Listen to Me Marlon: A Review

 

LISTEN TO ME MARLON

This is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Marlon Brando.

Marlon Brando is held up as the definitive screen actor, one who is the model, good or bad, for every actor that has come after him. The popular perception of Brando is that of a great talent done in by his own hungers, degrading himself for money, who shifted from being passionate about his craft to simply not caring about it. Listen to Me Marlon is his story, told in his words, that reveal the how of his life and career. Perhaps they even reveal the why, though that requires more digging.

Culled from thousands of hours of audio recordings he made throughout his life, Listen to Me Marlon has Brando speak what we would call "his truth". He speaks of everything: his fraught childhood, his entry into acting and the powerful influence of acting mentor Stela Adler, the transition from stage to screen. He also speaks of the various triumphs and tragedies personal and professional.

There is the highly troubled life of his son Christian, from the kidnapping he endured to the murder trial that brough the reclusive Marlon out into the harsh light of infamy. There is the disillusionment he had with the art of acting, recounting how Mutiny on the Bounty was his worse experience film-wise apart from the discovery of Tahiti. He calls a now-forgotten film, Candy, the worst movie he made, bringing him shame long after its debut. 

Brando also speaks of how he did get into the part of Vito Corleone in The Godfather, his openness and rawness in Last Tango in Paris (even if he felt director Bernardo Bertolucci dug too deep into Brando) and how despite how he understood Kurtz in Apocalypse Now he had contempt for both the film and its director, Francis Ford Coppola. From taking $14 million for twelve days work in Superman to how there are better scenes than "I could have been a contender" in On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando hides nothing.

We do not get a background on why Brando recorded his deepest thoughts and memories (some tapes are marked "Therapist" but whether he meant a literal therapist or himself for therapy is unclear). We also do not get anyone else speaking outside of interviews where Brando was not the only person being interviewed (such as his father or Adler). As such, we get Brando and Brando only. 

This is a positive in that no one is "explaining" or "contextualizing" his thoughts, his words, his memories. Instead, director and cowriter Stevan Riley (writing with Peter Ettedgui) shapes only the structure of Listen to Me Marlon, not the words, via archival footage and newly shot scenes of nature.

What we hear from Brando is an elegant, intelligent usage of words. "You are your memories", he says early in the film. From those memories, we hear Brando speak to us on something surprisingly contemporary: the digital use of actors. A few times we see a computer-generated Brando recite Shakespeare, which is in turns frightening and mesmerizing.

This is an uncensored Brando, one who recognizes his sexual prowess when A Streetcar Named Desire took Broadway and later Hollywood by storm. We also learn that he was nothing like the brutish Stanley Kowalski. Far from it, he hated the character for that brutishness. He also dismisses the oft-praised "I could have been a contender", insisting that it is not his best scene or performance. Rather, the reason it resonates according to Brando is because the audience identifies with Terry Malloy, not with Brando's performance.

Despite his reputation for seriousness, Brando realized that actors are entertainers as well as serious storytellers. As such, he saw nothing wrong with going from the deep drama of A Streetcar Named Desire to the musical Guys and Dolls. He, in his own words, said that acting was "lying for a living".

We see Brando in unguarded moments, such as his clowning around with fellow Method actor Montgomery Clift. We see him being flirtatious with female reporters (though that flirtation might now be considered sexual harassment). Aspiring actors can learn from his advice, such as "You have to know your subject. You have to know the character". 

Listen to Me Marlon is as open a portrait of the artist in full, as if Marlon Brando had us over and began his long confessional. We learn from and about him, beyond the parody of himself he presented on and off screen at the end of his life and career. The promise, the cynicism, the great highs and tragic lows: Marlon Brando touches on them all, unguarded and unafraid to see the truth.

"These are old tapes, no longer usable, no longer useful. Chuck 'em", he says near the end. Whether he ever intended for others to hear his thoughts is something no one can answer. Fortunately, we do hear them, and learn much about this most fascinating and frustrating of film figures. We are all glad that we did listen to Marlon.

DECISION: A+

Suffragette: A Review (Review #1370)

SUFFRAGETTE

The United States celebrates this year the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. It's only sheer coincidence that I get around to seeing Suffragette, which is about the British women's voting movement. Suffragette was sadly overlooked in 2015, which may equally sadly reflect society and film's struggle to find a place for female-centered stories. With strong performances and an engaging story, Suffragette tells an important and necessary story with respect and intelligence.

Suffragette tells the story of the increasingly militant actions by women campaigning for their right to vote through the eyes of laundry worker Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan). She's a regular Cockney working-class woman, wife of Sonny (Ben Whishaw) and mother to George (Adam Michael Dodd). She doesn't have any opinion on the suffrage movement, though her friend and fellow laundry worker Violet (Anna-Marie Duff) is firmly a suffragette.

Slowly and reluctantly, almost accidentally, Maud finds herself getting drawn further and deeper into the movement. She gets caught up in a violent protest, then is roped into giving testimony before Parliament when Violet's domestic violence injuries are too shocking to be seen. Sonny is not pleased by this, but he isn't doing much about it one way or another either. Maud finds herself following the lead of their unofficial leader, Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter), who agitates for more and greater acts of violence (though making it clear no lives are ever to be taken).

The women aid the fugitive suffragette Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), while Maud has a foil in Inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson), who is determined to stop these women. The movement and her increasing devotion to it cost Maud dearly: her marriage, her son, her job, her freedom; the costs sometimes are brutal (being force-fed during a hunger strike), and sometimes tragic (Sonny gives up Michael for adoption with Maud having no say in the matter). Things ultimately lead to the Derby where they will make a protest before His Majesty King George V, and the fateful meeting between Emily Davison (Natalie Press) and the King's horse.

Suffragette ends with newsreel footage of Davison's funeral and text telling us of when women were fully granted voting rights in the United Kingdom...and of those nations that granted the same rights before and after British women.

The film was wise in having a fictional character be our entry into this world versus focusing on the real life figures such as Pankhurst or Davison (though both are worthy of biopics themselves). This is one of the elements that makes Suffragette work: we sympathize and empathize with Maud, the most reluctant and accidental of activists. She is a regular person, one who is devoted to her family but who also sees how awful the conditions she lives with and under are.

At times though, this focus on the working conditions of the era seem to make Suffragette less about the women's vote movement and The Jungle: Laundry Version. Of particular note is on how the film portrays the male overseer of the laundry: forever lecherous up to hitting if not downright raping the poor tween girls working there. It does show how Maud starts shifting from apolitical to militant but it also does make one wonder if Suffragette wants to shift away from one topic to another.

The film also struggles with some of the male characters, particularly with Steed and Sonny. With the former, he shifted from hostile to somewhat (though probably insincerely) sympathetic to hostile to more (and probably genuinely) sympathetic. Somehow, I think it might have done better if Suffragette had stayed with making him appear sympathetic then show that shift thanks to the women's courage.

With regards to the latter, it seems director Sarah Gavron and screenwriter Abi Morgan were never sure if he was meant to be villain or not. Whishaw did not play him as a monster but he also did not play him as loving to Maud. I never fully sense he was a real person, though Whishaw gave it a good go.

Finally, I thought the sepia tones at times went overboard in setting a feel for the past.

However, all these are minor quibbles given how good overall Suffragette is. At the heart of the film's strength is Mulligan's performance. It's one of quiet grace and elegance, that of a woman who just wants a chance to live and have her own place in the sun. The scene where she speaks in the Parliament hearing is probably set up to be the Oscar-clip, but it still moves the viewer in her simplicity. Mulligan never misses the balance between Maud as activist and Maud as mother, her pain when she sees George having to leave and her fury at Sonny exceptionally moving.

Bonham Carter's Edith too excels as we see the physical toll the movement causes her. I would argue that Streep is essentially a cameo as she has one scene that might have been cut altogether, but she does a strong job in that cameo as Mrs. Pankhurst.

As for what exactly happened with regards Davison, Suffragette does not give a clear answer simply because there isn't one. It leans towards the idea that she merely wanted to place a "Votes for Women" ribbon on the King's horse versus the popular notion that she willingly threw herself in front of the horse. However, the film does not flat-out state that and Davison's cryptic last lines, "Never surrender. Never give up the fight," suggest that she might have indeed planned to be a martyr for the cause. In truth, we will never definitively know what happened that day, and it is wise that Suffragette does not offer a solution to this.

On the whole, Suffragette is a well-acted, well-told story that should be seen. With an excellent central performance by Carey Mulligan and a story that is both involving and moves quickly, Suffragette is a worthy and respectful cinematic treatment of an important social movement that is still impacting the world.

DECISION: B+

Southpaw: A Review (Review #1048)

SOUTHPAW

I have some pity for Jake Gyllenhaal, at least as much as I can muster for someone richer and better-looking than I am. Try as he might, he cannot get the Academy's attention.  He's done everything he can to get another Oscar nomination short of having sex with every Academy member.

In 2014 he tried for a nod via a Psychological Drama (Nightcrawler). 
In 2016 he tried via an Arthouse Film (Nocturnal Animals).
In 2017 he tried via the Inspirational Biopic (Stronger).
What about 2015? 

That year, he tried via the Inspirational Sports Film (Southpaw).

Whatever the merits of his successive failures, I don't doubt Gyllenhaal's talent. I also think Southpaw is a dreadful film, a bungled effort that is more hilarious than heartwarming, more unintentionally mirthful than moving.

Billy "The Great" Hope (Gyllenhaal) is a talented but temperamental boxer from Hell's Kitchen; an orphan with no education, his only virtues are his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) and their daughter, Leila (Oona Laurence). Having successfully defended his title, his manager Jordan Maines (Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson) wants Billy to keep boxing and negotiates a three-fight deal worth $30 million. This is firmly opposed by Maureen, aware that Billy needs rest. 

At a charity event, the Hopes are taunted by Billy's boxing rival Miguel 'Magic' Escobar (Miguel Gomez), who wants to fight Billy and taunts him with remarks about Billy's "bitch".  Their brawl leads to an accidental shooting, and Maureen is killed off. Billy then has a total collapse, losing it all: his fortune, his fighting skills, his entourage, and most devastating of all, his daughter.  Now Leila finds herself in the same foster care system that Billy and Maureen were in.

Billy wants to get back into shape to win Leila back, but he is suspended for at least a year after head-butting a referee and generally going bonkers.  It's now up to Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker), Billy's personal Magic Negro/crusty ex-prizefighter, to get Billy to shape up.  At a charity boxing match marking Billy's unofficial comeback (charity boxing not requiring a license), comes Jordan, who sees a perfect opportunity to make more money by having a match between a reinstated Billy and of all people, Magic Escobar.  Tick is opposed to this, but Billy needs the money to win the now-resentful Leila back (she understandably resentful).

With only Angela (Naomie Harris), the caring social services worker with Leila, Billy has the fight of his life.

Southpaw is like a bad remake of Rocky V, which is saying so much.  In so many ways, Kurt Sutter's screenplay does not even bother to mask its rather oddball aspirations.  I would recommend Southpaw be studied by future screenwriters in showing what not to do.

The boxer who loses it all, down to having a dead wife and resentful child is straight out of Rocky V.  The grizzled old trainer, the duplicitous manager, the once-happy-now-angry daughter: we've seen all this before, and we've seen it done better.  Even that awful bit about the accidental shooting is nothing new.

Worse, Southpaw manages to throw in some more idiotic elements into the mix.  No one is ever charged with Maureen's killing, and while this is in part because no one talks, in the final boxing match pretty much everyone knows that Escobar is somehow connected to Maureen's death.

Southpaw also manages to text its lofty but clumsy intentions rather quickly.  When Maureen warns Billy about how everyone will abandon him when he slips, I found myself saying 'foreshadowing'. As Billy goes through his 'dark night of the soul', no one apparently thinks to take his gun away from him.  It looks like he's coming close to suicide, and my mind briefly wandered off at this point to think it would have made for more interesting viewing if he'd gone full bonkers and held Leila and her nanny hostage.

Instead, Southpaw has a rather unbelievable storyline that has this famous boxer running around looking for Hector (Danny Henriquez) with only a hoodie to hide his face, and later having Billy survive a massive head-on collision and managing to stumble into his mansion.

Everything about Southpaw was rote and predictable (and in using 'Billy Hope' as a name, embarrassing in its metaphor shout-outs).  At the end of the Hope/Escobar fight, I predicted it would be a split decision.  That was done to 'heighten the drama/suspense', but there wasn't any.

It's the script that sinks everyone, even when they are doing work that is much better than the material.  This is not to say that there isn't blame to be handed out in that department.  Gyllenhaal was trying too hard to act rather than be.  With his soft voice and mannerisms, he came across as too actory, too showy in his performance, as if to show "I'M ACTING!".  Granted, the script gave Billy the IQ of a turnip and a hair-trigger temper but it is not a good sign when Fity manages to out-act you.

Billy appears to not understand that his recent behavior might make people question whether he's in a fit state to care for anyone, let alone a child.  In the film's continued efforts to make me feel sympathy for him, all I could feel was almost anger at his constant self-centered nature and near-total stupidity.

You hate bashing on kids, but Laurence was almost comical when she is slapping her dad screaming "I HATE YOU" after she gets locked up in essentially an orphanage.  Actually, I had a lot of good laughs at Southpaw, such as when Maureen died in an almost hilarious manner.

This was all unintentional, which makes Southpaw playing like a parody almost sad.  Whitaker does not help matters, but in his defense he is called to spout out gibberish masquerading as words of wisdom.

Harris is the only one who saves herself any embarrassment in this fiasco, as she is the only one who appears to be taking any of this seriously and whose character appears actually real.

It just seems everything related to Southpaw was so misguided, and while I give Antoine Fuqua credit for having some good fight scenes, his actors were either excessive (Gyllenhaal) almost bored (McAdams) or a mix (Whitaker). 

The film is a mess; for example, it introduces a minor character, Hoppy (Skylan Brooks) who is not allowed a story because he is killed off-screen.  It's a cheap way to try to get emotion out of us and seems to have wasted time on this long film on something that won't come.  Even the music seems misguided.  An Eminem song, Phenomenal, was the one touted to give Slim Shady a second Oscar, but that was played in the training montage and barely heard.  The closing song Kings Never Die, also by Eminem with Gwen Stefani, was the one we actually heard but not the one touted.

Curious that.

Southpaw tries too hard to use the clichés it gives us to make us think it is in any way original or interesting.  It is neither.  The people involved in the film have talent. 

Where it went we do not know.

DECISION: D-

Hitchcock/Truffaut: A Review

HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT

In 1962, Alfred Hitchcock fanboy Francois Truffaut got to spend a whole week with his hero, analyzing and examining every film the Master made.  From that came the legendary book Hitchcock/Truffaut or to use the translated French title, The Cinema According to Alfred Hitchcock.  Truffaut's book became a seminal textbook for future film auteurs and did much to elevate Hitchcock, then appraised as a mere entertainer, into one of the preeminent filmmakers of all time. 

I'm being a touch flippant here, but at times I feel the need to knock down artistic pronouncements that run the risk of mummifying film as something to enjoy as well as study. Hitchcock/Truffaut is not so much about the making of the book or about the two respected filmmakers.  It is a well made film about how Hitchcock has more than earned his place in the pantheon of great directors and can be a good primer for anyone interested in the art of cinema.

In 1962, French New Wave director and former Cahiers du Cinema film critic Francois Truffaut came to America, almost in pilgrimage, to pay homage to his favorite director: Alfred Hitchcock.  Truffaut's selection of Hitchcock as a major director and even artist shocked many, particularly the American film intelligentsia, which regarded Hitchcock as a good director but nowhere near an artist, let alone someone to rank alongside someone like a Truffaut.

Nevertheless, Truffaut was adamant about his admiration for Hitchcock's work, and requested an audience.  Hitch, fresh off his success with Psycho, agreed to a taped interview where over the course of a week, Truffaut would ask questions in French and Hitchcock would answer in English, with Helen Scott translating.  Transcribed and published in 1966, Hitchcock/Truffaut became a Bible of sorts to many future filmmakers.  Hitchcock/Truffaut has many of those influenced by either the book or the directors reflecting on both, ranging from Wes Anderson and David Fincher to Martin Scorsese.



If there is a flaw in Hitchcock/Truffaut is that for all the influence the book had, we do not see it actually reflected in the work of those who speak of it.  We see much of Hitchcock's work, with specific focus on Psycho and Vertigo, but oddly whatever influence direct or indirect he had on Truffaut's work is not delved much into.  The only Truffaut films I recall being brought up were The 400 Blows and Jules et Jim.  Granted, there weren't that many Truffaut films when he did his legendary interview, but one would have hoped that Hitchcock/Truffaut director Kent Jones would have perhaps touched on how strong Hitch's oeuvre was to his future work.

Same goes for any film from any of the interviewees.  I don't think we needed to see say an Anderson or Richard Linklater show where they paid 'homage' to Hitchcock's work, but as much as they talk about how important his work was and how they learned from him or the Hitchcock/Truffaut book, one does not actually see how either found their way into their work.

In a curious way, Hitchcock/Truffaut comes across, as I said in the beginning with a touch of flippancy, a fanboy meeting his hero.  Truffaut comes across as someone who never saw any flaws in Hitchcock's films on any level.  Even as we close out the film, when we see Truffaut speaking at Hitchcock's American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award (which I figure would not have happened without Truffaut among others championing Hitch as a major artist), Truffaut comes across almost as belligerent, demanding we all worship his God as he worships Him. 

"In America, you call him 'Hitch'.  In France, we call him 'Monsieur Hitchcock'", he all but thunders at us as Hitch is tottering on the dais, a feeble old man long past his glory days.

The same goes for the film, which won't touch anything that The Master of Suspense might have done wrong technically or any other way.  Even though such things as gender equity were an unknown subject at the time, Hitchcock's behavior towards Tippi Hedren either on or off-screen were not going to be touched let alone mentioned.  The book and film are not about such things.

We also get to hear a lot about their friendship post-interview, and how they advised each other's work.  One wonders what Hitch told Truffy regarding Day for Night or whether Francois advised Al to go light on Family Plot.  Might have been nice if Truffy had told Hitch to tone down the rape in Frenzy, but that's just me.

However, Hitchcock/Truffaut is a good film to learn about what makes Hitchcock films so extraordinary, a nice Brief History of Hitchcock if you like.  It can serve as an informal film class that is easy to watch and easy to understand.  It even gives strong advise about how in Hitchcock's words, 'there is a tendency among filmmakers to forget the audience'.   I've found that to be quite true.

Hitchcock/Truffaut might also whet the appetite of any budding film critic or filmmaker, and if it serves that purpose, then it is a masterful success.  Short, perhaps slight, Hitchcock/Truffaut is good enough as a history/film lesson to make one interested in such things seek it out.

Francois Truffaut: 1932-1984
Sir Alfred Hitchcock: 1899-1980

DECISION: B+

2015: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

Recently, I've embarked on a project that I hope will be completed in two years.  I am going over every post I have written since March 1, 2009.  Right now, I'm in 2010, so I have some time to go.

It started out as just to verify that everything I'd written had an archived link, but it expanded to check if links still worked, correct spelling mistakes, and make changes I felt were necessary (category reorganization, noting years).  I found I was much too fond of capitalizing and ellipses, a sign of a maturing writing.

As I looked over my various posts, I was surprised that I did not write a brief note on 2015's hits and misses.  Not a Best or Worst of 2015, but a small section that covered areas I think should be.

I now rectify that.

MOST OVERRATED FILM

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I know many people were thrilled to see a new Star Wars film, one that told what happened after Return of the Jedi.  I was entertained by it, I won't lie.  My issue with The Force Awakens is that it was essentially a retread of the original trilogy.  It was a case of 'you've seen the first three, you've seen this one'.  I know people cheer that we have a female lead, all well and good.  I have no strong feelings about that one way or another.  I just found The Force Awakens to be warmed-over Star Wars, which people might like but I wanted something more than a repeat.

MOST UNFAIRLY TRASHED FILM

War Room

My sense is that War Room got some of its bad reviews because it was a Christian-film.  I think some others just thought it was a bad film, and I'm not going to argue with them on that.  However, given how the Kendrick Brothers have consistently bombed in their efforts to make a good Christian film, the fact they stumbled onto one should be celebrated.  War Room is a departure for them in that it centers around African-Americans when in the past, they would relegate them to almost being nonexistent.  That is bad enough, but when they set their films in Georgia, that just sounds downright bizarre.  For what it was, War Room was above what I've seen before.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Spectre

In Goldmember, we get a shocking twist in that Dr. Evil and Austin Powers are brothers.  Spectre didn't go that far, but it teetered on the edge of parody when it is revealed that Blofeld, James Bond's arch-nemesis, was practically a brother to Bond, who conveniently doesn't remember this.  That should be nonsense, but too many critics went along with it, along with trying to tie in the previous Daniel Craig Era Bond films to Spectre with clumsy results, scene-chewing from Christoph Waltz as the comical villain, and one of the worst Bond Themes ever made.  The fact that Writing's on the Wall, written in twenty minutes and done in one take, went on to win Best Original Song just adds a sad note to a film that played like a 007 spoof.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

Ant-Man

I constantly marvel at how good the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are.  They've had a few bumps but on the whole this long-lasting series continues to surprise me.  I didn't think Guardians of the Galaxy would be good, but it turned out to be among my favorite MCU films.  Same goes for Ant-Man, a movie smart enough to laugh at itself without making itself a joke.  Both concepts, a bit out of the more traditional comic book-based film, does a great job in making things both realistic and fantastic.

The Worst of 2016 So Far

As the late Alan Thicke wrote, "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have The Facts of Life".

Having created my Ten Best Films of 2016 So Far, now I turn to my Ten Worst Films to 2016. I fielded this list the same way I did my Ten Best: giving them a grade, then 'which would I rather'. 

10.) Rules Don't Apply

Rules Don't Apply simply doesn't know what it is or wants to be.  Is it a love story between two people inadvertently brought together by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes?  It is a Howard Hughes biopic that Warren Beatty has dreamt of making?  Is it both?  Is it somewhere in between?  Sadly, the movie, despite good performances from Alden Enrenreich and Lily Collins, is a mess and bore, a hodgepodge of ideas thrown in with no sense of where to go.

09.) I Saw the Light

Many people were touting I Saw the Light as Tom Hiddleston's chance for a Best Actor Oscar, but the end result was so bad it was shunted off to 2016 to die a quick death. Now, I think that a.) Hiddleston was pretty good as Hank Williams, Sr. and b.) this was a bid for him to get an Oscar nomination (a biopic being the best and easiest route for a man to get an Academy Award).  However, Loki couldn't overcome a bad script and some awful direction that made I Saw the Light a jumble, with one never sure where one was in relation to the story. Slow and dull are two things one can never say about Williams' life, yet somehow I Saw the Light turned his life story into a confused snooze-fest.

08.) Independence Day: Resurgence

Twenty years too late, the sequel to Independence Day may symbolize all that is wrong with Hollywood today.  It's a textbook example of what not to do.  First, it wants to create a franchise on something that was not created to be one, taking all the goodwill Independence Day built and squandering it.  Second, it caters to the foreign market, particularly the Chinese market, by giving major parts to Chinese actors and making the Chinese as a people highly important to the story.  Third, it demolishes logic by bringing back a character from the original, even though the original strongly hinted that said character was dead. Fourth, it uses the same 'not-dead-anymore' character (obviously borrowing from the Steven Moffat School of Scriptwriting) to throw in a little political correctness by making said character gay.  There's nothing wrong with having a gay character, but Resurgence spun this out of thin air and worse, didn't even have the courage to go all in with it.  Fifth and finally, it has a naked call for a sequel that I doubt will come, making it look even sillier.  It's just a dreadful, dreadful film.

07.) Ben-Hur

In the future, people will wonder what possessed two studios (Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) to remake (or reimagine) the movie that has won more Academy Awards than any in film history (tied with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).  Even that, perhaps could be forgiven if Ben-Hur were any good.  It isn't: a shambles of a movie, with motivation, character development, and acting all thrown away in favor of, well, I'm not sure in favor of what.  All the performances were low-level (making Morgan Freeman's decision to appear in it all the more puzzling).  The first remake is considered the apex of epic filmmaking, with even those who hate it acknowledging the brilliance of the chariot race.  This version, however, going up against a legendary production, doubled down on hinting at it, with their version a weak, rushed, CGI-overdone version that lacked the thrill of the Charlton Heston version.  Both the 1959 version and the original silent version will be remembered.  The Millennial version won't, not even by the faith-based audience the film so nakedly called out to.  I can't speak for my other Brothers and Sisters in Christ, but as an evangelical Christian myself, I can say this Ben-Hur sucked.

06.) Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

A better title for this one would be Yawn of Justice, as this effort to create the DC Extended Universe to match the Marvel Cinematic Universe went from bad to worse.  Featuring some awful performances (Henry Cavill alone is enough to sink any film) with the exception of Gad Gadot as Wonder Woman (who to be fair, has a fantastic theme), the film is a slow moving, dour, excessively long slog that takes itself too seriously.  Oh, and did I mention how awful the performances were? Cavill is gorgeous, but a plank on screen, Jesse Eisenberg makes a fool out of himself (and gives the same performance he gives in every film he's in), and I still don't think Ben Affleck is a good Batman.  The cameos for future Extended Universe figures were shoehorned in, and if we keep getting more films like Yawn of Justice, that Universe is going to implode.

05.) Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

A film many critics loved, you couldn't pay audiences to sit through The Lonely Island's spoof of Justin Bieber.  Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is essentially a Saturday Night Live skit expanded to feature length, and therein lies one of its problems.  Too smug for its own good, it asks audiences to be fully aware of pop culture as these guys are.  I barely recognized the TMZ spoofing, but to this day I still don't know who DJ Khaled actually is or what he actually does (apart from appearing in commercials as himself, which doesn't help). Popstar was rejected en masse by the public, getting pulled within two weeks from first-run theaters and one week in second-run theaters.  Popstar thinks its funny (and there are a few humorous moments in it, particularly the songs) but too much time is spent on juvenile thinking to make it really funny.  Andy Samberg is around my age, and he's far too old to keep acting like he's around Justin Bieber's age (physical or mental, which I suspect is actually younger).

04.) Deadpool

Yes, I know many people loved Deadpool: its irreverence, its vulgarity, its self-awareness.  I speak only for myself, but those were all the things I disliked about Deadpool, and there were more.  I was appalled at the glee the film took in its graphic violence and cannot comprehend why so many parents took their children (some as young as Pre-K) to see it.  They, in my view, have no discernment or discretion.  I found it all too smug, too sleazy, too self-aware.  I know I'm firmly in the minority on this, but a film that I had as the Most Overrated for the longest time appalled me rather than appealed to me.

03.) The Huntsman: Winter's War

Again, we have a film that wants to start a franchise that no one wanted. The Huntsman: Winter's War is a strange fit: part prequel to Snow White & The Huntsman, part sequel to the same film.  Chris Hemsworth has yet to convince me he's an actor (and in a side note, his brother Liam pops up in another of my Worst Films of 2016: Independence Day: Resurgence.  Coincidence?).  That is bad enough, but to drag Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain into this fiasco is even worse. There wasn't any need to make this film, save for a desperate effort to make money out of something and create a series so that studios wouldn't have to bother to make original films.

02.) Free State of Jones

A film with a background like Free State of Jones should be an exciting tale of a little-known bit of history, one that should be relevant to today's America.  Instead, Free State of Jones is a slow, dull film, one that makes things worse by jumping back and forth between the 1860s and 1950s, so one never really sure which story is the actual story the film is trying to tell.  Serious to a fault, Free State of Jones fails on all levels, taking a fascinating bit of American history and drowning it with dullness.

And my Worst Film of 2016 So Far is...

01.) Alice Through the Looking Glass

It's one thing to make a sequel to a bad film.  It's another thing to learn nothing about what made the original bad and find new ways to be worse than the original. Johnny Depp's 'kooky' shtick has grown old and stale, and making The Mad Hatter the focus of the story is among the worst decisions Alice Through the Looking Glass made.  Why should we care about his journey, and why make The Red Queen a somewhat sympathetic figure (and the White Queen a bit of a villainess)?  Indulgent in its CGI, rushing through chaos in an effort to hide its shallowness, putting in a bit of timey-wimey (another lesson from the Moffat School of Scriptwriting), it has no charm, no joy, and no sense.

Next Time, a Few Odds and Ends.

The Best of 2016 So Far

It is now time to rank my Ten Best Films of 2016 So Far.  I always say 'so far' because when I write out my list, there is almost always some highly acclaimed film I didn't get around to seeing when I post this. 

I make no claim that these are the absolute Best Films of 2016.  They are only the Ten Best Films that I have seen.  Every year, I give a film a rating from A+ to F (sometimes even an F-, showing just how awful it is), and then list them to other films with similar ratings.  I then use the 'which would I rather watch' method to select which goes higher. 

Without further ado, my Ten Best Films of 2016 So Far.

10.) Race

Pretty much forgotten now, Race is a bit by-the-book when it comes to biopics that are also inspirational stories.  However, this biopic of Jesse Owens with focus on his triumph in the 1936 Berlin Games was a crowd-pleasing film.  It also had strong performances by Stephan James in the role of Owens (and I hope to see more of him in the future) and Carice van Houten, who managed to somewhat rehabilitate Leni Riefenstahl as a heroine versus the Nazi propagandist she is seen in some circles.

09.) Fences

While brought down a bit by the fact that it doesn't expand on the stage origins, Fences is help up again by really great performances of Denzel Washington and Viola Davis.  If the film turned out to be the filmed version of the play, I'm not going to quibble when we have these performances on film forever to enjoy.

08.) Manchester By the Sea

A better title for Manchester By the Sea might have been A Grief Observed, as this portrait of a man's emotional agony over a terrible and tragic loss manages to be truthful and honest.  It is a haunting film, one anchored by Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, and relative newcomer Lucas Hedges in standout performances.

07.) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

It's been a long time since a Star Wars film managed to be good.  The prequels were a collection of horrors, and The Force Awakens was nothing more than a remake of the original trilogy in all but name (Star Wars: The Remix, as I called it).  Rogue One is different: it manages to create its own story but keep it within the larger Star Wars universe. It has diversity in casting (a female lead, Hispanic and Asian actors all about), which is a plus, and moreover, it doesn't have many if any shout-outs to the Star Wars mythos.  No fan service here, which interestingly enough makes it a true love letter to those fans.

06.) Moonlight

A review of Moonlight is upcoming, but in brief, it is a hypnotic, dreamlike tale of a young black man's evolution to self-awareness and self-acceptance.  It is sometimes ugly, sometimes sad, sometimes tender, and sometimes all three at the same time.  A haunting tale of love, loss, regret and a form of redemption, Moonlight stays with you after you finish it.

05.) I Am Not Your Negro

Inevitably, there is a documentary in my Top Ten List, and this year, so far only one has cracked the list.  I Am Not Your Negro is relevant to today's very complex race issues: the dichotomy of Barack Obama's elevation to the Presidency versus Black Lives Matter.  With intellectual 'Negro' writer James Baldwin serving as our guide (with narration by an uncharacteristically soft-voiced Samuel L. Jackson), I Am Not Your Negro tells us that things still are askew, and they need to be rectified before things slip further out of control.

04.) Jackie

Another case of A Grief Observed, Jackie covers the days immediately following President John F. Kennedy's assassination, where his widow, Jacqueline aka Jackie, struggles between her immense private grief and the duties of a widowed First Lady.  Natalie Portman gives a simply astonishing performance, getting not just the voice and mannerism of Jacqueline Kennedy (later Onassis), but also that of a woman eaten up by guilt, anger, rage, agony, and in the end, a semblance of peace.

03.) The Jungle Book

As a general rule, I'm not big on remakes, but The Jungle Book is a case of a remake done right. Neither slavishly connected to the Disney film or rebelling against it, The Jungle Book uses CGI to enhance the story versus distract from it.  It's such an astonishing work that one takes on faith that they are real animals and a jungle and not computer creations.  It can be enjoyed with or without having seen the Disney version, and a welcome presence in any family viewing.

02.) 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

It is doubtful that the events in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 had an effect of ending Hillary Clinton's sixteen-year campaign to return to power in her own right as the first female President of the United States (and the first former First Lady to be elected President herself).  However, I don't think 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi would have been playing at the Javits Center the night she lost the election.  Derided by some as right-wing propaganda, beloved by others as a tribute to courage under fire, for me 13 Hours is open to all types of interpretation.  It's a surprise that Michael Bay toned down his overblown manner (though not eliminate it completely).  Tense, moving, and more nuanced than either detractor or supporter may think, it is a movie that left me impressed long after its release.

And my Number One Movie of 2016...

01.) Hidden Figures

Yes, I can see where criticism of Hidden Figures is sensible.  A bit too on the nose with some dialogue, an unapologetic call to be 'inspirational'.  However, I simply loved the film.  I cheered these extraordinary women, got mad when they were put down, and saw a wonderful story acted so well.  Major props to Taraji P. Henson for showing her great range (who would believe this meek mathematical genius could be the same fierce, Lady Macbeth-type Cookie Lyons on Empire?).  Any film that chronicles an unknown story, that gives credit to people who long deserved it, and which celebrates both intellect and what makes America great is almost always going to win my heart.

It hit me emotionally, and with great performances and a fascinating story told well, Hidden Figures is my Best Film of 2016 So Far.

Next Time, my Ten Worst Films of 2016 So Far.

Crimson Peak: A Review (Review #805)

CRIMSON PEAK

I think many people might have gone into Crimson Peak thinking it was some sort of horror film.  Instead, we got something closer to Gothic romance with ghosts in it, a bit of a supernatural-tinged Jane Eyre.  It's by no means bad, and it has mostly good performances.  It might a bit too grand for my tastes and a bit heavy-handed with the symbolism of things, but on the whole, I could live with it.

Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska aka The Great Love of My Life) lives in Baltimore with her long-widowed father, Carter (Jim Beaver).   Shortly after her mother's death when she was young, Edith saw her mother's specter, warning her to 'beware of Crimson Peak' (which I think is as vague a warning as the undead have given any fair maiden).

Edith is a frustrated authoress, a bit bookish and trying desperately to break into publishing like her heroine, Mary Shelley.  Her only champion apart from her father is her childhood friend, Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam), whose own hero is another eye-doctor, Arthur Conan Doyle.  Enter into Baltimore society Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), an English baronet come to Baltimore for finances from Carter to fund Sir Thomas' invention to save his fortune.  Carter points out to Sir Thomas that he's gone to several places for finances, and has been turned down.  Baltimore will be no different.

However, Edith is drawn to the mysterious baronet, and he to her.  Only Sir Thomas' balmy sister, Lady Lucille (Jessica Chastain) appears to be displeased by the potential for romance.  And romance there is, though Sir Thomas is not above getting paid off by Carter to break Edith's heart.  Fortunately for the thwarted lovers, Carter dies at his club just as Sir Thomas defies Carter to return for Edith.  It isn't long before Edith becomes Lady Sharpe.

It isn't long also before things at the decrepit Sharpe home, Allerdale Hall, show themselves to be bonkers.  Edith feels trapped in the isolation of Allerdale Hall, and Thomas & Lucille are very clearly hiding a lot of somethings.  Dr. McMichael is also wary, discovering that Carter had put an investigator on the Sharpes and investigating Carter's death.  Despite what appears to be genuine romantic, even sexual, interest by Thomas to the virginal Edith, he still has not deflowered his bride.  Lucille, for her part, appears to permanently hover without actual levitation.

Edith is helping fund Thomas' machine that will bring out red clay from the earth around Allerdale Hall, and McMichael makes some shocking discoveries about the truth involving Carter and the Sharpes.  On a rare visit to town, Sir Thomas and Lady Sharpe are snowed in and forced to stay the night, where at last, they indulge in the pleasures of the flesh.  Lucille appears enraged at the mere thought that someone was intimate with her brother...wonder why.

Edith, who is slowly getting weaker, sees her dead mother again, along with other ghosts, and now Edith makes a shocking discovery of her own.  Allerdale Hall's nickname among the population is...CRIMSON PEAK!

McMichael goes to Crimson Peak to reveal what Edith has already put together...Sir Thomas has been married at least three times, with all three Lady Sharpes dying in ugly circumstances.  All three Lady Sharpes were also wealthy daughters who had no other relations and thus, would not be missed.  In what could have been the most shocking discovery of all, Lucille the older of the two has been carrying on a long-term affair with her brother Thomas, going so far as to murdering her mother for the crime (and spending time in the Victorian-era version of a psycho ward too).  Lucille tries to murder McMichael and tries to get Thomas to commit his first murder, but Thomas appears to have a change of heart and merely injuries the good doctor.  Lucille murders Thomas, had earlier tried to kill Edith, and finally meets her end at Edith's hand (with a little help from Thomas' ghost). 

In the end, the widow Lady Sharpe has written her book, called Crimson Peak.

I figure that Crimson Peak was director/co-writer Guillermo Del Toro's homage to Gothic horror films.  Just the name "Cushing" for our heroine suggests Del Toro looked to Hammer Films for inspiration.  The Gothic settings, the deliberately ornate costumes, the dilapidated, isolated mansion (complete with a hole in the roof that allowed for gentle snow to cascade down), the weird siblings...it all adds up to a film that clearly wants people to pay attention to surroundings and be lost in the decaying splendor of it all.

Even the performances are I would argue deliberately stagey.  I point out that we a most fascinating circle of acting here.  We have an Australian (Wasikowska) playing an American, an American (Chastain) playing an Englishwoman, and an Englishman (Hunnam) playing an American.  Only Loki gets to play his native nationality.  Perhaps because the acting is, I hope, deliberately stagey and grandiose I will forgive the oddball nature and posing by Hiddleston and Chastain.  They were MEANT to be really, really weird...so I figure when you play incestuous siblings you can be a bit mannered.

Wasikowska, who I think is just one of our great young actresses today (dare I call her this generation's Meryl Streep?) played the part of the somewhat frightened Edith beautifully.  Oh yes...she played Jane Eyre in one of my favorite versions of the Bronte novel, so she's pretty adept at channeling harried maidens.  Hunnam really had little to do, but he was effective as the platonic friend who wants to be more than the platonic friend.

I personally found the story a bit clichéd, and moreover what was supposed to be shocking was rather predictable.  It's obvious that Thomas and Lucille were excessively close (put that up to the style of acting they performed) and sometimes things were just a bit too much to make things serious.  When Lucille stabs McMichael, the fireplace bursts into flames (which is way over the top). 

The talk Lucille and Edith have about butterflies and moths is again extremely overt, with the dark-clothed Lucille hovering over the bright-colored Edith like the dark moths over the bright butterflies, with the former devouring the latter.

When we discover Lucille and Thomas not quite in an intimate moment, the audience really should be expecting that (and when Lucille tells Edith that they ARE brother and sister, it isn't shocking, but actually boring).  Besides, the script (co-authored with Matthew Robbins) is a bit unfair.

How was Edith to know Allerdale Hall was Crimson Peak?  It isn't like she learned this until late into the film.  WE knew because...that's the name of the movie, but the characters?

Crimson Peak knows what it is: a variation of Jane Eyre with ghosts rather than with crazy wives locked in the attic.  Less horror film than off-kilter Gothic romance, the film is OK, but don't go in thinking it's a horror film.  If you accept it for what it is (even in its obvious nature), Crimson Peak is a way to pass a couple of hours.  Then again, I'll gladly spend a few hours with My Mia.

DECISION: C+

Straight Outta Compton: A Review

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

I am in no way a hip-hop expert.  Therefore, I cannot say how good or bad Straight Outta Compton is in regards to the accuracy of the N.W.A. story or their impact on music in general.  I can say thought that Straight Outta Compton is a fine film, in equal parts the telling of the rise of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees and the story of how friends became enemies and full circle.

Growing up in the tough streets of Compton, our five young men all had various talents and abilities.  O'Shea Jackson, better known as Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson, Jr.) is the poet, a master lyricist who expresses the world he sees.  Andre Young (Corey Hawkins), who is better known as Dr. Dre,  is the genius producer, who loves the beats and can bring about any melody into shape.  Eric Wright is the money man with the nom de guerre of Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), the money coming from less than honorable sources.  Dre and Cube know Eazy-E can finance them, but they also know he has skills on the rap mike too (even if the voice at times seems a bit high).

Soon, with DJ Yella and MC Ren, the group N.W.A. comes to life (for those NOT in the know, N.W.A. stands for N*****s With Attitude).  They rap about what they see, what their world is like, and it's not a pretty picture.  Still, their style becomes highly popular, so much so that producer Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) offers to produce them.

This is not an easy alliance, as Heller is white and N.W.A. is black, which means Heller isn't harassed by the police but the rap group is.  As a result of another ugly incident where the LAPD goes overboard, the song F*** the Police is recorded and released.  Police groups and the FBI are outraged by this, but the band (and its fans) find catharsis in its call of fury.

Soon, things start going wrong.  Heller and Eazy-E are forming an odd alliance and Ice Cube is not getting the respect or financial rewards he knows he is entitled to.  In fact, Heller wants him to apparently take less money (especially compared to Eazy).  Cube finds this whole 'Godfather' business unpleasant and decides to go solo.  This in turn infuriates the double-act of Eazy and Heller (who holds some sort of Svengali-like power over Eazy).  Soon, they both take to the mikes to trash each other.

Dre also grows suspicious about Heller, but Eazy won't quit him...so Dre goes his own way and forms Death Row Records, with the obviously above-board Suge Knight (R. Marcus Taylor).  Dre, for his part, finds Suge a bit too hard for his tastes (especially after Suge goes after Eazy). 

The divisions between the N.W.A. members soon start to dissolve after the Rodney King riots (where F*** the Police receives a revival and Bloods & Crypts form a unity pact against their mutual enemy...the LAPD).  Things also improve for Eazy when he finally fires Heller after discovering his duplicity, realizing his bandmates were true. As things start coming together for the various members both individually (Dre becomes THE producer of producers and mentor to such figures as Snoop Dogg and Tupac), Eazy-E takes a turn for the worse physically.  Eazy-E is shocked to discover he has AIDS.

Sorry, E, AIDS isn't just for gays.

Eazy-E's death brings N.W.A. to an end, but for Cube and Dre, things are only beginning.  Dre has gone on to mentor not just Snoop and Tupac, but such figures as Eminem, while Cube has carved a successful acting career.

Who knew that the guy behind those Are We There Yet? movies was once considered a hard-core gangsta?

Oh, and for DJ Yella and MC Ren, well, they were just there.

I think that's perhaps one of Straight Outta Compton's flaws.  The story is so focused around the stories and personalities of Cube, Eazy, and Dre that the other two members of N.W.A. are pretty much there for decorative purposes.  Not that the struggles between the trio does not make for good drama (it certainly does), but one wonders what Yella and Ren were doing while all this was going on.

Another, I think fair, complaint is that Straight Outta Compton can be a bit of a whitewashing of N.W.A. itself.  The group lived very indulgent lives on the road, and whatever misogyny they had both as individuals or within their lyrics the film won't ever touch.  Straight Outta Compton may want to be a 'warts and all' portrayal of N.W.A., but to a certain degree, the film wasn't going to bite the hand that feeds it (since Cube, Dre, and Eazy's family all participated in the making, down to having Cube's son play his father).  If one takes a look at the film, women played virtually no part in their lives except as things for pleasure (apart from Dre and Cube's mothers).

Not having seen any of the Friday films, I had to have the "Bye, Felicia" bit explained...and I still don't quite get it.  I put that up to my WASP upbringing.

In terms of performances, however, Straight Outta Compton does an amazing job.  O'Shea Jackson, Jr. bears such a striking resemblance to his father that it does genuinely appear that a younger Ice Cube is taking the stage.  Putting aside the resemblance, Jackson, Jr. does an excellent job bringing the conflict of Cube with his other members and his struggles with Heller to life.  We see how Cube grew into his hatred for the police (the only real gang around here, as he wryly observes).

Is there an irony that the man who penned F*** the Police has now gained greater fame by playing policemen in comedies?

Hawkins and Mitchell were also excellent as Dre and Eazy-E respectively, with Mitchell in particular making Eazy a figure who thought himself clever but who had fallen under the spell of Heller which almost nothing would take away from.  Giamatti seems to have cornered the market on questionable, sleazy figures/managers (Cinderella Man being the exception, though there he was still a bit of the bundle of nerves Giamatti seems to play often), and the interplay between Giamatti and Mitchell made the film almost a tragedy in how blind Eazy was to Heller's duplicity.

Even in smaller roles, Lakieth Lee Stanfield and Marcc Rose as Snoop Dogg and Tupac respectively looked and sounded so like their counterparts Straight Outta Compton could almost be a documentary.   

The credit goes to director F. Gary Gray and Jonathan Herman & Andrea Berloff's screenplay (with a story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus, and Berloff), sadly the only Oscar nomination the film received.   Perhaps because we have so many figures to work with, and so many stories to follow, Straight Outta Compton can be a little unwieldy.  After all, MC Ren and DJ Yella were virtually cameos in the film, so much attention paid to the triumvirate of Eazy/Cube/Dre. 

Still, despite these flaws, as a film and a chronicle of this influential group (for good or bad, depending on where you stand on gangsta rap), Straight Outta Compton is a great achievement and worth seeing regardless of what you think of the music. 

DECISION: B+

Truth (2015): A Review

TRUTH

Rather Questionable...

Sometimes truth can be fiction.  Truth, the film based on a news scandal that cost veteran CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather his post, is a well-made, well-acted film, though whether it is a whitewashing and historic revision of what actually occurred is a subject of debate.  Truth proves that films are not documentaries (which themselves can be if not flat-out deceiving at least capable of being geared to reach a foregone conclusion).   How much truth there is in Truth, therefore, depends greatly on what you believe to be true.

CBS News producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) has done great work exposing the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, and now she has a hot tip for another potentially great story.  There are documents that purport to reveal that then-President George W. Bush, deep in his reelection bid, may have received preferential treatment whilst in the Texas Air National Guard.  They appear to show that the future President had been basically allowed to go AWOL and not finish his service in a unit filled with the scions of Texas' rich and powerful.  This has all the earmarks of a great investigative piece.

Unfortunately, Mapes discovers that the documents are not the genuine ones but photocopies, handed to her by Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett (Stacey Keach), who is ill, and who in turn received them in what appear to be very cloak-and-dagger circumstances.  Into this comes Mapes' mentor, Dan Rather (Robert Redford), who is eager about a story involving the past military experience of the President, especially since his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, has built his entire career on his own Vietnam War experiences (and those were being questioned at the time of the campaign).

This story is investigated, found to be accurate, but scheduling conflicts at CBS make it nearly impossible to fully vet everything.  They have to either get this story on the air in five days...or wait until perhaps after the election.  This is too great a story to have wait, and CBS' 60 Minutes II goes on air with it.

Once the news crew stops congratulating itself for a job well done, the real scandal begins.  Within hours of the 'Killian Documents' story broadcast, right-wing blogs begin to poke holes in the story.  Chief among the accusations is that the documents are forgeries, having been made recently and made to look like they were thirty-plus years old.  CBS, Mapes, and Rather all stood by their story, but soon other media outlets and partisans began finding that there was too much doubt as to whether the documents were genuine (in particular the fact that it was copies, not the originals said to have been burned, that were the documents establishing this story).  Mapes, Rather, and her two producing assistants, Lt. Col. Charles Rogers (Dennis Quaid) and Mike Smith (Topher Grace) kept insisting their story was accurate.

However, their competition and the organizations with vested interest continued to question the authenticity of the documents, finding evidence that perhaps they were forgeries (or at the very least, CBS had done a slapdash job of authentication to get a story on air prior to the election...with political motives perhaps at play).  The ensuing scandal brought about an investigation at "Black Rock" (the CBS Corporate headquarters).  It is here that Mary Mapes, a very harassed woman finding herself under siege on all fronts (even from her abusive father who denounces her as a left-wing harpy), is sacrificed to save CBS more embarrassment.  She loses her job, and Dan Rather is essentially forced out, his journalistic career brought to ruin.

It takes a particular type of film to call itself Truth when the story involves potential lies and deception.  It is not my place to decide whether the events in Truth are wholly accurate.  Director/writer James Vanderbilt based the film on Mapes' memoir on the whole affair: Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and the Privilege of Power.  As a result, we start from the perspective that Mapes is the heroine of the story and as such, Truth is already biased in favor of one side.  In short, Truth already starts with a handicap in that the story is going to be not a story about what actually happened, but about perhaps Mapes attempting to restore her reputation.

As a side note, I love the alliteration of Mapes' book. 

This desire to paint Mapes as a journalistic Joan of Arc takes its lowest point when she confronts the nefarious (and all-male) investigative commission.  Here, her accusers are asking if her 'liberalism', real or perceived, influenced her decision to air the Bush story.  I would say that this is a legitimate question, especially when there is a brief mention that Mapes helped facilitate contact between Burkett and the Kerry campaign.  Mapes takes umbrage at this suggestion, then confronts her accusers by asking if what they want to ask her is, "Am I now or have I ever been a liberal?"

It was at this moment that I felt Truth went overboard.  Clearly Mapes was attempting to equate her 'trial' with the House Un-American Activities Committee that would ask those it dragged, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"  I would argue that there is a marked difference between those who were persecuted for their former/current leftist views...and someone who appeared never to wonder whether she was rushing to broadcast a story that had not been as well-vetted as perhaps it should have. 

In the film, no one questions whether the Killian Documents story needed to air with such a brief timeframe to investigate every aspect, to make sure the whole thing was locked down.  It seems in retrospect almost amusing to see how the same press that went after the Bush Administration for rushing into war in Iraq with questionable evidence would then feel that they could rush into a news-story that would clearly have an effect on an election with questionable evidence.

Furthermore, in some respects Mapes and Rather came off a bit bad in this.  They had a strong defensiveness bordering on arrogance when other outlets (legitimate and otherwise) began to question whether at best CBS had been duped, at worst was flat-out lying in its 60 Minutes II segment.  Mapes in particular appears to be infuriated that she would be questioned, let alone questioned by people who were her inferiors. 

Now, this isn't to say Truth is a bad film (Topher Grace notwithstanding).  Blanchett makes Mapes a flawed but ultimately strong woman, one who stands by her acts no matter what.  Redford makes Rather into the loyal friend (though at times he does come across as slightly unaware of things).  Pity for Quaid, whom I last remember as a Bush-like idiot President from American Dreamz (which I'm sure was not meant to be in any way/shape/form a dig at the former Commander-in-Chief).

I found Truth well-acted though a bit heavy-handed and one-sided.  A film that discussed the mad rush to get a story for ratings or a film about how financial considerations affect editorial content would make for a fascinating feature film.

Pity they made one already...called Network.   

DECISION: C+