Calvary

Calvary is rough going.

The film begins with an Irish priest (Brendan Gleeson) sitting in confessional.  He’s listening to a man recount his tale of having been raped by a priest at the age of seven.  Then he hears the man say that since the rapist is long dead, the man will take the life of one good priest in a week’s time.  Brendan Gleeson is the good priest.

One could go a lot of places with a story like this.  It could be a pre-murder mystery.  It could be a meditation on faith.  It could be a thriller.  This film’s approach, however, is right there in the title: Calvary.  This is The Passion of the Christ, with the scorn of an Irish village and the sting of cruel words taking the place of the scorn of Jerusalem and the sting of the lash.

You see, this is an Ireland reeling from financial meltdown and revelations of years of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy.  The people of our priest’s little town have not only lost faith, they’ve turned actively hostile to faith, actively hostile to the church, actively hostile to our priest.

And in the middle of it all, walking his own road to Calvary, our priest struggles to maintain his own dignity, his own faith, his own love.  He’s miserable.

On one level then, we can view Calvary as an exercise in making Brendan Gleeson unhappy.  On another, however, we can see it as a story of the very toughest part of Christianity: the imperative to actively love people who may actively hate you.  As such, Calvary has much to offer the devout viewer.

But that viewer is going to have to work for it.  This is not a film for the faint of heart or faith.

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.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows amounts to 129 minutes of missing Steven Moffat, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Martin Freeman.  Where the BBC’s brilliant “Sherlock” series of telefilms offers puzzling plots, delightful verbal interplay, and a sly (and often ribald) sense of humor, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is mostly just loud.  Where “Sherlock” gives us Moriarty as a comic, twisted genius, Game of Shadows lazily offers us Moriarty as just another Bond villain.  Where “Sherlock”’s unique visual style amuses and intrigues us, Game of Shadows only makes us wonder exactly how much cocaine director Guy Ritchie blew through while shooting and editing this film.

Here’s the story: it’s about a year since the events of the first film, Sherlock Holmes.  Holmes and Watson reunite to bring the nefarious Professor Moriarty to justice after the villain tries to have Dr. & Mrs. Watson killed for no apparent reason.  Lots of stuff blows up.  Noomi Rapace appears because she was hot after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire and it seems like a good career move.  More stuff blows up, there are some fistfights, and a bunch of people get shot, all in slow motion.  The Bond villain reveals his Bond villainesque plan, and his henchman reveals a disappointing lack of sterling silver dental work.  More ‘splosions and fights and shooting, and even more slo-mo.  We reflect that Robert Downey, Jr. doesn’t look remotely like an otter.  The film draws to an utterly unsurprising conclusion.  The End.  Next.

Hey, kudos to Guy Ritchie for (a) achieving his unique and singular vision, and (b) finding a studio to underwrite his coke habit.  But Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows just isn’t much fun.  It needs more wit.  It needs more style.  Aww, the heck with it: it needs Moffat, Cumberbatch, and Freeman.  They own the franchise now. 

Mrs. Henderson Presents

"Mrs. Henderson Presents" is the true(ish) story of Laura Henderson, an Englishwoman of an age, class, and means to do however she damn well pleases. After her husband passes away just prior to the film's beginning, she chooses to buy a theater and, well, put on a show. Since she knows nothing of show business, Mrs. Henderson must hire a manager: Mr. Van Damm. He thrills at the prospect of running his own SoHo theater, but finds himself almost immediately at loggerheads with the busybody Mrs. Henderson. So what? Well, their theater, The Windmill, was the only one to stay open throughout WWII. It was underground, so some thought it the best possible place to weather The Blitz.

Sounds tedious, I know. But Stephen Frears directs Judi Dench as Mrs. Henderson and Bob Hoskins as Mr. Van Damm. That's a formula for success, right there. And, c'mon, when Christopher Guest is your foil, how can you go wrong? Thus it is that "Mrs. Henderson Presents" presents us with that old chestnut, the "Let's put on a show" show, and makes it work. Here's a movie that knows what it has in Dench and Hoskins and happily gives them room to find a comfortable zone of friendly antagonism and good fun. It doesn't hurt that the shows they put on are pretty darn good, to boot, with catchy production numbers like "Goody Goody" and "Babies of the Blitz" putting a smile on my face and a tap in my toes.

In fact, I smiled all through "Mrs. Henderson Presents," thoroughly enjoying the company of Dench and Hoskins as they put on their shows. Here's a movie I could easily see again.

PS I forgot to mention the elephant in the room. There is quite a bit of nudity in "Mrs. Henderson Presents." Those of you who've been waiting for a Bob Hoskins full frontal nude scene, wait no longer!