Film Pairing — Don’t Worry Your Pretty Little Head about the Government

There is no consolation in this double bill, two films that express what many of us feel — the government is trying to protect us from those who would take our liberties by taking our liberties. Secrets, double crosses come easy to the alphabet agencies in these two films, which do little to dispel our cynicism but a lot to increase our heart rate and blood pressure.  Try these two for an escape into a dark, but sadly believable reality. It’s all about the hunt and the chase, and whom we can trust.

Safe House — Filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, a spy suspected of corruption is captured and temporarily placed in a “safe house,” where it is virtually impossible to escape or be found.  Except that he was found. Another faction was sent in to free or kill him. The highly prized target, a veteran spy played by Denzel Washington, and a low-level, inexperienced intelligence agent, Ryan Reynolds, find themselves dependent on each other for survival. It seems that two factions of the agency are at odds with each other, but both out to get Washington and Reynolds. This may be the darker and deeper of the two spy films, though the chases are not quite as extravagant. Daniel Espinosa directed Safe House, released in 2012. Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard do their usual fine jobs in supporting roles.

Jason Bourne —This is the fifth, and if they keep their promise, the last of the Bourne series.  Matt Damon returns for this 2016 release. I’ve liked all the Bourne films, including this one, accepting them as well-done action films with just enough plot and barely enough character to keep me in my chair.  The plot is essentially the same.  Get the all-too clever and resourceful Bourne and kill him. In this case I particularly liked the appropriately understated end. Tommy Lee Jones did his usual solid job, this time as the CIA chief. Alicia Vikander was cool and beautiful, but the writers didn't give her a whole lot to work with. The movie was directed by Paul Greengrass based on “characters created by Robert Ludlum," and set primarily Washington DC and Las Vegas.

Relevant, though perhaps not profoundly so, the films address our fears about trusting a government that keeps so much from us — operations that can be twisted at various levels of the intelligence bureaucracy and by the currently ruling corporate class. Given a chance, the films could lead to an intelligent discussion about how we can get more accountability and transparency from our elected representatives, cabinet appointees and commanders in chief.  More than likely though, we will settle in for a few hours of vicarious thrills with two moderately thrilling, competently made entertainment products, knowing that the Bourne film, for example, brought in more than $400 million at the box office in a year that saw the scariest election of the modern era and a new cabinet of generals and billionaire CEOs, stuff from which such movies gain inspiration.

This isn’t a wine, or even a beer night. For those who want some sort of tranquilizing accompaniment, I’d go for Scotch or Bourbon. Sip though, or the Bourne movie will zip by you much quicker than you can comprehend it, not that this is a serious detriment.  For the alcohol free, maybe a coffee of some sort to keep you buzzed and up to speed for all the chases.

Film Pairing – What Am I? Chopped Liver?

Sometimes it’s all right to head over to Burger King for their Big Fish Filet with cheese, and some fries.  I am rarely disappointed in those moments because it was what I craved, and it’s really hard to screw up in the kitchen.  However, it really can’t match that fantastic seafood restaurant where the fresh catch of the day is expertly prepared with just the right sauce and the perfect wine, where dinner is all it could possibly be.  Maybe more.

Here are two films representative of this opening paragraph.

Tommy LeeJones and Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy — A conventional thriller for an escapist evening.  Ashley Judd, Bruce Greenwood, and Tommy Lee Jones do what’s expected to keep even an exhausted mind on the plot.  The question quickly becomes did Judd’s husband feign death in order to disappear or did she kill him? And if it’s the former, what is she going to do about it? This is Judd’s film, and she handles the action lead very well. While there is some question about the legitimacy of the premise in a situation like this, suspending disbelief should be easy enough. The scenery is great. The film, directed by Bruce Beresford, was released in 1999 and was a financial success.

Margaret — Now, for something completely different. This was a film that nearly didn't get made, was edited, and re-edited, rewritten and came in originally at five hours.  Then, for all practical purposes, went nowhere.  The version I saw was the Netflix DVD, which was two and a half hours of genius. I suspect you haven’t seen it because it has had limited showings, and despite its powerful cast you might know nothing about it.

Matt Damon and Anna Pacquin in Margaret

A young college student, Lisa tries to get the attention of a bus driver on his Manhattan route.  Perhaps taking it as a flirtation, the driver pays too much attention to the distraction, probably runs a red light and kills a pedestrian.  The woman dies in the arms of the college student.  Initially everyone was content to write all of this off as a horrible accident. But Lisa can’t move on.  She will let no one else move on either, including us. This is a serious morality tale filmed in stark reality.  All good deeds are punished.  All attempts at fairness and justice are compromised by greed or bureaucracy or both. Even so, right and wrong are not so easily discernible as Lisa learns.

I want to see more by cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski. It is possible for New York settings to end up as a cliché. Not here. Fresh, busy, elegant and sometimes scary.   The film was released in 2011 and was written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. Anna Pacquin played Lisa. She was superb as was the rest of the cast:  J. Smith-Cameron, Jean Reno, Jeannie Berlin, and Allison Janney. Matthew Broderick, Kieran Culkin, Mark Ruffalo and Matt Damon provided brief but essential support.

Though Margaret is only marginally a “crime” film, crimes have been committed.  However both films are rare in the sense that as crime films they are not dominated by male characters.

To accompany the films, why not some beer and a pizza for the first?  Or chopped liver.  Perhaps some wine with the second. But go slow. Margaret will have you rethinking what’s right and wrong or at least questioning the moral compromises you’ve made.

Film Pairings — Gambling As A Means To A Bad End, Or Not

When I propose these double features, I’m not necessarily recommending them — at least not for every one. I mention this now because I have vey mixed feelings about both Killer Joe and Rounders. Both have fine casts; reason enough to see them, perhaps. The directors are experienced, and the story premises are promising.

However, Killer Joe, with its perfect noir plot, is nonetheless filled with gratuitous violence and prolonged humiliation. I felt this way before I read about director William Friedkin’s battle to keep it from getting the dreaded NC17 rating.  He lost that battle and a similar one in the U.K.  In the end, Friedkin did not make the cuts that would have made the film an “R’ and more profitable in general release.  Good for him.  But while I wholeheartedly support the director’s refusal to give in to censorship, I found myself censoring it on my own by fast-forwarding through scenes when the camera lingered far too long on scenes of little more than torture. Without spoiling the artful twists in plot, here’s the story: A sleazy, mentally disturbed Houston cop, Matthew McConaughey, is hired to kill a woman by the woman’s son, daughter and ex-husband. The son, Emile Hirsch, has a crushing gambling debt and is mere days from extinction.  He has exhausted all alternatives, except the one that brings Joe into their dysfunctional family.  With a common purpose — killing mom — gives family members reason to unite.  Juno Temple, Gina Gershon and Thomas Hayden Church, who brings depth to the depthless, make the characters and story all too real.

John Malkovich and Matt Damon

If Killer Joe suffers from some horribly misplaced exuberance, Rounders may be flawed by too much restraint.  John Dahl, director of one of my favorite, darkly comedic films — The Last Seduction — focuses on a promising young gambler played by Matt Damon in Rounders.  The problem for our protagonist in this film, like Killer Joe, is that when you gamble, sometimes you lose and sometimes you lose to the wrong people.  We spend most of the film as bystanders to poker games as Damon tries to climb out of deep debt the way he got into it — by gambling some more. Even for a poor poker player like me, this was more interesting than I would have imagined.  Each game brings with it its own drama.  However the central drama is the choice Damon’s character must make.  Should he, a smart law student, go straight or, as the devil on his shoulder, Edward Norton, counsels, “go pro” in the exciting world of high-stakes poker.  I stayed with the film for its promise.  Here was John Turturro, John Malkovich and Martin Landau. With all these great characters and the danger hovering over Damon’s genuinely decent character, what great surprise, what profound irony are we going to experience?  I have no idea.  He makes a choice.  If that’s it, it’s not enough.

This is definitely a beer night — the cheaper the better.

Film Pairing — Corrupt Cops and Self-Destruction

One of the standard noir plots and of crime fact and fiction in general is about cops becoming robbers.  I think that being a cop has to make even the noblest of people vulnerable to the hardening of the soul, to the bitterness that comes when the bad guys make out better than the good guys, when it seems that nothing you do seems to make any difference or when getting by with it looks easy.  And of course, not every soul is noble to begin with.

Two films, one heralded and showered with awards and the other nearly forgotten even before it was released are featured here.

The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese, won four Oscars. Scorsese, himself, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for best director. Released in 2006, the film was based in large part on a highly rated Hong Kong film called Infernal Affairs.  What we have is an active-duty cop on the take and another cop doing undercover in a Boston gang trying to ferret him out.  It’s a simple plot, but one with suspenseful twists and turns and a cast of Hollywood heavyweights.  Where else would you find Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and Vera Farmiga in the same film? And for good measure there is the inimitable Ray Winstone playing second in charge of the local Irish gang to Boston boss Nicholson, more than keeping up with the scenery-chewing icon.  Lots of testosterone.  It oozes from the screen.

In The Departed the story is about finding the bad cop.  In Rampart, the story is about a police department that doesn’t want the cop found.  They are already sinking in a sea of bad PR from the bigger corruption — Rampart, a real LAPD scandal of immense proportions.  They don’t want the story of this bad seed and his highly personal brand of corruption to the mess. What we get from Rampart, released only last year, is a lesser phenomenon, but not a lesser film. The corruption of the cop in The Departed is a fait accompli pretty much from the beginning of the film.  In Rampart the focus of the film is on one cop, who despite the larger scandal going on around him, finds ways to be corrupt all on his own. He is a guy who wants what he wants and takes it — a man without allegiance. The world exists for him alone. It is perhaps a little less exciting than The Departed, but we delve into character a bit deeper — or try to. 

In a screenplay co-written by the famous crime writer, James Ellroy, we watch Woody Harrelson’s cop character devolve from a nasty human being to an even nastier one.  While the cast is not the powerhouse of The Departed, we are treated to fine performances from Ned Beatty, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, and Ice Cube, with a cameo by Steve Buscemi.

If you get thirsty or want to feel part of the gang, you might open a bottle of Irish whiskey. If you want to change for the second feature, you could go for beer. Domestic is fine.

Film Pairing — Nick Charles and the Talented Mr. Ripley

If anyone can pull off a contemporary Nick Charles, it might very well be Johnny Depp. But the planned remake of The Thin Man is still pretty scary. Updating it for the 21^st Century is scarier. At least once a year I begin The Thin Man series all over again. And the question I have is: Why?

Perhaps because sometimes it works. There is much being made of the HBO remake of James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce, for example. It's a big deal. Unfortunately more remakes come up short than succeed. There are successes, though. Purple Noon (Plein Soleil) was the first film made of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. In 1960 Alain Delon launched his career playing the role that Matt Damon would reprise for an American audience in 1999. In my mind, both films deserve the critical praise they received. And what a great pairing for a lovely, if cynical evening at home — a little wine (American or French or both) and a few hours devoted to bitingly clever and stylish filmmaking.

Incidentally, if you’re viewing The Thin Man series, Martinis are the way to go.