The strength and intelligence of this film is displayed in this opening scene. Long camera shots letting scenes play themselves out with words being a secondary communication device. The camera focuses on the faces letting the audience peer within the character. Of particular beauty was the stark motel room, only seeing Ryan, through the oval wall mirror, while Laura laid on the bed, contemplating the events, her life and her feelings about it.

Laura finds herself enabling a client named Fuller (Jared Harris) who is lost after a work event that left him disabled and unable to continue working. He’s confused and refuses to believe that he gave away his rights for a tort suit against his former employer as explained by Laura. These scenes of enabling build up to where she finally changes the situation.

Gina is introduced to the audience as she is warming down from a run, smoking a cigarette, and walking through a forested path. She’s serious and thoughtful in her look as she enters a campground. We soon learn she’s the powerful one in her family consisting of her husband Ryan and daughter Guthrie (Sara Roder). There is a moment when Gina indicates she dislikes being made the villain in the family. She feels undermined by Ryan which shows up as they discuss obtaining sandstone for the home they are building from Albert’s (Rene Auberjonois) yard. The long shots on her face left me feeling haunted by the weight she is bearing.

We meet Jamie (Lily Gladstone) working on a horse ranch. She leads a quiet life tending horses, watching TV, and eating. The scenes of her existence were made more lively, and funny to the audience, by the Corgi that always chases her as she puts hay into the corrals for the horses. The darkness of where she lives and the barn mirrors the loneliness of her life. One evening she gets into her truck and ventures to a school where she quietly takes root in the back row of a class with four other adults. The others in the class know each other, she’s an outsider. Into the classroom walks a young lawyer named Beth (Kristen Stewart) and we learn she’s a newly minted lawyer and has driven 4 hours to teach a class on Student / Educational Law. She acknowledges she knows little about this but has been studying. All the students, except Jamie, ask questions that directly affect themselves and try Beth’s patience. By going to a diner after class Jamie and Beth learn more about each other. Again, the long camera shots on their faces was extraordinary in giving the audience a glimpse of what is going on within them. What is going on with Jamie is that she is falling in love with Beth.

This is what made this film strong. In male oriented films there are quicker camera movements and more cuts. There is more of an overt purpose in directing the story in a particular direction, here the audience finds their way into the story by studying these women through their faces and movements.

Dern was amazing as someone who is alone, competent, caring and struggling to not be an enabler. Williams was sublime as a beautifully powerful strong woman that is finding her way through family life and what it is she wants her home to be. Harris is interesting as the man who is confused and dismayed at his current predicament. His reliance on Laura is interestingly dependent. Le Gros is good as the detached husband who is dependent on his strong wife. Gladstone was amazing. I loved her quiet depth, her aching heart, and pragmatic persistence. She was so powerful in this film by saying so very little. Stewart was wonderful as the object of Jamie’s affection. One of my favorite exchanges was when Beth said that in her family, the highest job they could attain was being a shoe salesperson. That she became a lawyer was something she held on to with tenuous hope and the audience feels this. Auberjonois was exceptionally sweet as a man slowly losing his memory. Kelly Reichardt wrote and directed this with an eye for letting the characters show what is going on with themselves by letting the camera see them. A job well done.

Overall:  This film is not for everyone, but if you want to gaze into the depth of certain women, see “Certain Women”.

Inferno

First Hit:  It started interestingly and then simply fell off the table by an overly complex and poorly developed script, poor acting, and feeble direction.

I’ve not been a fan of any of the Da Vinci Code oriented films. The best was the first and quickly sank with Angles & Demons. It stays on this downward track with Inferno. Here we’ve got Tom Hanks reprising his character Robert Langdon, who knows more than anyone about Dante, his words, and other’s interpretations of Dante’s work.

The film starts confusingly with Langdon hurt in the hospital with a head injury. He’s confused and is being attended by a physician named Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones). We are also introduced to Billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who is convinced that the world is on the verge of collapse. It is 11:59 – one minute till the world collapses because of over population and environmental issues caused by the over population. To right this sinking ship, he wants to spread a virus that will wipe out earth’s population.

With these two plot setups; Langdon being attacked, having amnesia, and why he has a projection device showing Dante’s hell in a picture but the picture has been altered, and the other setup is Zobrist wants to destroy the world’s population. Added to this we have people trying to kill Langdon, the WHO (World Health Organization) trying to stop Zobrist, WHO agent Christoph Bouchard (Omar Sy) who appears to be on some other side, Vayentha (Ana Ularu) a motorcycle riding person wanting to kill Langdon, and Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan) a hired security consultant whose interest in anything is questionable.

Confused, you got it, and that is how the film unfurled itself. What really muddied up this story is that the writer and/or director wanted Langdon to have a tangential and unrequited love interest with WHO’s Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen).

Some of the visual scenes were well shot which helped me to stay somewhat engaged with this lackluster movie. I also loved the, from the air, shots of Venice and Istanbul.

With a bad screenplay and poor direction Hanks was as bad as I’ve ever seen him. There just isn’t enough to be interested in or care about with his character. The device of having him slowly get his memory back during the first half of the film was a waste of Hanks’ talent. Jones character was better than Hanks, but I didn’t buy the shift in her role late in the film. It didn’t surprise me and it just didn’t work. Foster was OK as the guy predicting the end of the world. Khan’s role was sufferable and difficult to watch let alone buy. Knudsen was good in her role until it got to the emotional connection with Langdon, that part denigrated the character. Sy’s role didn’t seem defined and was unclear; it didn’t work for me. Ularu was in a poorly constructed and acted role. David Koepp wrote a horribly convoluted screenplay. Ron Howard knows how to direct so I don’t know what went wrong with the film outside of him just doing his best with the presented screenplay.

Overall:  If there is another film in this series I will not go see it.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

First Hit:  At times funny but it became more ridiculous as the story progressed.

The setup is that Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher), with their children, are a happy well-adjusted family in suburbia. He’s a human resources manager at a large company that employees much of the town. She’s a bathroom designer. Their boys have been sent to camp for the summer. An empty house near theirs is sold to the Joneses, Tim and Natalie (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot respectively). From the beginning Karen suspects the Joneses are a bit odd and through some funny investigation, discovers they might possibly be spies.

The Gaffney’s continue their growing friendly relationship with the Joneses but their caution is rewarded and eventually the Gaffney's learn the truth about the Joneses. The rest of the film is how they team up to find out who, in Jeff’s company, is selling microchips to the enemy.

There are truly some funny bits, but then these behaviors get over played deflating the point of the behavior in the first place. The action scenes are OK but the car chase (Mercedes and motorcycles) was too long and not believable.

Galifianakis is funny and his behaviors that make him funny tend to be repeated more than needed. Fisher’s character is more interesting than Galifianakis by being inquisitive and less predictable. Hamm was solid as the undercover spy that wants his life to change. Gadot’s character was a little over done for me. More humor from her would have helped. Patton Oswalt was funny enough as Scorpion the villain. Michael LeSieur wrote a partially funny script but behaviors in scenes were repetitive. Director Greg Mottola had good actors but a script that failed to expand the story and characters.

Overall:  After watching the film, it is easily forgotten.

American Pastoral

First Hit:  Interesting look back into the 1960s and, although it was confusing at times, it did make me think about a powerful time in America.

If you grew up in the 1950s and 60s, you probably knew or had heard of “the guy” who was the most popular guy in school, was on all the high school teams, was a letterman on all those teams, and married the prettiest girl in class. They led the idyllic lives.

Here we have Seymour “Swede” Levov (Ewan McGregor) as that man. We are introduced to his legend through the 45th high school reunion where his the Swede’s brother Jerry Levov (Rupert Evans) speaks with Nathan Zuckerman (David Strathairn), a friend of his and Seymour’s. It is through Jerry telling Nathan the story that this film unfolds.

Swede marries Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) a New Jersey beauty queen. Because she is Catholic and Swede is Jewish, the Swede’s father Lou (Peter Riegert) wants to meet and question Dawn prior to their marriage. The Swede tells her to be strong during the meeting because this is what Lou admires. This discussion is well done and a strong scene in the film.

Swede ends up running the family business in Newark and is easily in the upper middle class. He and his wife move to a small rural town where they begin to raise their daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning). The film sets the ideal life with family dinners, mother and daughter working their cows, and even the birth of calves.

However, this pastoral scene starts to get darker as Merry begins to show her independence and anger towards the US Government’s involvement in the war of Vietnam and societies’ bent towards making money. I recall this attitude in many people including myself and the protest movements during this time. What complicates her internal struggle is that she also stutters. The psychologist they have tells Dawn and Swede that it is because she is struggling with her mom’s beauty and perfectness.

Merry runs away and is accused of blowing up the local rural post office (government facility) and killing the proprietor, whom the whole family knows. She disappears and Swede is distraught and beside himself and cannot let go that his daughter might have become part of an underground movement. Dawn begins to disappear from living, sells her cows and begins to slip into a deep depression.

From a filming standpoint, if feels over controlled and directed. The film is longer than needed to tell the story and this is a director issue as well.  To know what I mean watch a Clint Eastwood directed film and this one, Eastwood’s films are crisp, sometimes almost too crisp, and he gets the story told. In this film we have some long and languished scenes that supported the idyllic life they were living but some could have been cut or made shorter and made the film better. I also didn't believe the reasons for Merry’s stuttering and I don’t know if this was a screenplay issue or a directional issue.

McGregor was good as Swede but I also think his directing of himself got in the way of his performance. I did think, as a director, many of the scenes were well presented and setup well. Connelly was fantastic. I was mesmerized by her ability to put together a wonderful series of transitions as Dawn went from beauty queen romanced by the absolute best guy available, to a mother who cared, to cow farmer, to concerned and troubled mother, to depressed wife, and to remade wife through plastic surgery. Fanning was very strong in this very difficult and complex role. Although I didn’t fully buy her scripted logic for her actions, I bought how she made it work. Riegert was particularly good as Swede’s opinionated and robust father. John Romano wrote the screenplay from the Philip Roth novel. I do think there were some weaknesses in the script, and McGregor didn’t help this much.

Overall:  This could have been a stronger film with a crisper screenplay and clearer direction.