Flight

Flight is a movie about an alcoholic's journey to rock bottom. I'm fortunate, in that my family doesn't have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Consequently, I haven't been exposed to the disease in a personal way. I'm not qualified to speak to the film's realism, or lack thereof, in its depiction of the affliction.

I am, however, a professional airline pilot. While I don't go to the movies looking to nitpick, I feared that I wouldn't be able to help doing so while watching this film's depiction of my job. Well, the people behind Flight did their homework. The movie has the “getting to know you” chitchat of a couple of pilots flying together for the first time. It gets little things like radio calls right. Once the mishap that propels the film's story gets underway, the plane behaves in mechanically and physically appropriate ways. The plane reacts to pilot inputs as one would expect. Even the instrument panels look right.

The film gets other parts of my job right: it films in hotels many airline pilots would recognize. It has union reps and lawyers and NTSB people doing all the things I've been trained to expect them to do in the wake of a mishap. Its protagonist occupies an economic rung that's about right for someone in his position. In other words, the Flight crew expends an enormous amount of effort on accurately portraying my world.
That effort pays off because it helps me suspend my disbelief in the face of its story-critical whopper: that a professional airline pilot could function as a hard core, career alcoholic and drug abuser without (a) it affecting his stick & rudder skills, and (b) not having anyone on his flight crew call him on it. I'm here to tell you: if I were ever to fly with the senior line check airman at my airline and smell alcohol on him when he climbs into the cockpit, I would not go flying with that person on that day. In fact, my union has given me specific, scenario-based training on what to do; and that training makes sense to me. I've been in this game for a few years now, and I have yet to have to use that training. But I would not hesitate to do so, because it's my life and the lives of everyone in that plane on the line if I don't.

Ok, I'm sure all this inside baseball stuff fascinates you, but what you really want to know is whether Flight is a good movie. It is, for a couple of reasons. First, Robert Zemeckis knows how to direct a film. The initial mishap sequence is a masterpiece, the film keeps up a steady and brisk pace, and the musical cues aren't overdone. Second, Denzel Washington knows how to carry a film. His performance feels note-perfect, taking us through his descent while keeping us on his side, and even managing to make us complicit in some of his questionable choices.

All my buddies at work have seen Flight, except for those who just can't accept the movie's premise. Everyone agrees that it's technically extraordinary. I think you'll agree that it's also a fine, fine movie.

Recently Seen - 4JUL13

I expect to return to writing more thorough reviews when I go back to the airline in the spring.  'Til then, here's another brief rundown of what I've been watching.

Iron Man 3

Much better than the series' second installment, Iron Man 3 features clever dialogue and unexpectedly wonderful turn by Ben Kingsley, whom I thought was taking an easy paycheck until I actually saw the film.

Lockout

Guy Pearce as Kurt Russell in Escape from Space.  That's actually pretty high praise.

Life of Pi

The best movie I've seen in some time, Life of Pi manages not only to film an unfilmable novel, but to create something magical of its own.  I wish I'd seen this one on the big screen in 3D.

Hour of the Gun

A fine telling of the Wyatt Earp Story.  Picking up moments before the gunfight at the OK Corral, it offers James Garner and Jason Robards as as fine a Wyatt & Doc as you'll ever see.

Jazz on a Summer's Day

I live in Newport.  I love jazz.  I fell asleep during this film.

World War Z

Despite a few extraordinary sequences, this film suffers from inexplicably slow pacing.  Recommended only for zombie completists.

The Visitor

A fine, carefully crafted film featuring a remarkable performance from star Richard Jenkins.  Well worth your time.

The Guard

I enjoyed The Guard.  I think I’d have enjoyed it more if I were Irish, because the picture’s many jokes seem calibrated for the Irish audience.  Nevertheless, how can anyone object to spending an hour and a half with Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle (CDNW), and Mark Strong?

Gleeson plays a rumpled, pleasantly corrupt local sergeant of the Garde in a village in the Irish countryside.  When FBI special agent Cheadle comes to town to stop a trio of drug smugglers (including the omnipresent Mr. Strong), we get a redemption tale and a fish out of water comedy and a buddy cop movie, all in one.

But why would you want to watch a redemption tale / fish out of water comedy / buddy cop movie, anyway?  Two reasons: #1, you will probably never go to Galloway, Ireland, so this is the closest you’re ever going to get.  #2, the dialogue is so well written and so well performed that you’ll enjoy listening to it for an hour and a half.  You may not laugh out loud (particularly if you aren’t Irish), but you’ll nod and smile and have a pleasant time.

I’ll take good dialogue and a pleasant time any day of the week.  I’d see The Guard 2 with a smile on my face.

Iron Man 2

IRON MAN 2 is a great, great movie.  That is, if you love reading Popular Mechanics.  Because if there’s one thing IRON MAN 2 delights in showing us, it’s long sequences of guys welding.  And dragging cables.  And doing, y’know, Metal Shop stuff.

Me, I don’t read Popular Mechanics.  I never took Metal Shop.  Long stretches of IRON MAN 2 bored me out of my mind. 

That’s not to say that Robert Downey, Jr. isn’t fantastic in what will become his signature role.  Or that Scarlett Johansson (as a superduperspy) doesn’t look great in a catsuit.  It doesn’t even mean that stuff doesn’t blow up real good.  It just means that I didn’t care.

I didn’t care about Iron Man’s big fight with his best friend (a role demanding far less gravitas than The Great Don Cheadle brought to bear).  I didn’t care about the Big Villain’s boring revenge story.  And I certainly didn’t care about the intricacies of corporate reorganization.

By the time the Big Villain, who wasn’t nearly as interesting as the Little Villain, unleashed his evil plan, I’d grown so worn out with pseudo-physics, quasi-engineering bull$#!^ that I could only marvel that this film failed to learn the basic lesson of the Star Wars prequels.  To wit, fighting robots are dull.  Their destruction carries no emotional heft, because they’re things.  You might as well have given me twenty minutes of Iron Man unplugging refrigerators.

For all that, however, IRON MAN 2 does offer something to make it worth seeing.  It’s not on the posters and it’s not in the ads, however: it’s a secret weapon named Sam Rockwell, upon whom I now formally grant Can Do No Wrong status.  Rockwell plays the Little Villain, the CEO of Stark Corporation’s primary competitor in the weapons business.  His name is Justin Hammer, and he’s a weasely, sniveling wannabe Tony Stark who absolutely steals every second he’s on screen.  Let me say that again:  Sam Rockwell (CDNW) steals the screen from Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and The Great Don Cheadle.  I didn’t think anyone could upstage any of these actors; but Rockwell’s Justin Hammer is so deliciously slimy, so wily yet such a doofus, that he runs away with this movie.  After GALAXY QUEST, THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, CHOKE, MOON, and now IRON MAN 2, I can safely assert that Sam Rockwell has arrived.  This actor, truly, can do no wrong.

So, yeah, IRON MAN 2 has a whole lot working against it.  But its bright spot is very, very bright.  If they make another film in this series, I hope they call it JUSTIN HAMMER.

Hotel for Dogs

HOTEL FOR DOGS is an innocuous, pleasant family entertainment that will have special appeal for the dog lovers in your clan.

Here’s the setup: two kids stumble into a deserted hotel that they convert into a shelter for the neighborhood strays. While this sounds like a recipe for disaster, one of the kids is a brilliant inventor who comes up with a thousand ways to keep the canines entertained, fed, cleaned, and housebroken.

That’s pretty much it. There are jokes and silly villains and your standard three-act structure. There’s even The Great Don Cheadle, who is clearly there to make a movie he thinks his kids will enjoy.

It worked. My kids enjoyed it just fine. What more do you want?

Traitor

TRAITOR is an excellent film.

Don Cheadle plays Samir, a Sudanese-American working his way up the ranks of a terrorist organization. He's the textbook terrorist candidate: an immigrant caught between two worlds, smart, capable, devout, and with military training. As played by Cheadle, he's also deeply conflicted. He's a man who wants to do the right thing, but the people telling him what is and is not right don't seem to be any more enlightened than he (I'm describing the character instead of the performance because, hey, it's Don Cheadle. You know he nails it.).

Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, and Neal McDonough are among the Americans working his case. Saïd Taghmaoui, Alyy Kahn, and Raad Rawi are the major players in his cell. Each of these fine actors sells their roles, but it's a testament to Cheadle's ability that he blows them off the screen without even trying. There's so much happening behind this guy's eyes that he's always the most interesting person in the room, no matter how skilled the other players.

The movie itself is well shot and scored, though not particularly dazzling. This is more a character piece than a virtuoso production, and its exploration of the kind of guy who can rig a suicide vest or sacrifice innocents makes an excellent counterpoint to the more hero-oriented GWOT thrillers we've been getting recently. What a pleasure to get inside the mind of a guy like Samir, a guy wrestling with big questions with important consequences. This one is worth seeing.

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.

After The Sunset

AFTER THE SUNSET is like OCEAN'S TWELVE without everyone trying so hard to be cool.

It's a great premise - what happens after the brilliant jewel thieves pull of the ultimate heist and retire to the tropical island? Will they really be able to enjoy a life of lobster dinners and fruity drinks with umbrellas in them?

In this case, Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek play the thieves and Woody Harrelson is the FBI agent who just can't let them go. He follows them to the island just as a cruise ship displaying the world's most kickass diamond pulls in to port, determined to stick so close to the couple that they won't have enough room to breathe, much less try another heist.

And away you go from there, rolling into a brisk 90 minutes of jokes, cons, doublecrosses, and slamming-door farce. There is not a single beat in this film in this film that you won't see coming, in part because the film doesn't so much telegraph as broadcast its intentions. Nevertheless, the affair floats along on a tide of bonhomie, willing to bet that its audience will enjoy viewing a light, tropical, grownup fantasy as much as it seems its creators enjoyed staging it.

I rented AFTER THE SUNSET because I just loved the premise. How nice that it followed through.

Ocean's 13

OCEAN’S 13 is like bubblegum. It’s unpretentious, it’s essentially kid stuff, and it’s fun. What more do you need?

Here’s the setup: George Clooney and his gang go after yet another Vegas Casino. How these guys’ faces aren’t on every wanted poster in the city is beyond me, but there you have it. And really, that’s all you need to know. Their motivation is irrelevant.

What really matters here is the film’s style, and OCEAN’S 13 has style to spare. The locations are fabulous, the wardrobe is fabulous, and the dialogue is just plain fun. C’mon – it even has Eddie Izzard in a small yet crucial role. And if Eddie Izzard isn’t enough to get you queue up a movie, well, why do you even bother?

Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino both model the latest in age-defying technologies, everyone appears to be having a good time, the heist is sufficiently intricate, and I enjoyed the heck out of OCEAN’S 13. What more could a guy ask for?

Crash

I finally saw CRASH last night, and I'll add my voice to the general chorus of disdain.

I don't require that the films I see have people like those I know in real life. I don't require that they have characters who speak like those I know in real life. I do, however, require that, unless the movies feature balrogs or wookies or toupeed actors screaming "Khaaaaaann!", they have people that could, conceivably, walk the earth.

I'm sure Paul Haggis is a nice man, but his film feels like something written by a guy who never leaves his gated community. People just don't talk about race the way these people talk about race. White politicos don't complain about "these friggin' black people;" they simply forget to plan for their evacuation. Coincidence does not, in fact, pile on coincidence like a poorly constructed Jenga stack. CRASH does not take place in a world I recognize.

Ocean's 12

I'm trying to decide whether OCEAN'S 12 is an ironic commentary on
itself and sequels in general or just a tired rehash of a
once-interesting premise.

In the film, Danny Ocean and his crew are brought back because, well
because they have to. It's a money thing. This time around, they're
expected to do their thing, but to do it bigger, better, and faster.
To succeed, they need ever-more elaborate plots, a kaleidescope of
obstacles real and imagined, and surprises behind surprises behind
surprises. While they're first job was fun, however, this one is a
joyless exercise in obligation, performance for performance's sake.
In other words, it's a sequel.