JFK

Hidden Figures

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Houston, do you read me: NASA employed black people in its infancy during the early Sixties. What’s more, NASA’s first major project, Mercury, probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without three black female “computers,” or mathematicians, whose efforts literally put John Glenn and Friendship 7 into orbit. The result was a serious boost in American morale during the race against the Soviets into space and a boon to the Space Program under President Kennedy. So, with its historically significant and truly enlightening subject matter, what most caught me off guard about Hidden Figures is its tone, which is light, upbeat, cute, and often comical. While not in itself a bad thing, it’s not what I expected.

Unfortunately, that’s about all Hidden Figures offers that I didn’t expect. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy this film; I did. It’s a great story about remarkable people who actually lived. According to one subject, their real stories are not far off from this film (http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-hidden-figures-katherine-johnson-20170109-story.html). Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine Johnson, a recently widowed math whiz who works for NASA in Virginia, as a bookish nerd complete with glasses that keep sliding down her nose. She and her coworkers, smart and sassy Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and fiery and coquettish Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), quietly but forcefully demonstate their worth in an environment that doesn’t treat them as equals. While Katherine lugs binders and a calculator back and forth between her desk and the “colored” rest room clear across campus to figure out arcs and other shit I sure can’t, Dorothy teaches herself how to operate the new IBM that not even IBM technicians can set up correctly and Mary pushes her way into engineering classes at night in an all white, all male school. Director Theodore Melfi does a really nice job demonstrating institutionalized racism and sexism through characters who may not have anything against black people or women—as administrator Vivian Michael (Kristen Dunst) curtly tells Dorothy in one scene and unwilling research partner, Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons), makes clear to Katherine in another scene by redacting her name from a joint report they both wrote—but don’t recognize the issue.

Despite its merits, I found Hidden Figures to be slightly more sophisticated than a Lifetime movie. Melfi, who with Allison Schroeder adapted the screenplay from Margot Lee Shetterly’s book of the same name, takes a pretty basic approach to the material. It’s so easy—obvious, even—to gage where the story is headed. John Glenn (Glen Powell) sings Katherine’s praises while a love interest develops for her in handsome Col. Jim (Mahershala Ali). So cute. Hidden Figures gets into civil rights issues, but only on a superficial level. There are a few overdone Oscar grabs, like a scene between Katherine and her boss, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), that ends with him smashing the sign outside the “colored” ladies’ rest room, but no true show stoppers. Frankly, though, most of the actors here have appeared in better movies. Too bad, because this could’ve been a great film instead of just an okay one. Hidden Figures doesn’t quite do its trailblazing subjects justice.

127 minutes
Rated PG

(AMC River East) C+

http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/hidden-figures

Jackie

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

“Brookline is no place to bury a president.”

—Jackie Kennedy (allegedly)

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy: her name conjures up specific images—pink Chanel, a pillbox hat, pearls, big sunglasses, all illuminated by her unshakable poise. Jackie, the new biopic by Peruvian director Pablo Larraín, portrays the iconic former First Lady in a light I didn’t quite expect: strategic. While it certainly isn’t flattering, it doesn’t come off as negative, either.

Taking place over the days following the assassination of J.F.K. (Caspar Phillipson), Jackie is essentially a character study that follows Mrs. Kennedy (Natalie Portman) as she steadies and readies herself for both her husband’s funeral and the changes that lie ahead for her and her children (Sunnie Pelant, Aiden and Brody Weinberg). In the midst of her grief, she carefully and with an earnest sense of purpose culls various elements to assemble her husband’s legacy—which she begins with Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession.

From a technical standpoint, Jackie is impressive. Stéphane Fontaine’s cinematography is lovely, using a pallet of drab, saturated tones that calls to mind Kodak snapshots from the time period to create a somber look that reads clearly as November. He offsets this visual effect nicely with splashes of vivid reds. If nothing else, Jackie is a pretty movie. Structured with split time sequences that go backward and forward, the attention to detail is excellent: the film does a great job reproducing not just the White House and Mrs. Kennedy’s 1962 televised tour of it, but the early ’60s generally. Portman plays her part capably; she’s convincing as Mrs. Kennedy despite her annoying tendency to overdo the drama.

That’s about it for the positive. For all the pains Jackie takes to look and play out perfect, it gets a lot wrong. Those New England accents aren’t quite right, and none of the actors seem able to stick with them. Peter Sarsgaard is epically miscast as Bobby Kennedy, whom he doesn’t even try to emulate. I didn’t realize who he is until well into the film. It’s no secret that Mrs. Kennedy smoked, but popping pills and drinking as she gets dressed in the morning? And telling a priest (John Hurt) that she should’ve been a shop girl or a stenographer? I doubt it. The graphic scene of J.F.K.’s assassination, stuck in somewhere past the middle of the film well after a harrowing and far more effective scene of Mrs. Kennedy staring into a mirror and wiping blood off her face, is completely unnecessary; it comes off as a crude way to shock the audience—I jumped in my seat when I saw it, but not in a good way. The sloppy appearance and condescendingly bored demeanor of the reporter (Billy Crudup) is bizarre; sitting there in his Oxford with his tie undone as he interviews Mrs. Kennedy, I couldn’t help but wonder if in reality she would’ve opened up to him let alone allowed him into her home. He may be handsome, but his entire presence bummed me out.

The “psychological portrait” approach is mildly interesting for a little while, but the intrigue wears off. Jackie is nothing insightful, groundbreaking, or thought provoking. It could have been far more compelling considering its subject—this is total Oscar fodder, but it’s done so dully. I hope Larraín’s other new biopic, Neruda, is better.

100 minutes
Rated R

(Landmark Century) C-

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/jackie/