Emperor

Emperor is a homework assignment.

By 'homework assignment,' I mean that the film faithfully recreates a place and time (Japan in the immediate aftermath of its surrender in WWII), dramatizes the experiences of actual people who lived through events there, and offers its audience an hour and a half of living history.

It even taught me a few things. While I've read many books on the War in the Pacific, I'm not sharp on what happened in its aftermath. Emperor, for example, taught me that MacArthur first landed in Japan at the Atsugi airfield, where I've served in many detachments as a Navy C-130 pilot. “A-ha,” I thought as I saw the film, “That's why there's a statue of MacArthur near the front gate!” It taught me about Brigadier General Bonnner Fellers (Matthew Fox), whom MacArthur ordered to investigate Emperor Hirohito's complicity in the war's commencement. It taught me about many of the members of Japan's ruling class, their relationships, and the power dynamics among them.

More importantly, it depicted the devastation of postwar Tokyo, a devastation that old, still, B&W photos can only suggest.

So, yes, Emperor is a homework assignment, but it's a good homework assignment. Tommy Lee Jones (whom you really should see in TheThree Burials of Melquiades Estrada) makes a fine MacArthur, the production values are top notch, and you're bound to learn something. I'd show it to my class.

Captain America

Captain America failed to capture my imagination.  It never made me feel like I was watching people, even extraordinary people, in dangerous situations.  It made me feel like I was watching characters go through the motions of yet another ‘origin story’ that really served as a prelude to the big Avengers movie the studio has planned for next year.  Its perils didn’t feel organic, its villain struck me as silly (The villain’s someone called Red Skull, who’s a really evil Nazi because – what? – regular Nazis aren’t evil enough?), and Captain America’s “super-special good guy team” just looked goofy.

Hey, I like star Chris Evans, who was the best thing about the Fantastic Four movies and Sunshine.  I like Hugo Weaving and Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci; and Hayley Atwell is easy on the eyes.  But I never believed in what I saw, and it wasn’t long before Captain America had me looking at my watch.  I hope The Avengers will surprise me with something wonderful.  Based on what I saw in Iron Man 2, Thor, and now this, I’m not holding my breath.

No Country For Old Men

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN devotes most of its screen time to a character who is not its protagonist. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) looks like the hero of this movie, acts like the hero of this movie, but wasn't ever the hero of the movie. Sherriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is the hero of this movie, for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a story about a man facing the fact that his whole life has been dedicated to pushing against a river. Not a tide, mind you, but a river, as illustrated by Ellis's story of the Apaches and Ed Tom's grandfather.

It's no country for old men, because old men have lived long enough to see their illusions stripped away; and the brutal reality behind those illusions can be too much to live with. The book, and the film, is about Ed Tom reaching that point in his life. The story, in both media, breaks my heart.

On another tack, I found the film to be a faithful rendering of one of my favorite novels. Its changes did not violate the themes of the story, and I sensed that the Coen brothers "got it," as they often do. I bought every single one of its characters, including Harrelson, whom I was inclined to doubt after reading the criticism of him here on the Balcony. I bought the milieu, the presentation, the whole package.

This is a film worth seeing.

In The Valley of Elah

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH had me right up until the very last shot.

For most of the film's running time, it's a reasonably effective portrait of a man dealing with the most devastating news imaginable: the death of the youngest and last of his children. When the man, a former Army detective played by Tommy Lee Jones, travels to his son's Army Fort to find out what happened, he learns that his son was the victim of a gruesome murder. Jason Patric (who was absolutely brilliant in RUSH - Netflix it today!) is the Army investigator assigned to the case, and Charlize Theron is the local deputy. Between them, Jones doesn't know if he's getting help or the runaround. But he's got to hold it together and try to figure things out.

So ELAH runs as a devastating portrait and a fascinating mystery. But Paul Haggis, who wrote both this and the execrable CRASH, wouldn't know finess if it shat in his Wheaties. By the end, he takes the film to bombastic ground, though Jones's performance holds the picture together. At the very end, however, Haggis includes a moment so hamhanded, so ridiculous that it spoils the whole thing.

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH. Turn it off with about five minutes to go, and you'll find it a fine film. Stick to the credits, however, and you'll throw your shoe at the screen. Bah.

The Hunted

What if someone remade FIRST BLOOD, and improved it in the process? We'd have THE HUNTED, a visceral and propulsive film that takes the basic premise of FIRST BLOOD (commando on the run from the law) and improves it by following the chase through both urban and wilderness milieus and punctuating it with exciting, realistic knife fights that add to the drama.

Here's the setup: Benicio del Toro is the commando. Unlike John Rambo, however, he's crazy - so there's that. Tommy Lee Jones is the guy who trained him and now shoulders the task of tracking and capturing him. Oh, yeah - the FBI and some shadowy DoD types get involved, too. But don't worry about that. This is the Benicio and Tommy show, and the two play off one another wonderfully. Jones, of course, is a master of looking like all the world's on his shoulders, and we feel his pain as he tracks down one of "his boys." del Toro, for his part, is very good at "psycho," in that he can both function in society and remain outside of it. Together, they provide all the characterization we need to keep us engaged as they run, jump, hide, fight, and generally battle across 90 minutes of solid, nonstop entertainment.

William Friedkin directed THE HUNTED, and it shows. This is first-class, professional, layered entertainment, professionally done. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA so fully informs THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA that a "required prerequisite" notice should have been posted on theater doors. This is not to say that THREE BURIALS steals from GARCIA - not at all; but it shares GARCIA's sense of place, its unblinking observation of the human condition, and (with variations) its most important prop. It's the kind of movie Peckinpah might have made if Peckinpah still believed in redemption.

Tommy Lee Jones, who directs from a script by Guilllermo Arriaga, plays a foreman on a South Texas ranch. He hires Julio Cedillo (Estrada) and comes first to respect him, then befriend him. When Barry Pepper's high-strung INS agent mistakenly shoots the young cowboy and the incident is swept under the rug, Jones takes action in the only way that makes sense to him. What follows is a Western by people who "get" Westerns. The cowboys here don't pose silently for aesthetic effect, a la BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. They keep their mouths shut because you don't flap your yap in the desert. The landscape is integral to the tale, but 3B isn't about gawking at the horizon. This movie gets personal in the way only film can - it puts you right into the hearts of its characters - not by having them tell you how they feel, but by making you feel the same way.

GARCIA shares this film's versimilitude, and it covers much of the same ground, but there's a crucial difference: where GARCIA is about a man trying to believe in himself, 3B is about one who never thinks to stop believing, perhaps with tragic consequences. Nevertheless, the latter and the former exist in very much the same world. I'll leave it for you to decide which ending you prefer.