The Dinner

First Hit:  Could have been more interesting and watchable without the distractions.

The previews had led me to believe that this might be a strong film about two estranged couples having dinner resolving an issue involving their sons. However, it seemed to be mostly a deep dive into Paul Lohman’s (Steve Coogan) mental illness and how his family works around it.

Paul and his wife Claire (Laura Linney) are meeting his brother Congressman Stan Lohman (Richard Gere) and his wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall), for dinner at a very exclusive restaurant. Paul does not want to go, and we see him fade in and out of being present with what is going on. He is fascinated with the battle of Gettysburg.

Throughout the film, the director lobs us into Paul's fantasies, his issues with teaching students, and difficulty staying with and on one rational thought and discussion. Not that this wasn’t warranted to understand Paul’s state of mind, but that it did this so much and that the loud distorted sounds used during some of these scenes was difficult on my ears, and very distracting to the story.

All of this gets thrown into this dinner, where Stan gets interrupted by his aid to help get votes on a mental health bill he’s created. Each of the dinner guests, occasionally gets up and leaves the table for 10 or more minutes. The service, although exquisite, gets broken up by the transient way the dinner guests sit and leave. When a conversation starts at the table, it gets railroaded by Stan leaving to deal with a legislative issue, or Paul’s rants, or Claire and Katelyn’s attempts to settle the feuding brothers.

We are given additional hints at Paul's inabilities to deal with life when we learn that Claire had cancer and Paul struggled to visit his wife and take care of their son Michael (Charlie Plummer). Stan and his first wife Barbara (Chloe Sevigny) tried to intervene in Paul’s difficulty but was rebuffed. Stan and Barbara had two kids of their own Rick (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) and Beau (Miles J. Harvey) who Barbara and Stan adopted. Despite the broken relationship between Stan and Paul, the boys hung out together.

The subject that finally gets fully aired is that Michael lit a homeless person on fire while Rick watched. Beau threatened to make their murder public which will ruin the boy’s lives and Stan’s run for governor. We learn that Paul was not informed when it happened and he’s upset, Stan wants to turn the boys in and the mothers’ want to keep it quiet because the police have not figured out who was responsible for the death. They hope the event will be forgotten by the public.

As I previously stated, I really disliked the myriad of segues into Paul’s psychosis. I disliked that there was so little direct conversation around the dinner and only when the group goes into a small private room at the restaurant that there was any real discussion. I disliked the sound track of noises during Paul’s altered states.

However, I did like the dialogue that came up around being truthful and paying attention to one's conscious. Additionally, questions about right action and how best to keep family together were also very interesting. Overall, I thought the acting was very strong.

Coogan was amazing in his portrayal of a mentally ill man who could, at times, be very clear and wonderful. Linney was clearly strong as well. Her support and ability to calm Paul down and keep him somewhat present was very good. Gere was excellent as a congressman who also discovered he had to start showing up to his family. Hall was outstanding. Her big scene was telling Stan how she’s the one who has held his family together, raised boys, and showed up for and to him every day, was perfect. Plummer was strong as the boy who’s got struggles and issues needing assistance. Adepero Oduye (as Congressman Lohman’s assistant Nina) was very good in how she kept her cool during the dinner and when pushed by Katelyn. Oren Moverman wrote and directed a convoluted and confusing script and screenplay that overdid the segues into Paul’s neuroses.

Overall:  Although the subjects of family, family history, doing what is right and dealing with mental illness are good subjects, this film meandered and wasn’t clearly focused.

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent

First Hit:  I thoroughly loved this film.

Having eaten in “Stars” restaurant at least 5 times during its heyday, I can attest to what the film expresses: Tower made eating a fully engaging, yummy, joyous, theater experience. It was the “it” and “in” place to eat in San Francisco as identified by the people who came there to eat. At one point James Beard indicated it was maybe the best restaurant in the United States and maybe the world.

I recall sitting there, having a late night dinner, after seeing the American Ballet Theater perform and in the room not even 30 feet away was Mikail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev eating with Jeremiah, champagne glass in hand, ensuring their food, everyone’s food, was perfect.

The film is how this amazing place came to be, what happened to it, and more importantly what happened to Jeremiah, who basically disappeared off the map. However, one of the very first lines in the film says it all: “I have to stay away from human beings because somehow I’m not one.”

Although Tower’s parents were extremely wealthy, Jeremiah’s upbringing was extremely difficult and filled with aloneness, sadness and pain. The opening scene has Rocston Issock playing a young 6-year-old Jeremiah wandering a beach, meeting a stranger who cooks them fish to eat, then takes him up the sand into the bushes and sexually abuses him. When the man takes Jeremiah back to the hotel, well after dark, his parents simply ask him where he’s been. They never worried or cared that he’d been out of their site, in a strange land, for more than 6 hours. Their approach was hands off.

Jeremiah lived in hotel rooms and boarding houses. As he said in the film, his domain was his hotel room, hotel hallways, and hotel dining rooms. His parents rarely, if ever, looked in on him to see how he was doing. He raised himself in luxury hotels and on large cruise ships like the Queen Mary.

He finally gets shipped off to school and ends up cooking things for his classmates. He even states at one point, “from early on, I think food was my best pal.” Finally, he gets to Harvard and is studying something useful, architecture, but at age thirty his parents tell him his allowance is over and he’s on his own.

Never getting his architectural degree, he heads to California broke and in 1973 while he’s looking for work and a friend hooks him up with Alice Waters of Chez Pannisse fame.

Drawing on what he’s learned and tasted through his whole life eating the best food in the world all by himself, he takes and makes over Chez Pannisse’s menu and kitchen. He grows in his skills exponentially and the people love his food.

Boldly one day he tells Alice, they are going to radically change the menu from French based to all California based food and we'll cook it a new way. Everything will come from California. When his friend James Beard comes to review the restaurant, the result is that it becomes world famous overnight. Tower is on the map as the best chef in the world and the person who puts food, presentation and flair together as one thing. He becomes the first celebrity chef.

Prior to this, chefs were behind the door cooking. He brought the kitchen into the dining room with flair. When he accidentally reads Alice’s draft for a new cookbook where she claims authorship for all the recipes, Tower goes ballistic and leaves.

With an investor, he opens “Stars” in a seedy section of San Francisco and it instantly becomes a success. And again, I will say I ate there and was as good as legend says it was.

But after a few years it closed. Why? There was a lawsuit, he opened too many other restaurants and was stretched thin, and the earthquake of 1989. Regardless, after “Stars” closed, he disappeared and was not heard from again until 2014 when he was hired as Executive Chef for "Tavern on the Green" in New York City, which had been failing at the hands of a “celebrity chef”. He begins to instill discipline and perfection into the restaurant's food and service. But we all know this is hard to do in a short time, and before he knows it he’s ousted in April of 2015.

This film is shot in Mexico and the USA although Jeremiah also spent time in Italy and Philippines during his hiatus between Stars and The Tavern. What was remarkable about the film is that despite scenes of him walking on ancient Mexican pyramids and through buildings, and how they might be boring, these scenes enhance his separateness from the world and everyone else.

Lydia Tenaglia did an outstanding job of creating scenes that captured Tower’s illusive nature and spirit. The pictures of Stars captured my heart. Seeing pictures of Willie Brown and Herb Caen along with other San Francisco socialites was joyful.

Overall:  I wished Stars was back so I could relive the magnificence of eating beautiful food in a place where everyone was treated royally and like they belonged.

Norman

First Hit:  Extremely well-acted film about “The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer”.

Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) is a fixer and befriends people, anybody, to help them. By finding out what it is they want or need he gets close to them and creates a way to connect himself to people and them to him. Looking at their wants, he's like a problem and puzzle solver by putting people's needs, abilities, and wants together in a way that issues get resolved. Doing so, he also hopes to make something on the side from the deal.

The issue is, that despite his unfathomable drive to do this, he fabricates the truth into a stories that makes him look more connected and important than he is. People see through this, but because he's so nice and humble, no one completely pushes him away.

We never see him sleep and suspect he sleeps in the park or in a synagogue that he likes and supports. During one of his connecting ventures at a conference he spies and follows a minor Deputy Minister of Israel named Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi) out of the conference and into a high-end clothing store.

Micha had admired a pair of shoes in the window and that’s when Norman introduces himself. They go into because Norman insists that Micha at least try on the shoes he's admiring through the window. While in conversation with Norman, the store proprietor starts measuring Micha for a suit. When Micha sees that the price for the suit will be over $6,000, he panics, takes the suit off and wants to leave. Norman convinces him to put on the shoes back on and then buys the shoes for Micha. Little did Norman know that the shoes were over $1,200. The look on Norman’s face is priceless.

Still trying to create a connection with Micha, Norman finally gets him to take his business card and return gets Micha’s with his private number on the back.

For Norman this means they are close good friends and he wants to leverage this relationship even though Micha or his staff rarely answers his calls. Three years later Micha becomes Prime Minister of Israel and it so happens, when Micha visits New York, Norman is at a gathering to honor Prime Minister Eshel. When Micha spies Norman in the greeting line, he calls out and hugs him and introduces Norman as his close friend to many of the people there to greet Micha. This moment is complete glory for Norman and he’s hoping he can leverage this into something good. He states at one point, this was the best investment he's ever made.

During the film we also see him connect with others including Philip Cohen (Michael Sheen) who needs to be married in a Synagogue but his fiancé is Korean; Rabbi Blumenthal (Steve Buscemi) who needs to find 14 million dollars save the synagogue from being destroyed, Jo Wilf (Harris Yulin) who wants to make money, and Alex Green (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who wants to catch the “New York Businessman” who illegally gives a gift to the Prime Minister. Lastly there is the Prime Minister that needs a special favor from Norman.

Watching how these parts intertangle with each other and pulling them all together is Norman’s self-described job description.

The scenes of New York City, the community of Jews and their discussions are amazingly strong.

The film also uses titles of acts to break up the film into scenes/acts and, although at times I’m not a big fan of this, here it works well.

Gere is phenomenal. This is some of the best acting I’ve ever seen from him. Sheen is great as the guy who doesn’t want to be bothered by Norman unless he’s getting something from the interaction. Buscemi is very strong as the Rabbi who is desperate to keep his synagogue open. Yulin is perfect as the greed based wealthy man who is only interested speaking to Norman if there is a large solid financial deal to be made. Gainsbourg is fantastic as the investigator who is initially put-off by Norman but then finds a way to use him for her own benefit. Joseph Cedar wrote and directed this very engaging, interesting film.

Overall:  I fully enjoyed following Norman who was the moderate New York fixer.

The Circle

First Hit:  Wonderfully interesting in many ways including how close we are to actually having this technology being available today. I grew up being much more private that I am today. Today’s technology makes being open and transparent much easier. This film is about technology and how it could be used to control, expose, and create full transparency among people. It also exposes some of the privacy and freedom of choice issues that we, as a race, may have to face.

In 1999 there was a Ron Howard film called 'Edtv' with Matthew McConaughey in the role of Ed, who was filmed by a camera crew while he lived his life and eventually got the girl despite being exposed this way. What made this interesting was how much equipment and production was required to film this one man.

It's all different in 'The Circle'. Here the company resembles a conglomeration of Apple, Google, and Facebook and the technology they develop is the star. It is a social media platform that also provides other services.

Mae (Emma Watson) is stuck in a part-time customer service department for a utility company. Her mom Bonnie (Glenne Headly) and dad Vinnie (Bill Paxton) want their daughter to be happy, but she’s been hanging around because Vinnie has Multiple Sclerosis. Her high school boyfriend Mercer (Ellar Coltrane) still pines for Mae and is more interested in a life without technology.

Mae gets hired by ‘The Circle’ because her friend Annie (Karen Gillan), who has a high level position with the company, gets her an interview. Drinking the Kool-Aid of ‘The Circle’ philosophy, Mae slowly gets inducted to the group by going to the company parties, staying in the company dorms, eating the company food, and participating online with the supposed “friendships”. Getting a company physical, she ingests a small device that will track her and provide the company with her vital data.

At a company meeting they announce a small inexpensive camera which they begin placing all over the country. The camera provides 'The Circle' clients with ways to view and experience lots of different places and never leave their seat in front of their computer screen or phone screen.

The founders, Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) and Tom Stenton (Patton Oswalt), promote openness while there is a slight sub-current of wanting control and data on everyone and everything. The cameras are part of this data collection. By recording the camera data and the data from their employees ingested monitors, the collection becomes very personal very quick.

Because of the cameras, Mae is saved from drowning in San Francisco Bay. This emotional event further convinces Mae that ‘The Circle’ is on to something and volunteers to be the first person to be online fully transparent 24/7 except for the 3 minutes when she’s on a toilet or when she's sleeping. Of course now she has millions of followers and as people do today, many make snide, dumb or derogatory comments about Mae as well as others who make supportive comments.

Mae comes up with ideas to take this one more step and suggests that everyone become part of ‘The Circle’ and if you are, then you’ll automatically be registered to vote and will be required to vote. One of her co-workers, Ty Lafitte (John Boyega), shares information with Mae which supports concern for The Circle’s plans for the data they are collecting. She also discovers that Ty is the third founder who no longer has an active part in the company.

The ending scenes are great because it starts to bring up the concept and issues around true transparency for all people, including the founders. The questions this film brings up are important to all of us because almost all of the technology shown in the film is available. Would you act better, or as your better self, if everything you did was being able to be seen by everyone else? Would you be OK with everyone having the ability to view all your communications with anyone? Is total transparency of everyone the best path? Or, do we need to have individual privacy?

The film puts forth this question and actually it is a great question because the technology is just around the corner to make ‘The Circle’ happen soon.

Watson is great. She did a wonderful job of portraying her own questions about what she was getting into and then shifting to be the person who leads ‘The Circle’. She had great transitional moments and she performed them very well. Hanks was perfect as CEO because he’s just so nice and believable. You wouldn’t think there was an underlying theme that wasn’t transparent. Oswalt was excellent as the COO because he, more than Hanks, showed a sense of an underlying darker theme. Paxton was wonderful in his final film role. His performance as a man with MS was spot on. Gillan was strong as the overworked believer who started seeing her power fade. Coltrane was wonderful as Mercer the guy who just wanted to live his life his way. Headly was very good as Mae’s mother. Loved how she created support for her husband and empathy for her daughter. Boyega was strong as Ty, the architect of ‘The Circle’ and saw the issues early on. James Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers did a wonderful job of creating a script and screenplay that reflected the way people act today with their mobile devices and bringing up the deeper questions about transparence and control. Ponsoldt did a great job of using his actors to show how companies in Silicon Valley coddle their employees; with transportation, food, parties, concerts, and activities.

Overall:  A very interesting story and it brings up questions that will have to be addressed and resolved soon.

Born In China

First Hit:  I was disappointed in the overall presentation, narration, and empty space. I look forward to seeing Disney nature films and this film was no exception. It started out OK, but started to fall off with the narration and then the story's lack of engagement. Somehow John Krasinski’s voice failed to get me absorbed into into movie; it seemed pressed or manufactured without true feeling or empathy.

I did expect more from Krasinski's narration because he himself has two daughters and this film is about parents raising children. 'Born In China' is about three mothers raising their new babies. The animal mothers were: Snow Leopard, Golden Monkey, and Panda.

I thought that following a Snow Leopard, Golden Monkeys and Pandas would have been enough. However, either, following the three families didn't provide enough content or they didn’t do enough to deeply engage us and show us their lives, because there was so much empty space in the film. The possibility also exists that they needed more families to follow, but I'm not sure that would have helped.

Of course, many of the shots were fantastic because Disney's photographers are amazing. This point is proved in the opening scene, with two mother Snow Leopards facing off in a territory dispute. This scene was intense, inspiring and engaging and set a high mark for the rest of the film. It is unfortunate that the film falls away after this.

This falling away resulted in scenes of humor and cuteness by following the Golden Monkeys and Pandas. The Snow Leopards path was far more intense and had the feeling of being on the edge.

Although I applaud the director to include the mother's death scene, I still wanted to know what happened to the mother’s two kittens. The Golden Monkey story had both laughter and drama. The Panda story was interesting to me especially because they are very sloth like and the babies are so very vulnerable when born.

I’m not sure using the Crane as a moral compass was a good thought. It might have been better to learn more about the cranes.

Didn’t like Krasinskie’s voice and inflections for the narration. David Fowler and Brian Leith wrote a somewhat weak script. Chuan Lu did a mediocre job of putting these stories together. Although the filming/cinematography was exquisite.

Overall:  Disappointed by this film and made me question whether I’ll see the next in the series.