The Martian

I liked The Martian so much, I hope it sparks a genre.

No, not near-future science fiction.  Not Mars.  Not even Survival.  I hope it sparks a genre called “Smart, capable people solving problems.”  Like Apollo 13, and even like All is Lost, it’d be a genre without villains and without gunfire (But ‘splosions are always ok.  What’s the point of a movie camera if you can’t point it at a ‘splosion?).  It’d just be people figuring out how to do stuff. In The Martian, near-future astronaut (and botanist) Matt Damon needs to figure out how to survive being marooned on Mars while NASA scientists need to figure out how to rescue him.  That’s more than enough drama for 144 minutes of film.

Why?  Because figuring out how to do stuff is absolutely fundamental to the human condition.  As such, drama about this process is both universal and captivating (if done right).

Hang on a minute: I’ve just described the “heist” movie.  Smart, capable, professional criminals solving problems are the bread and butter of heist movies.  Apollo 13, All is Lost, and The Martian are basically heist movies in which the characters are trying to figure out how to save a life instead of crack a safe.

Man, I love heist movies.

Ok, back to it.  Drew Goddard adapted The Martian’s screenplay from Andy Weir’s novel of the same name.  Goddard wrote and directed the superlative The Cabin in the Woods, another tightly plotted and thoroughly entertaining film.  In one his promotional interviews, director Ridley Scott said that Goddard’s Martian script was the best he’d seen since Alien, and I believe it.  I can’t wait to see what Goddard writes next.

As for the rest of the pieces of the puzzle, Christopher Orr says it best in this ‘Atlantic’ article.  The Martian is a tale of people who are good at their jobs doing their jobs well, and The Martian is a product of people who are good at their jobs doing their jobs well.  It’s a pleasure to behold.

Oh, on another note: Devin Faraci at birthmoviesdeath.com makes a great point about the inspirational power of this film.  No, not like those silly posters of people rowing crew that one finds on the walls of dispiriting cubicle farms.  The Martian is the kind of movie that inspires kids to grow up to work at JPL, or NASA, or the USDA.  Sure, it’s easy to make astronauts look cool, but your average kid has a better chance of growing up to play in the NBA than make it into the Space Program.  Show me a movie that makes science qua science, math qua math look cool, and you have a movie to which I am absolutely going to drag my kids.

12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave is a great movie.  I never want to see it again.

This harrowing film, based on the memoirs of escaped slave Solomon Northup, brings to life the cruelty and inhumanity of the antebellum South through a faithful recreation of Northup’s luring away from his New York home, subsequent enslavement, and eventual repatriation to the land of the free.

The recreation is served by the production designer’s careful attention to detail, scarring performances on the part of the cast, and careful direction and photography that highlight the jarring cruelty of slavery by showing just how routine that cruelty had become.

The production design is immaculate.  From period construction equipment to architecture to clothing, 12 Years a Slave is better than a museum: it doesn’t just show us where people lived and what they used and wore; it shows us how they lived there, how they used the materials to hand, how the clothes they wore actually looked in motion.

The cast, well, it’s remarkable. Lupita Nyong'o as a fellow slave trying to maintain some humanity provides an unforgettable performance.  Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender, as slaveholders of variable degrees of humanity, provide contrasting images of the corruption of absolute power.  Paul Dano, as a foreman who, though below Cumberbatch and Fassbender on the social ladder, absolutely assumes his God-given superiority over the slaves under his dominion, creates a character of both weakness and power – a difficult, but important, station to portray. The anchor, as he is for so many films, is the great Chiwetel Ejiofor, who Can Do No Wrong.  His intelligence, his humanity, his fear, and his desperation provide both a hero for the film and an audience identification character.  From Dirty Pretty Things to Kinky Boots and now to 12 Years a Slave, Ejiofor is putting together a filmography that’s marking him as one of the most compelling actors working today.

Of course, without the right director and photographer, all this hard work would come to naught.  Director Steve McQueen and DP Sean Bobbitt, however, are up to the task.  Watching their film, one can almost feel the heat and humidity of the Louisiana Bayou.  One can almost smell the stench of a slave quarters.  Most importantly, one can understand how life goes on even as men and women are captured, tortured, raped, murdered, and buried in shallow graves time and again, year after year.

And of course, this is all part of our American heritage, as much a part of the fabric of our country as the rockets’ red glare or the New Deal.  It’s a part of our heritage we know about, but kind of gloss over because it’s so painful to contemplate.  That pain is why I don’t want to see 12 Years a Slave again, though I’m glad I saw it once.  Do not miss 12 Years a Slave.

Talk to Me

Don Cheadle is one of the great actors of our time.

In DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, he did the impossible: he stole a movie from Denzel Washington. His character, Mouse Alexander, was so smart, so evil, so good, that I couldn't see the man's face for years without wondering whether he had murder on his mind. That film, made in 1995, brought Cheadle to my attention. But this has been his decade. From the cockney safecracker Bashar Tarr in the OCEAN'S movies to the one of the few things about CRASH to the understated, brave, and noble Paul Rusesabagina in HOTEL RWANDA, here's a guy who showed he can do almost anything. But nothing prepared me for Petey Greene.

If I hadn't known that was Don Cheadle under that costume, I never would have guessed it. Cheadle disappears into the role, thinking and talking faster than anyone else in the film or the audience, a man using his raw intelligence and amazing audacity to overcome nearly every obstacle put in his way. Cheadle as Greene is a force of nature, his performance nothing short of brilliant.

I came to this film through an interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor that I read on CHUD. Ejiofor was promoting RED BELT at the time, but he mentioned this as one film of which he was particularly proud. I can see why. Ejiofor plays the audience surrogate, real-life WOR program director Dewey Hughes, the man who gave the real-life Petey his job. I've already said that Ejiofor is an absolutely outstanding performer himself, and here he has the judgement and confidence to get out of Cheadle's way. Director Kasi Lemmons (who made the wonderful EVE'S BAYOU) knows what she's doing here, and she builds a film around this performance that puts us in its time and in its people's hearts in a way that few pictures manage to do.

I don't care if you don't like soul music. I don't care if you don't care about the black experience in the '60s. I don't even care if you aren't a fan of Cheadle, Ejiofor, or Lemmons. You're here because you like movies. And if you like movies, you have got to see Cheadle on fire in TALK TO ME. Queue this one up today.

American Gangster

AMERICAN GANGSTER is smart, carefully made, and vastly entertaining. With Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe toplining, and Ridley Scott directing, I wouldn't expect anything else.

In the film, Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, the guy whose idea it was to ship heroin to the U.S. in the coffins of KIAs returning from Vietnam. Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the detective who finally figures it all out. Interesting enough, but, as is so often the case, it's all in the execution.

And the execution is first rate. Washington and Crowe are two of the best actors working today, and it's always a pleasure to watch them do their thing. Scott took the time to put together a marvelous simulacrum of Vietnam - era New York, populate it with believable people, and make it come alive. I bought into the world of this film, I bought into the people living in this world, and I lost track of time as I grew engrossed in their world.

This is good stuff, team.

Redbelt

David Mamet´s REDBELT does all the things it sets out to do. Thanks, in part, to outstanding performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Emily Mortimer, it also manages to be one fine, entertaining film.

REDBELT is about the owner of a struggling judo studio (Ejiofor), long on honor and short on cash. Mortimer´s a profoundly wounded attorney who enters the studio by happenstance, but who sets in motion a potentially disastrous chain of events. Further on, when Ejiofor rescues a movie star (Tim Allen) from a bar fight, another chain of events, potentially wonderful, starts to roll.

We´ll see what happens.

What´s really interesting here is Ejiofor´s character, a guy whose profound commitment to doing the right thing makes for an unexpected (potentially) tragic flaw. Here´s a guy who plays by the rules when nobody else does, and we expect things to work out for him. But when they don´t, how much will he bend, how much of his honor is he willing to expend, to try and set things right?

Add Mortimer, whose supporting character desperately needs Ejiofor to do the right things, and we´re in for a character study of a good man whose circumstances both require him to be impossibly good and make that goodness impossible.

Combine this interesting story with Mamet´s dialogue (for which I´m a sucker), and you have an interesting, engaging, satisfying film. REDBELT crashed at the box office, but here´s hoping that it finds new life on DVD.

(Fun fact: I´m writing this in Sao Paolo, the hometown of Alice Braga, who plays Ejiofor´s wife in the film. Don´t ask me why I know these things.)

Serenity

I watch very little TV. "Baseball Tonight," "The Daily Show," and "The Colbert Report" are pretty much it. When it comes to narrative entertainment, I prefer films - they're a fully self-contained experience.

So I never saw "Firefly" when it aired. I never saw it on cable. I saw it only when a friend was certain I'd like it that he drove to my home, dropped off the series DVDs, and told me to call him once I'd seen them all. And you know what? I liked it. I really liked it.

I liked the creatively imagined solar system of "Firefly." I liked the blending of American and Chinese argots. I liked that fact that, finally, here was a show about transport guys!

So I was happy to fire up SERENITY when it arrived at my door. I'm sorry to report, however, that it found it to be, well, just pretty good. While the movie tickled my imagination, it didn't quite capture it. There are too many "big moments." The resolution of the mystery surrounding the kung-fu psycho chick wasn't particularly satisfying, and I thought that these people had gone to all this trouble merely to uncover the scandal of the week.

Hey, "just pretty good" isn't all that bad. Catch SERENITY when it shows up on cable. But don't go out of your way for it.

Children of Men

Ahh, the Sixties. The dope was great, the people were groovy, the music had a conscience, and everything would have been all right, man, if only the fascist pigs hadn't screwed it all up. CHILDREN OF MEN, supposedly a science fiction movie, is the most backward-looking film I've seen in a long time.

In the world of the future, the conservatives won. They had their wars, they polluted their planet, and they blew it. Now, Mother Nature is exacting her revenge by wiping out the human race through the infertility of its women, and the only thing standing between us and human extinction is a sold-out ex-yippie; an idealistic hippie; and the personification of Earthly fecundity, a pregnant young African woman named, obviously enough, Kee. In the world of the present, the bores won.

What is it about the '60s countercultural movement that so captures the creative imagination of generations too young to remember it? Director Alfonso Cuarón was born in Mexico City in 1961, so he wasn't even around for the really good stuff. Nevertheless, the film's moral center (played by an always-engaging Michael Caine) is a guy for whom time stopped in 1969. He grows his weed, he listens to his Beatles records, and he cares for his invalid wife (crushed under the boot of The Man, of course) in an eco-friendly home that's safely tucked away from the horrors of the outside world. Here's the thing, however: if the movie's set in 2027 and the Caine character is 74 years old, that means that he has dedicated his life to a world that moved along when he was twenty years old. It's as if I decided to dedicate my life to the Reagan '80s and moved my family to a country house where I could revel in supply-side economics and Devo music 'til the end of my days. It's crazy. It doesn't make sense. In the world of CHILDREN OF MEN, it's about the best possible thing a man can do.

Anachronistic ideology aside, CHILDREN OF MEN is a decent chase thriller with the requisite twists and set pieces. Though it criminally misuses Chiwetel Ejiofor in the Sean Bean role and its denoument clunks like the shed chains of the Liberated, it does have some magnficent bits and it does move along. Now if we could just get a science fiction movie set in the future.

Kinky Boots

KINKY BOOTS takes Ejiofor from "actor of note" status to "can do no wrong" status, right there with Emma Thompson, Toni Collette, and Edward Everett Horton. He takes a pleasant and occasionally funny story of plucky entrepreneurship and infuses it with energy and warmth.

KINKY BOOTS tells the story of a Northampton shoe factory that's in big trouble. Joel Edgerton plays a young man who has just inherited the venerable institution, only to discover that it's on the verge of bankruptcy. When a drag queen called Lola (Ejiofor) inspires him to go into the 'women's boots for men' business, he bets the factory on the idea. Various plots and subplots get resolved, some people find happiness, etc., and the movie rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half. Without Ejiofor, it'd be a perfectly nice movie, the kind of thing that'd appeal to the CALENDAR GIRLS crowd (and I mean that in a good way). With Ejiofor, however, it's fabulous.

Ejiofor's can make Lola simultaneously confident and fragile, happy and heartbroken, joyous and deeply pained. He's a lousy singer and not much of a dancer, but he carries his nightclub numbers with such gusto and joy that we can't help but delight in them. He so thoroughly embodies his character that the guest with whom we saw it couldn't imagine him in any other kind of role - she thought Ejiofor had been discovered in SoHo's club scene. The guy is just plain fun to watch, as he was in MELINDA AND MELINDA, SERENITY, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, and INSIDE MAN.

I can't wait to see what he does next.

Inside Man

INSIDE MAN wants to be a heist picture, a police procedural, and a (local) political thriller all at the same time. It succeeds through a combination of excellent performances; fine photography; and smooth, measured pacing.

I didn't see this as a propulsive thriller so much as a study in contrasting characters, and I enjoyed watching most of those characters muddle through a confusing situation as best they could. Why? Probably because Lee was astute enough to cast excellent, credible, and likeable actors in his leading and major supporting roles. I mean, who doesn't enjoy watching Jodie Foster kick ass; Denzel Washington stick it to the Man; Clive Owen be cool; and Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, and Chiwetel Ejiofor do just about anything?

Additionally, INSIDE MAN features a number of shots that are just plain fun to look at. Watch Denzel come through the door of his shabby detective's apartment and bemoan the fact that they never made a follow-up to DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS. Watch the early moments of the heist unfold and consider how fun it is to see modern sensibilities applied to this timeworn genre. Watch the variations in color and film stock (or digital reprocessing, as the case may be) and enjoy the fun Lee can have when he sets out to generate Product with a capital P.

Finally, the pacing. Folks here argue that nothing much happens in the second act, but I don't see that. The act gives us time to enjoy these characters and enjoy the turns in the situation. It builds tension as we try to deduce the plot behind the plot, and it dribbles out the reveals often enough to keep us involved. This movie doesn't move at a breakneck pace, but it moves at the right pace. I felt like I got my entertainment dollar's worth.

INSIDE MAN may be slick American filmmaking, but it's an excellent example of slick American filmmaking. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Dirty Pretty Things

Chiwetel Ejiofor is on his way to becoming a major star. I first noticed him in MELINDA AND MELINDA, where he was easily the most magnetic actor in the film. He played a fine villain in the disappointing SERENITY, and he was extraordinary in DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, which I've just gotten around to seeing. INSIDE MAN is in my queue, and I look forward to seeing him there.

Ejiofor isn't alone in DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, of course. Audrey Tatou plays a character unlike any other I've seen her inhabit - a scared but tough Turkish immigrant trying to make her way in a cold, hostile London.

The movie itself is your standard thriller of conscience - a man is forced to choose between his principles and his desire to do right by those about whom he cares. What sets it apart is its setting, the world of London's illegal immigrant community, and its players, notably Ejiofor and Tatou. Ejiofor is both magnetic and unpredictable, and I'm not surprised that he's gotten more work. I can't wait to see what he does next.