Review: "The Ides of March"

"The Ides of March" (Dir. George Clooney, 2011)

If there were ever an appropriate time for a cynical examination of the American political process, it would be now. These troubled times are ripe for a film that lays bare the ridiculousness of how we choose our leaders and how that has crippled us as a nation.

George Clooney’s “The Ides of March,” his third outing as director, is not that film. Based on “Farragut North,” a play by former Howard Dean campaign staffer Beau Willimon, the film is a deeply flawed, but well-acted morality tale about how far people will compromise their principles in the pursuit of power.

Ryan Gosling stars as Steven Meyers, a high-ranking staffer for charismatic Pennsylvania governor Mike Morris (Clooney). The governor is in a tight race for the Democratic presidential nomination with a sleazy Arkansas senator. Morris, who talks openly about his lack of religious faith and vows to do away with gas powered cars in 10 years, is the kind of completely candid dream candidate only seen in fiction. Though Steven is a battle hardened campaign veteran at the age of 30, the governor has inspired in him an idealism typically seen in college freshmen.

Along with permanently on edge campaign manager Paul Zara (the inimitable Philip Seymour Hoffman as the personification of the word schlubby), he appears all but set for a cushy West Wing gig if the governor can vanquish his rival in the critical Ohio primary.

After falling into bed with Molly (Evan Rachel Wood), an intern who also happens to be the daughter of the Democratic National Committee chairman, Steven learns a secret about the governor that would spell certain doom for the campaign. As he struggles with what to do with this bombshell, Steven also has to deal with the machinations of a rival campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) and a saucy New York Times reporter (underused Marisa Tomei, in hipster frames and making the most out of a caricature).

The film’s major deficiencies are in its writing. None of the characters are well developed. While the dialogue is strong enough to keep the audience interested, it isn’t exactly crackling. The audience doesn’t get to know Steven well enough to understand why a seasoned political operative would fall head over heels for Morris’ candidacy. Too many events in the film feel unrealistic and happen solely to advance the plot. Pondering the ridiculousness of some of the character's unlikely decisions takes you out of the movie. Political junkies will scoff at some of the things that happen in this film (i.e. – Does anyone seriously believe a proudly agnostic candidate would be a frontrunner for a major party’s presidential nomination?).

The performances save “The Ides of March” from being a complete misfire. Clooney and Giamatti in particular are great, but the weight of the proceedings lies on Gosling’s shoulders. He does wonders with an underwritten role. Though the script makes frequent leaps in logic, Gosling keeps the dramatic momentum going without fail. With his performances in films like “Half Nelson,” “Blue Valentine” and last month’s tremendous “Drive,” Gosling has become a consistently compelling actor. At this point, I’ll watch anything he’s in as long as it’s not a romantic comedy that strings together random words in place of a title. 

Musings: Funny TV edition

Season Premiere:

"It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (Thursdays: 10:00 on FX)

• Back for a seventh season, it astounds me that this series consistently finds fresh ways to illustrate how morally bankrupt these characters are. This episode ("Frank's Pretty Woman") isn’t a classic, but it’s pretty damn hilarious.
• Fat Mac! Most of the pre-premiere buzz surrounded Rob McElhenney’s intentional 50 pound weight gain for hilarity’s sake. It’s true. He’s fat and it does make Mac a slightly funnier character, if only because it means he’s going to wear more Tommy Bahama shirts.
• Frank’s crack-addicted love interest/prostitute, Roxy (Alanna Ubach), is a scene stealer. It’s a real shame she (probably) won’t be back.
•  Dee and Roxy’s semi-reenactment of the boutique scene from “Pretty Woman” had me rolling. Ditto on diabetic Fat Mac and anemic, anorexic Dennis arguing over who’s healthier.
• Everybody in this cast shines, but Danny DeVito and Charlie Day will always be this show’s MVPs in my book. They’re wonderful on their own, but put them in scenes together and it’s like magic. Any episode that pairs those two on an adventure will always be worth your time. What other actors can make splitting a box of discarded jeans they found under a bridge sound like a sincere act of friendship?
•  Hoss Bonaventura immediately goes right to the top of my possible Halloween costumes list.
• Best moment: Charlie vomiting torrents of fake blood on his date, all while in denim-clad, twangtastic character as bridge tycoon Hoss, made me laugh harder than I had in a long time. His subsequent explanation of how swallowing blood “capulets” can make you sick one-upped the puking.

Series Premiere:

"Up All Night" (Wednesdays: 9:30 PM on NBC) 

• If there’s anything we could use less of, it’s domestic sitcoms. We get it. Men and women are different. Kids make everything wackier. Eccentric supporting characters may pop up from time to time to make life difficult. "Up All Night" mines very familiar territory, but it could turn into a good show.
• Christina Applegate and Will Arnett have good chemistry as a formerly hard-partying couple transformed into a working mom and stay at home dad respectively. They felt natural together and that goes a long way towards making these types of shows work.
• The writing in the pilot was not particularly sharp, but it wasn’t woefully unfunny. It did what it needed to do as far as establishing these characters and their situation. 
• Arnett is brilliant, but he’s got a terrible record when it comes to longevity and network sitcoms. I hope this works out for him because he probably should be on TV as much as possible.
• As Applegate’s talk show host boss Maya Rudolph is playing a slightly toned-down version of the Oprah impersonation from her "SNL" days. I love her, but it wears a little thin here and she gets way too much screen time. Her role was expanded from the original pilot, presumably to capitalize on the success of "Bridesmaids."
• Part of the reason I’m going to stick with this show for now is because its creator, Emily Spivey, wrote the classic "Parks and Recreation" episode "Eagleton." I'm just ignoring she also wrote for "Mad TV."
• Not a great pilot. Not even a very good pilot. But with the caliber of talent involved, it’s got some potential. Hopefully, NBC will give it time to find its voice. Also, it would be a real shame if this gets cancelled before "Whitney."

"Hobo with a Shotgun" - the only movie where Rutger Hauer eats glass

“Hobo with a Shotgun” (dir. Jason Eisener)

Grown from a fake exploitation trailer contest held by the South by Southwest festival to promote 2007’s Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration “Grindhouse,” Jason Eisener’s “Hobo with a Shotgun” (now on DVD/Blu-ray and Netflix) is demented, gory, outrageous and thoroughly enjoyable. Anchored by a genuinely good lead performance by Rutger Hauer, the film is a vivid neo exploitation flick that goes some truly nutso places, but never wears out its welcome.

The titular hobo hops off a train to plant his bindle in Hope Town, a nightmare city run by snarling gangster The Drake (Brian Downey) and his vicious wayfarer wearing sons (Gregory Smith and Nick Bateman). Hope City is a hellhole whose streets are infested with drugs, gangs and perverted mall Santas. As would be expected in such a scenario, the city’s cops are just as the dirty as its criminals.

The hobo’s past is shrouded in mystery. His only desire is to raise enough money to purchase a lawnmower from a pawn shop. When he’s directly confronted with the viciousness of the city’s criminals, the hobo forgoes the lawnmower and picks up a shotgun to become a vigilante as ruthless as the scum he hunts. If the title didn’t already indicate it, it’s a fairly straightforward plot, albeit one with some insane flourishes.

The bearded and disheveled Hauer is really nothing less than riveting here. He never plays it broad, delivering his lines with complete conviction. Whether he’s blowing a creep’s wang off with his trusty shotgun or delivering a monologue on the futility of hope to a room of screaming newborns, he commands your attention. This is undeniably his show. Molly Dunsworth also more than holds her own as Abby, the prostitute who hooks up with the hobo on his quest to cleanse Hope City.

“Hobo with a Shotgun” constantly tries to top itself by devising ever more inventive routes of decapitation and increasingly disgusting one-liners. Featuring torrents of bright red, beyond fake movie blood, the film often feels like a live action version of “The Itchy and Scratchy Show.” This is definitely not a bad thing in my book.

To Eisener and writer John Davies’ credit, “Hobo with a Shotgun” constantly creeps up to the edge of being too ridiculous and self-aware, but never falls over. The filmmakers establish a tone, twisted though it may be, early on and maintain it for the film’s duration. For a film whose final act involves a league of robot monsters called The Plague, a giant man-eating octopus and a woman stabbing a villain with her mangled arm bone, that’s definite praise. 

Be sure to stick around through the credits for the "Hobo with a Shotgun" theme song "Run with Us," a delirious slice of '80s pop that also served as the theme for the Canadian cartoon "The Raccoons." Really.

Marc's Grade: B+

Do two posts make you a blogger?

"I hear that guy's ass has its own congressman!"

The following are some escaped thoughts on random things/movie news. You might call them musings, much like Tracy Jordan's column in Ebony.

What I’m Watching

I have a pile of things I’ve been meaning to watch (“MST3K” Gamera box set, I’ve neglected you so!), but I’ve spent a lot of time this week watching random episodes of my NBC  favorites (“Parks and Recreation,” “30 Rock,” “The Office”) on Netflix. Don’t worry. There will definitely be a “Parks and Recreation” post before the fourth season premieres September 22, which is still much too far away for my liking.

I also broke out season seven of “The Simpsons”, easily one of its best seasons. There’s not an unfunny episode in the bunch and it’s chock full of some true classics (“King Size Homer,” “Bart Sells His Soul,” “The Day the Violence Died”).

What I’m Not Watching

I know this is said so much every year that it has lost all meaning, but it’s really been a crappy year at the movies. Unfortunately, judging by what’s coming out in the next few weeks, it doesn’t look like that’s going to change. Aside from this weekend’s Guillermo del Toro produced remake of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” there’s all of one wide release that I have the slightest interest in seeing until early October. Only Nicholas Winding Refn’s Cannes darling “Drive” (September 16), a stylish action drama with Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and Christina Hendricks, looks promising. I was interested in Steven Soderbergh’s ensemble viral plague drama “Contagion” (September 9) until I saw its trailer.

George Lucas screws with something in “Phantom Menace,” world remains indifferent

The six “Star Wars” adventures (the three good ones and the rest) make their Blu-ray debuts in late September with some new bonus features, including previously unseen deleted scenes. As George Lucas is wont to do, he’s “improved” the films for release on a new format, ditching puppetry in favor of more beautiful CGI. This time around, the Yoda puppet featured in some scenes of 1999’s “The Phantom Menace” has been replaced by a digital creation matching the character’s look in the later prequel episodes. It’s certainly an effort, but no amount of CG “fixes” can make “The Phantom Menace” a decent movie. Never one to be deterred, I’m sure Lucas is already planning how Industrial Light and Magic will replace Ian McDiarmid for the next home media release in 2025 (when movies will be released via clouds of hallucination-inducing vapors).

New Pixar films announced at D23

The biggest news of Disney’s recent D23 expo was the announcement of two new, currently untitled Pixar releases: “The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dinosaurs” (November 27, 2013) and “The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside the Mind” (May 30, 2014).

Bob Peterson, who co-directed 2009’s “Up,” and Peter Sohn, director of the short “Partly Cloudy,” will direct the dinosaur project. Peterson’s fellow “Up” codirector Pete Docter and “Dug’s Special Mission” short director Ronnie del Carmen will handle the film about the mind. Little information about these projects was announced, but the tremendous talents behind them make me extremely hopeful.

While I’m sure these projects were greenlighted before this summer’s “Cars 2” proved sequelitis affects even Pixar, it’s great to see the studio make a return to original storytelling. 

"The Help": Don't confuse it with the Beatles movie!

Movie Review:

"The Help" (2011, dir. Tate Taylor)

It’s become a tradition over the last few years for studios to counterprogram big budget action films in the dwindling days of summer with adaptations of books your mom probably likes (2009’s “Julie and Julia,” 2010’s “Eat Pray Love”).

This year, we get “The Help,” an adaptation of Kathryn Stackett’s bestseller about the plight of African-American maids in early 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi and the progressive white writer who helps tell their stories.

Directed and adapted by Stackett’s friend, first time director Tate Taylor, “The Help” is a fairly glossy Hollywood drama full of underwritten characters and a flabby plot. While some of the performances are quite solid, “The Help” is fundamentally too shallow.

The film is told from the point of view and infrequent voiceover of Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), a middle aged maid who has raised numerous white children while suffering institutionalized discrimination. Reeling from the death of her adult son, Aibileen is caring for the neglected toddler daughter of the meek, depressed housewife Elizabeth (Ahna O’Reilly). Things start to change when recent college graduate Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), an aspiring journalist from a well-heeled family, approaches Aibileen for help with a household cleaning column she’s been hired to write. This innocuous request turns into something more when the Skeeter asks for stories on life as a black domestic for a book. As the project takes off, Aibileen’s best friend Minny (Octavia Jackson) joins, recounting some of her own experiences as a maid. The women are acutely aware they are placing not only their livelihoods, but their lives at risk by telling their stories.

Skeeter is between two worlds, longing for a career while remaining part of an upper class social circle of racist Southern belles. Among these is the film’s main antagonist, Skeeter’s friend and Minny’s former employer, Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), a villain so broad she needs a mustache to twirl. Hilly also serves as one of the film’s main sources of comedy as she endures the indignity of having toilets placed on her lawn and eats a shit-laced revenge pie (not kidding, I have also trademarked this phrase for future endeavors). The capable Howard thankfully plays the character with a minimum amount of scenery chewing.

There is no dearth of great actresses in this cast. Jessica Chastain, luminous as the mother in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” is a welcome presence, even if she’s playing the underwritten role of Celia Foote, a clueless but gentle housewife shunned by Hilly’s crew. Spencer, who played such roles as Women in Elevator in “Being John Malkovich” and Bank Coworker #1 in “Drag Me to Hell,” delivers a breakout performance as a character who finds moments of levity in some horrific situations. Her scenes with Chastain and Davis are easily some of the film’s highpoints. She’s clearly a versatile performer and hopefully this leads to some better roles.

The film's greatest asset is Davis’ heartbreaking performance. It truly deserves a better movie. Unlike many of “The Help’s” characters, Aibileen never feels broadly drawn and this is due to Davis’ immense skill. Her portrayal feels as natural and lived-in as any I’ve seen in a recent studio movie. Stone, ostensibly the co-lead, doesn’t necessarily deliver a bad performance, but her character is so flat and relatively uninteresting that it’s irritating when the story focuses on her and not Davis.

At 146 minutes, “The Help” meanders almost from the very beginning and flat out drags once it enters its third hour. While tightening things up by ditching some characters and subplots wouldn’t have solved all of the film’s problems, it would have at helped.

One of the main controversies surrounding “The Help” is the question of whether a story of black oppression during such a shameful, recent period in history should rightfully be told by white filmmakers while black writers and directors remain so marginalized by the industry. Additionally, many critics have derided the film as reinforcing the trope of the white savior.

“The Help” may not be willfully trying to reinforce stereotypes but it’s definitely ignorant. It has a tendency to shift to the less affecting exploits of its white characters. Sadly, I think this is a consequence of the idea that white filmgoers are reluctant to see a film about the black experience unless it’s told largely through the eyes of a white character. This signals a problem, not only in studio filmmaking, but in our culture.

While I’d like to say any piece of mass entertainment that brings up hard issues our society only reluctantly discusses deserves to exist, “The Help” botches its handling of those ideas so severely that it doesn't provide anything to the conversation.

Marc’s Grade: C-

Back and no worse for wear

Hi.

I've always enjoyed writing. I'm also deeply in love with movies and television programs. As for books, they can go to hell! All snobby and erudite like they know something I don't! Just kidding. Sort of. Books are okay. I've got nothin' against books. Anyway, back on track. "They" (Who? The Red Squad?) always say "write what you know" and what I know is pop culture. After a long, unintended hiatus from writing, I've decided to give it one of those old-fashioned tries and begin blogging on pop culture once again.

While movies and TV are definitely my main interests under the pop culture umbrella, I definitely won't be limiting myself to those mediums. So stick around. Hopefully, you'll like what I write, or at least find it interesting. If not, then you're probably part of the Red Squad.