Film Pairings — The Oddness Of Other People

Around Christmas each year my parents would force (yes “force”) my brother and I to visit their old friends and their families, bringing with us a tin of mother’s oatmeal cookies. The older folks (25 or so) would talk of old times while we kids who did not know each other, would stare at each other with controlled disdain. I remember how odd it all was.  I remember other people’s houses had their own smells and the furniture was, in my mind, depressing. The cookies they served were just wrong. How could people live like this?  Strange places, strange kids, strange parents. I was always glad when this awkward holiday tradition was over and we were home where things weren’t always good, but where they were comfortable.

Thank goodness, I’m over that particular childhood peculiarity. Generally I love the diversity that exists in the human species.  But watching these two movies I revisited this sense of unease, prompted by the oddness of others, especially others in an eternal state of disconnection. This double feature is an odd pairing, two films inhabited by people who live in bubbles that glance each other in passing.

Foxcatcher validates the cliché, “truth is stranger than fiction.”  John du Pont, ornithologist, philatelist and philanthropist as well as having a wrestling obsession is a member of the du Pont dynasty,  probably America’s richest family at the time. As John Steve Carrel) provides a portrait of a convincingly strange and needy, gun-toting loser whose mother had to buy him a friend when he was young.  Nothing much changed as he grew older. Only now he could buy his own friend.  He sought out, manipulated and essentially bought a young and vulnerable Olympic wrestler ostensibly to groom for the Olympics. The motive is iffy and subject to interpretation.  The new protégé, (Channing Tatum), has self-worth problems of his own.  He grew up in the shadow of his more talented older brother (Mark Ruffalo) and welcomed du Pont’s attention.  The new emotionally wounded friends were destined to destroy each other. Vanessa Redgrave played the cold, wealthy matriarch who could barely tolerate being in the same room as her son.  Bennett Miller directed this critically hailed film. The cast is flawless.

American Beauty validates another cliché, that truth is often found in fiction. Away from the chilled and rarefied air of the the upper class in Foxcatcher, we descend into the middle class, its hunger for conformity, its silly materially measured success and its great capacity for and encouragement of insincerity. Kevin Spacey plays a man bored with his own mediocrity and the values of the living dead who surround him.  He wants out. While his current life has left its share of collateral damage, getting out isn’t without wreckage. He has a neurotic daughter, a disconnected wife and damaged neighbors. With help from a solid cast  — Annette Bening, Chris Cooper and Wes Bentley among them — the film reminds us that even with salvation, we don’t get out alive.  Sam Mendes directed the multiple award-winning 1999 classic.

Both films provide a smooth but far from simple glimpse into the complicated lives of their inhabitants. There are no simple answers.  Right and wrong are not self-evident. As crime films of a sort, guilt and innocence are nonetheless hard to parse. Both are movies you might like to savor or discuss. Both, it seems to me, take us to unpleasant worlds, its inhabitants bumping into each other blindly.  Perhaps you should sip your wine until the credits role.

Little Screen – Big Dramas

Many of the great TV dramas have come from Great Britain. There are exceptions — “The Wire,” for example.  Even some made in the U.S.A. classics are Mother country inspired.  One of those is “House of Cards.”  If you haven’t seen the British original, please do.  It is well worth the time.  It is British in the best senses of the word. Smart. Funny.  Droll.  Discreetly nasty. However that does not diminish the expertise of the very American adaptation, which steals the premise and some of the original’s theatrical devices, but gets the behind the scenes, sausage-making aspects of Washington D.C. all too well.  The American version is darker and perhaps grittier. 

Kevin Spacey As President Underwood

All three seasons are available from Netflix, the result of a successful and mimicked experiment whereby content deliverers produce their own content.  Actor Kevin Spacey is the prime player as an amoral, ambitious politician.  It is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.  He is matched well with on-screen-wife and partner in crime Robin Wright. One wonders — and I’m sure there are those who don’t wonder at all — if this isn’t meant to be the Clintons. The events, however, seem psychically current. In the third season President Underwood must confront a bullying thug of a Russian leader who is remarkably Putinesque. The plots and cliff-hanging subplots keep us binging. David Fincher is likely the strongest-behind the scenes presence in the American version. The original was based on the novel by Michael Dobbs.

Felicity Huffman As Victim's Mother In American Crime

No doubt spurred by cable channels producing must-see TV (“Shameless,” “Breaking Bad,” “True Detective”) the networks popped out of their coma.  “American Crime” is the result of ABC deciding quality and originality might be marketable concepts. Timothy Hutton portrays a father whose life has been beaten into near submission, and Felicity Huffman plays his ex-wife, inconsolably unhappy and unbendingly angry that life refuses to live up to her convictions. Performances from the two veterans are top–notch as are those of the supporting cast, though their presence is brief in the first episode. The premiere set the tone for what appears to be an exploration of race and class in America through the drama set up by a horrendous crime in Modesto.  John Ridley, best known for writing 12 years A Slave, created the series, which is, so far, excellent. Tonight is episode 2.

“House of Cards” delivers and “American Crime” promises to deliver what most TV shows can’t or won’t — theater for the small screen that embraces big ideas and wide screen vision. And as we supersize our home screens, the difference is becoming negligible.

Opinion — House of Cards Unrealistic? I Don’t Think So.

Kevin Spacey, Very Real

Someone posted this on Facebook:  “Why is Bernie Madoff the only Wall Street criminal to get jail time?’ Because, the answer goes,  “He robbed the 1 percent. Unlike the bankers, who screwed the poor and middle class, Madoff messed with folks who have clout. His problem was his failure to buy a single congressional representative.  All that money and he bought a beach house, not a Majority Whip.

Last night I began the second season of the American “House of cards.”  Hooked again.

This morning I read an article by a former Republican congressional staffer, Mike Lofgren, who implied that such cynicism doesn’t exist in the real world.  Two words for Mr., Lofgren:  Tom Delay.  How about two more?  Jack Abramoff. 

Two fine films cover Delayesque Frank Underwood, one a documentary Casino Jack and The United States of Money. Coincidentally, Kevin Spacey played Abramoff in the fascinating theatrical version of this kind of political intrigue, simply called Casino Jack. Unlike today, there was, though inadequate, at least some level of comeuppance for at least some of the miscreants.

Film Pairings — Suddenly An Albino Alligator or the Hostage Days of Summer

One of the reasons I like baseball is that it reminds me of summers in my childhood — hot, sunny days, lemonade, the sound of propeller airplanes in the sky and the sound of the wood-framed screen door slamming shut.  Fewer clothes and the world moving more slowly.  I also associate summer with baseball, a kind of slow, almost lazy sport.

Today, I watch the Giants whenever the game is on TV.  I look forward to it.  Maybe some fried chicken, baked beans and potato salad.  I also look forward to not having that intense commitment to the game as one might to basketball or football as it unfolds.  Baseball on radio was actually pretty good. Most of the time, I can look at a magazine, talk on the phone, or jot some notes down on a book I’m working on — all while the game goes on.  You can’t do that with other sports.

Sometimes I’m in the mood for movies like that.  Most of the time I’m looking for a film to take me completely away or draw me completely in.  I’ve written about them before here. A good, not quite spine-tingling, not obsessively engrossing story with competent writing and performances can, in the right mood, be desirable.  And here are two of them.

Both are hostage dramas.  Both have good casts.  Both should have been in black and white.  Only one of them was.

Frank Sinatra plays a tough, little hood in Suddenly (1954). Three thugs descend on a home inhabited by “decent folks,” in order to use the house’s strategic location to assassinate the President of the United States.  The film got and is still given pretty good reviews, though I suspect many younger viewers will see it not only as dated (and not stylishly so like The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca), but also stilted. It is considered by many to be in the “noir” tradition. I don’t think so. It is, in the end, hopeful and upholds the values promoted in the 1950s.  Sterling Hayden is the good-guy, male role-model sheriff.  One suspects J. Edgar Hoover approved.

Matt Dillon in Albino Alligator

Oddly enough, Suddenly was one of the first films to be colorized (I saw and recommend the b&w version).  Albino Alligator (1997), the other film on the double bill with hostages, should have been in black and white.  It is far more “noir” than Suddenly.  And the title, if not the story, should have motivated director Kevin Spacey to go retro in black and white.  As in most decent hostage films, the drama is about the interaction of those held in close quarters under stressful circumstances.  Reviewers have not been kind to this film with Faye Dunaway singled out for particularly bad acting. Certainly, there was nothing subtle about her performance. Others also saw it wasteful of the talents of Matt Dillon, Gary Sinise, Viggo Mortenson, Joe Mantegna and Skeet Ulrich.  I liked it.  I tend to like anything set in New Orleans, but it really didn’t matter in this case.  We spend all our time in a dark cellar bar, where we witness the appropriate disintegration of humanity and a genuine noir-style ending.

It’s definitely a beer night.  Any beer.  And if you get bored, switch over to a baseball game.

Film Pairings — Casino Jack, Crimes Against The Country

With the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, lobbyists have never been more powerful and the power of money to corrupt democracy more felt.  So, in some ways, the corruption that surrounded this one super lobbyist Jack Abramhoff less than a decade ago may seem quaint. 

Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramhoff

Essentially Abramoff put the screws to various tribes of Native Americans who were trying to build and operate casinos on their own land.  His purpose was to enrich himself by paying off legislators to pass or kill laws that respectively benefitted or hurt his clients.  Two films, one a documentary, have been made that focus on those years when the young Republican warrior became one of the most powerful forces on Washington D.C.’s all-too influential K Street.  Both films were released in 2010.

Kevin Spacey played Abramoff in the Hollywood version.  There is disagreement among the critics about Spacey and about the film. The actor seemed to soften the hard edges of the character that emerged in the documentary.  The real Abramoff, as portrayed in the documentary, appeared far less likable or even tolerable than the character Spacey drew.

However, for those who shy away from documentaries, Casino Jack is, in my mind, a fine film that nonetheless gets to the core of the kind of corruption that has only escalated after the Supreme Court decision.  It shows how this behavior — the selling of influence — distorts the promise of democracy and especially how we pick a few villains to throw in jail so the public will think the evil that is caught has been dealt with and no longer exists.  Actors portraying Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist do a decent job getting the characters across. Barry  Pepper is fantastic as Abramoff’s partner in crime, Michael Scanlon, who has pretty much avoided public awareness, let alone censure.

Jack Abramhoff

If you have the time and have some interest in politics and or how your government works, I’d definitely watch both films, together if possible.  But if you were forced to choose, my suggestion is to see Casino Jack and the United States of Money.  Frankly, Abramoff, Scanlon, Reed, DeLay, Rove and Norquist do a much better job playing themselves. And the road to corpocracy is drawn more clearly.

The time period is roughly the same, though the documentary picks up Abramoff much earlier  — first, his youthful political transformation, and second as he turns his political power into money and money into still more power.  Slices of footage from speeches and interviews move us through these fascinatingly cynical times.

 

Much is made of John McCain’s leading a committee to ferret out all these evil doings, especially in the defrauding of the tribes running reservation casinos.  However, the documentary shows how McCain, once he found out how many legislators were getting donations from Abramoff, shut down the committee before it could expand its investigation into the behavior of all but one of the U.S. representatives, who was tossed, sacrificially, to the wolves.  After all, McCain would need party support to run for president.  Only a few paid any price for the fraud. Abramoff and a few others went to jail.  Suddenly Abramoff, whose product was access and influence, was later cropped out of photos in which he appeared with Bush the Younger.  Others did the same thing, pretending not to know the man they all but worshipped.  One of the most popular presences in DC suddenly became an unknown.

Clearly, money and favors flowed all too freely, and I seriously doubt if the Democrats are immune from the temptation.  The truth, for me, is that it is hard imagine how we, as society, don’t equate huge donations by corporations as bribery anyway. However in the Abramoff case money for favors was clearly documented. And even a spiritually corrupt Supreme Court wouldn’t have been able to ignore that.

Both films show how greed and ego kill. In an earlier decade (Bonfire of the Vanities) it was called being “masters of the universe.”  Today, the creed that Abramoff and his friends appear to follow is the latest form of Republican politics, the cult that truly embraces survival of the fittest.  In the Republican warrior mentality, as the right-wing religious fundamentalists have yet to learn, right and wrong have no place in the achievement of their goals. And in fact, the “born again” politicians, the Ralph Reeds and Tom Delays of the world, assume the mantle only to dupe the pious.

If you don’t believe me, make sure you watch the end of the documentary when the “join me in prayer” Tom DeLay, shakes his ass on Dancing The Stars to “Wild Thing, I Thing I Love You.”

It is sad that DeLay is considered a celebrity, however minor, that Grover Norquist still dominates Republican legislators and Ralph Reed’s reputation has been rehabilitated to the extent he is currently a talking head on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

For drinks, indulge lightly the first film if you plan on watching both, then switch to something like a Martini for the second.  For some reason I think of a Martini as non-sentimental.  It’s kind of “I’ll take my truth straight,” kind of drink — unlike a romantic, sensuous red wine, innocent peach Daiquiri or or a nostalgic (I repeat myself) Old Fashioned.

Film Pairing — Nothing Sacred, Only Profane...And Provincial

The star of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) is Savannah, Georgia. And the best parts of the film are the scenes that reveal the lovely, eccentric nature of its inhabitants. It is a town that seems unconnected to the rest of the country in time and place.

This is also a place where its people are privately wild and tolerant, while publicly genteel and proper — a kind of exaggeration of the stereotypes of the South in general, where I often think of people preaching abstinence while keeping pints of Southern Comfort in their underwear drawers.

Based on the best-selling book of the same name by John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good an Evil is the real-life story of Jim William’s trial in which he is accused of murdering his down-low lover. Kevin Spacey plays Williams, a self-made, rich collector of fine antiques. Jude Law plays the “low-class” kept-boy who may or may not have tried to kill Williams before being shot himself. John Cusack plays the author who is trying to make sense of it all — the bigger-than life characters and the meaning and pay back of doing evil. Kim Hunter appears briefly to steal a scene or two and Savannah’s own, real Lady Chablis plays Lady Chablis, thereby gaining well more than 15 minutes of deserved fame. Clint Eastwood directs this slightly too-long, slightly uneven telling of Berendt’s story. But in the end — largely because of the society that is so colorfully portrayed — this is a worthwhile film and a great match for the more subdued and possibly more provincial characters in Six Degrees of Separation.

Wrong, it seems, is not always easy to discern. That is one of the similarities in the two films. So is the fact that both are based on real-life events. I would also make the case that, in many cases, Manhattan is as, or is more provincial than the rest of the country. Here, in Six Degrees of Separation (1997), we also have a film about closed societies, the nature of crime and the misrepresentation of reality. In the midst of it all, perhaps there is a thought-provoking question about the spirit and letter of the law.

The film is based on a successful play by John Guare and in that adaptation, there is a kind of formal theatricality that permeates the film. Don’t let that put you off, however. There are rich performances, especially Stockard Channing’s. And it’s a joy to watch an obviously talented young Will Smith interact with such accomplished veterans as Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellen. Also, such real-life New Yorkers as artist Chuck Close and actress/socialite Kitty Carlisle make cameo appearances.

The story is about a pretender to the 1 percent and pretender to celebrity. Smith plays the young con, who in this case, pretends to be Sidney Poitier’s son in order to access Fifth Avenue families. His interaction with various folks didn’t always provide a pleasant outcome. Was this interloper responsible for greater good or greater evil? The answer, to me, was properly unsatisfying.

Seems to me that the bawdier landed gentry in Savannah probably drink something different from the upper crust of the Upper East Side. Savannah is known for its hard drinking and its permissiveness on the subject. Much like New Orleans, one may legally walk about the historic district with a shot or two of Southern Comfort, providing it is in a paper cup. But let’s keep it light for the dinner party crowd in New York. Maybe a civilized fresh peach spritzer (or a Chablis) for the first film and a bottle of expensive Cabernet for the second.

Film Pairing— Movies Of Our Times: The Ides of March, Margin Call

Films do many things for us. They allow us to escape and to engage in worlds we can only imagine with a little creative assistance. They can make us look at things in new ways and embrace ideas larger than ourselves. They can also merely act as a mirror of our times. In some ways, this last objective is the least worthy. But to look at it in another way, they are saying “we have a problem here,” and, at least by implication, “what are you going to do about it?” They are calls to action.

Both The Ides of March and Margin Call give us a real, not particularly sensational, but somehow riveting view of two very serious problems we face in this early part of the 21^st Century — corruption in our political and financial institutions. In other hands, the subjects could be boring. Not here.

Ides is pretty much George Clooney’s movie. He co-wrote it, co-produced it, directed it and starred in it. But that is not to say he demanded center stage. Smart guy that he is, he was willing to chance letting others show him up. Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, and Marissa Tomei were among those who shared the screen and did so extremely well.

Clooney plays a presidential candidate trying to get the Democratic party’s nomination. Much of what we’ve seen this year with the real Republicans should show how sleazy the process is above ground. This film takes a candidate “you can believe in” and pretty much destroys the myth and reinforces the notion that anyone falling in love (and that doesn’t have to mean romantically) with a politician is destined for a broken heart. As is the case with most really good films, supporting roles (and their players) are as fascinating if not more than the principals.

Margin Call is, in many ways, less cinematic. It is small-screen stuff, very seldom leaving the offices of an investment banking firm. It will not suffer on your flat-screen TV. But that doesn’t diminish the tight and surprisingly suspenseful story that unfolds. The movie also benefits from a remarkable cast. Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci are among the players who are on a sinking ship. Their solvency and that of the firm are literally (and I do mean to say that) on borrowed time. A lowly worker discovers what management doesn’t know, the bank is about to fail. By the time they verify his findings management understands it only has hours to figure out what and who to throw overboard. As in Ides, the solution usually comes from those who have the coldest of hearts.

The only film that could be better than these two is a third that can as effectively weave together the two themes with the same quality of screenplay, acting and directing as these two accomplish. And a final word about the acting, these two films show that the current pool of English language acting talent is as good if not better than it ever was. These are repertory performances with rich, deep characterizations in tight, well-written dramas.

The Ides of March is up for an Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay (it was based on a play), and Margin Call is nominated for best original screenplay, though no doubt inspired by actual events. Both films have been honored many times over by various film-related organizations.

If we want to drink what the characters drink, we’d probably go for the Scotch. These are essentially East Coast films, so a Chardonnay is out of the question.

Film Pairing — The Gruesome Twosome

Many of us find stories about hit men and women interesting. In Bruges is one of my favorites. But serial killers? Less so, I think. Perhaps its because hired killers usually involve interaction between evil and lesser evil. Maybe even murder with a moral purpose. We know why this person is being killed. Dexter is a serial hit man and, as such, seems to get some sort of exemption. He kills bad people. We can argue the morality of it. But serial killers, people who kill for unknowable or unimaginable reasons, are another story. If this kind of motiveless killing, this kind of random victim selection, this kind of darkness exists in human souls how can any of us imagine we are safe from evil? Ever? This makes many viewers uncomfortable.

If you are willing to cross that line, here are two dark, but dissimilar films with this uncomfortable premise. They promise an edgy night at home.

Mr. Brooks exemplifies the notion that a pillar of the community can have, for some unknown, perhaps unknowable, reason a desire to create art with death as the medium. Kevin Costner plays the killer pillar and Demi Moore plays the cop. Many twists and turns here. Some say too many. However, for me the 2007 film holds together. One fascinating twist is that the fastidious killer has an admirer, a stalker. I suggest you make this the first feature of the evening. It is gruesome, but far less viscerally so than the second feature.

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are magnetic in this extremely dark tale about a serial killer taking it upon himself to punish those who have engaged in one of the seven deadly sins. The cinematography is magnificently depraved — rain, dimly lit and distressed interiors. A general sense of rot, decay and despair permeate the film. And while Seven pretends to pose a certain philosophical question, the answer will certainly not cheer you up. The story is tight, well constructed and diabolical. The end, even if you should guess it, is ingeniously and disturbingly fitting. Released in 1995 and directed by David Fincher, the film also features Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey.

What’s a good drink to accompany a night of serial killers? Something warming and reassuring, maybe. Cognac. By the end of Seven, you might want to move on to something stronger.

Film Pairing — Murder & Politics, Not So Strange Bedfellows

Mixing politics and murder often makes for a great story. There are real life dramas surrounding the assassination of the Kennedys. Certainly the New Orleans-connected killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby could be the basis for a fascinating film if we every figured out what went on. And fiction pales against the stories of the killing of Martin Luther King, the disappearances of James Hoffa and Judge Crater as well as the attempt on George Wallace’s and Ronald Reagan’s lives.

But there are a number of films that deal with the mix of murder and politics. And given that we are subjected to politics, politics, politics all day long, here are two movies — studies in corruption — that can accompany today’s news.

The first is City Hall (1996). It is based on an original screenplay, and is set in contemporary New York. John Cusack, Danny Aiello and Bridget Fonda join Al Pacino. (Also, there is a brilliant appearance by Martin Landau.)

Some of the mystery blogs are listing the all-time great over-actors. Pacino is listed in the top ten. Admittedly, he chews a bit of the scenery in this one as well; but I don’t know who else could have played the savvy and charismatic mayor of New York as convincingly — and the ability to be both a saint and Satan is essential to the plot. Whether you figure it all out or not before the film let’s you in on it — and you might — it’s worth seeing if for no other reason than to be reminded how idealism is smashed in a sacrifice to the reality, perhaps necessity, of compromise. Someone once said that to fall in love with a politician is to have your heart broken.

LA Confidential (1997) has it all. It is based on James Ellroy’s book and has one of the best casts money can buy. Instead of 1990s New York, we visit 1950s L.A. The cast includes Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Bassinger, Danny DeVito, James Cromwell and David Stratham — all dealing with scandal, sleaze, crime and corruption. Much of the film’s action hovers around the needs of a magazine called Hush, Hush. I remember when I was twelve or thirteen. With some degree of embarrassment, I would go to the magazine section of the drug store and open up the pages of a sleazy scandal sheet called Confidential to see what lurid activities Hollywood stars were engaged in. Afterward, I’d feel I’d looked into a world I wasn’t supposed to see. I remember feeling a mix of excitement and disgust. That is pretty much what L.A. Confidential, nominated for nine Academy Awards, is about. It is also very much about L.A. In that sense, there might be a case for pairing Confidential with Chinatown. Not a bad idea, either, but it might be too much L.A. for one evening.

It’s whiskey on the rocks for the entire evening. No soda.