Tilda Swinton

Letters from Baghdad

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA/UK/France 2016)

“We rushed into the business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive political scheme.”

—Gertrude Bell

According to the promotional poster for Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad, the so-called “Queen of the Desert” and “female Lawrence of Arabia” Gertrude Bell “was as controversial as the history she made.” Well, that certainly sounds promising!

Born into a wealthy family, Bell immersed herself in the Middle East in the early 20th Century and used her talents as a writer and a schmoozer to intimately acquaint herself with the area, its people, and their culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell). Her contacts with influential expats and various Arab leaders combined with her knowledge of the culture led to an appointment as a British officer during World War I and a direct hand in drawing up the borders of modern Iraq.

Tilda Swinton gives Bell her voice, reading off camera Bell’s actual writings about events that occurred on her many trips and the people she met. In Bell’s own words, Swinton offers history, observations, and even some Victorian Era dish. Bell had at least as much influence as T. E. Lawrence a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia (played here by Eric Loscheider in a staged “talking head” interview made to look like old footage).

Bell’s life and the impact of her deeds a century later make for an interesting story. Painstakingly researched, Krayenbühl and Oelbaum pull from diverse source material—letters, diaries, photos—to show what cities like Baghdad and Damascus were like a hundred years ago. They do a great job humaninzing Bell, getting into personality flaws and personal disappointments. In both respects, Letters to Baghdad works really well.

Not everything works as well as it could, though. Some important items are treated superfically. For example, they mention the tension between the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds even back then, but Krayenbühl and Oelbaum don’t delve into it. They touch on Bell’s reasoning for the borders she devised, but they don’t give much critical assessment to it. I left with the distinct feeling that I didn’t get the whole story. Another problem: the staged interviews give a lot of information, but they’re cheesy.

I found myself glancing at my watch about halfway through Letters from Baghdad. It’s a well made documentary, but it’s not as enthralling as it promises to be.

With Ammar Haj Ahmad, Helen Ryan, Rachael Stirling, Robert Ian Mackenzie, Christopher Villiers, Lucy Robinson, Elizabeth Rider, Michael Higgs, Joanna David, Michelle Eugene, Paul McGann, Pip Torrens

Production: Between the Rivers Productions, Letters From Baghdad, Missing in Action Films

Distribution: Vitagraph Films (USA)

95 minutes
Not rated

(Landmark Century) C

http://lettersfrombaghdadthemovie.com/about/

Okja

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA/South Korea 2017)

“We needed a miracle, and then we got one.”

—Lucy Mirando

Bong Joon-ho’s Okja, now streaming on Netflix, is a lot of things; dull is not one of them. A slick, fast-paced, mesmerizing mix of fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, action, satire, and social consciousness, this film has a lot going on—and a lot going for it. I was lucky to see it on the big screen before its official release, and that’s how I recommend seeing it if you can. Sorry, Netflix, Okja is simply too good for TV.

The story begins ten years ago in 2007: in a desperate but brilliant attempt to rebrand a disreputable family business—to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, so to speak—Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) announces her master plan to breed an all-natural “superpig” that leaves a minimal footprint, feeds the world, and tastes great (https://superpigproject.com). Her company, Mirando Corporation, devises a competition, sending twenty-some piglets to real farmers across the globe to raise them; the company will monitor each pig over the next ten years and declare a “winner” based on the results. Mirando hires animal television show host Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), a zoologist whose star is fading, to lend credibility to the project as well as to generate public interest in it.

Fast forward to 2017: Mirando’s plan is coming to fruition without any hiccups, which makes her happier than a pig in…well, you know. Unfortunately for Mirando, a young South Korean girl named Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), whose grandfather (Byun Hee-bong) signed onto the project, threatens to derail the entire mission. Mija, you see, essentially raised her grandfather’s pig, Okja. They’ve become dependent on each other. He never explained to her what the deal really is—that Mirando’s silk purse is nothing more than lipstick on a pig.

Dr. Johnny and his television crew show up at their home in the mountains and marvel over Okja, now a magnificently enormous hippopotamus-like creature. He presents her grandfather with an award and takes Okja to Manhattan—actually, New Jersey—for a pig roast sponsored by the Mirando Corporation.

To put it lightly, Mija’s not having it—she takes off after Okja on a chaotic chase through Seoul, where she encounters the Animal Liberation Front, a group of inept animal rights activists led by idealistic but ineffective Jay (Paul Dano). They make a pact, but unfortunately she doesn’t speak English. Mija ends up at the world headquarters of Mirando Corporation in New York City, completely unaware of the cards she holds.

I went into Okja blind—the only thing I knew about it was that its central character is a big pig. I left more than satisfied: the cast is stellar, the effects are flawless, and the script is smart and strong despite its flaws. If that don’t beat a pig a-pecking, I don’t know what does.

In simplest terms, Okja is about our complicated consumerist relationship with food. As one pig farmer put it best, “Okja’s a fake pig in a movie I watched on Netflix. But plenty of real animals are suffering inside a horrific system that don’t have to.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/okja-thoughts-from-a-pig-farmer_us_595bd1cde4b0f078efd98cbd). On this point alone, Okja will resonate with anyone who’s ever connected with an animal—pig, dog, cat, bird, horse, aardvark. The story has been compared to E.T. (https://moviebloke.com/2016/03/29/e-t-the-extra-terrestrial-e-t/), and it’s pretty wonderful. The final scene, which takes place in a slaughterhouse, is hard to watch—I got anxious. And queasy. I thought of Morrissey!

Appropriately, the acting is hammy; I love that Swinton plays twins again. She looks like a deranged Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Gyllenhaal teeters on insufferable with his wimpy sniveling, but to his credit he manages to keep it in check. I’m usually unimpressed with computer animation, but here it’s amazingly well done; Okja looks as real as the humans. I think the trick is her eyes. Even with its Hollywood ending, Okja is definitely one of this year’s more interesting movies.

With Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Yoon Je-moon, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Choi Woo-shik, Giancarlo Esposito

Production: Kate Street Picture Company, Lewis Pictures, Plan B Entertainment

Distribution: Netflix

118 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B

https://www.netflix.com/title/80091936

Burn After Reading

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2008)

The Coen Brothers have made a lot of movies—just like Madonna has made a lot of albums. Burn After Reading is a light, wacky espionage spoof that’s fun to watch. It falls somewhere in the lower middle of their oeuvre—about where Hard Candy, another star-studded affair released the same year, falls for Madonna: good but not great, more fluffy than provocative, and interesting enough to pull out every now and then but certainly not the first thing I reach for when I’m in the mood for the artist.

The cast is stellar: Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt. The characters are amusing—everyone is, in a word, stupid. Malkovich as Osborne Cox is easily the standout: he’s an angry, misanthropic, drunk loose cannon. The plot, which involves a total misunderstanding about the contents of a CD left behind at a health club (Hardbodies), is typically intricate and well-executed Coen stuff. McDormand’s character, Linda—who she plays with a winning dippy positivism—has a hilariously brilliant motive: to extort money so she can buy the plastic surgery her insurance company won’t cover. Working Washington bigshots and Russian bad guys into the mix is a very nice touch.

All that said, Burn After Reading has its problems. The characters are cartoonish. The plot drags at points, especially the subplot with Clooney’s character, Harry, and his womanizing. The action chugs along and generates momentum, but somehow we don’t end up anywhere when all is said and done.

Burn After Reading isn’t perfect, but its highs overcome its flaws. It might rate higher in the hands of another team; but being the Coen Brothers, expectations are higher than average. That may not be fair to them, but it’s a fair statement nonetheless.

96 minutes
Rated R

(iTunes) C+

http://www.focusfeatures.com/burn_after_reading

Hail, Caesar!

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Hail, Caesar! is not typical Coen Brothers fare—in fact, I can’t think of anything they’ve done during their four-decade career that’s quite like it. Sure, its structure and approach to storytelling are definitely familiar, but the finished product is different. That’s a good thing—a very good thing.

Like most if not all of their films, the story focuses on one main character—here, Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin, who sounds and acts more like Matt Dillon the older he gets), a gruff studio executive at fictitious Capitol Pictures whose job apparently is to solve problems for stars—as he goes through a series of bizarre events and peculiar characters. The story takes place over 24 hours in 1951. The kidnapping of lead actor Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) during the filming of an expensive historical epic, Hail, Caesar!, and Mannix’s efforts to track him down serve as the main plot. In the midst of finding Whitlock, Mannix dispenses with his daily duties, which include rebranding a Western actor (Alden Ehrenreich), facilitating a weird adoption for a thrice-divorced starlet (Scarlett Johansson), dealing with a persnickety director (Ralph Fiennes), beating away twin sister gossip columnists (Tilda Swinton) threatening to expose studio dirty laundry, putting off a scout (Ian Blackman) wooing Mannix for a job with another company, and going to confession.

The Coen Brothers do dark humor exceedingly well, and they have their own distinct brand of it. What’s most refreshing about Hail, Caesar!, however, is its frivolity; it’s not one bit dark. Colorful, visual, big, and chock full of kitschy 50s nostalgia, the brothers keep the tone light even with the weighty parallel they draw between Capitalism, Communism, and Christianity. For example, a hilarious but smart exchange occurs during a conference with Mannix and a group of religious leaders—a Catholic priest (Robert Pike Daniel), a reverend (Allen Havey), an Eastern Orthodox clergyman (Aramazd Stepanian), and a rabbi (Robert Piccardo)—to discuss whether anything depicted in Hail, Caesar! is offensive to religion. On the surface, the conversation is about Christ, but it comically sums up the differences between certain religions and highlights the logical flaws that require faith to accept them.

The scenes on movie sets—and there are quite a few—are gorgeously eye-popping. One involves an elaborate Busby Berkeley-esque dance sequence in the water with about 30 showgirls and a mermaid. Another involves a homoerotic sailor number with Channing Tatum (who’s fucking awesome here) tap dancing to a snicker-inducing song about “dames” complete with clever nautical references to pussy. Hail, Caesar! is a sort of homage to Hollywood’s Golden Age, an era that the Coens seem to love judging from this picture. It’s a treat to see Frances McDormand, who hasn’t appeared in one of their films for awhile, in a cameo.

In the grand scheme of all things Coen, Hail, Caesar! is not their finest work—but it might be their funnest. It’s probably their purest comedy—only Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski and maybe O Brother, Where Art Thou? come close. Those expecting No Country for Old Men, Blood Simple, or even Fargo will be sorely disappointed; anyone else will probably enjoy it for the amusing diversion it is. I’m smiling just thinking about it.

(ArcLight) B

http://www.hailcaesarmovie.com/

 

Trainwreck

Posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

Trainwreck is a snarky romantic comedy that starts out promising but loses steam. Amy Schumer—who falls into a group of female comedians who bank on their guy humor sensibilities—is perfect as a detached trollop working as a writer for a men’s magazine. Her boss assigns her to a story about a sports doctor (Bill Hader) who perfected a new knee surgery, and a spark develops. Hilarity ensues—at least until the movie takes a serious turn.

Trainwreck is loaded with potty humor and sex jokes, and many of them are laugh out loud funny. I related to a few scenarios here, I should be ashamed to admit. John Cena and his ass are great as Amy’s lunkhead gay-but-doesn’t-know-it boyfriend, Tilda Swinton is unrecognizable as Amy’s boss, and LeBron James is a much better actor that I gave him credit for—his little sermon on Cleveland’s many perks made me smile. Sadly, though, Trainwreck derails once the romance develops and Amy gets more sober—the ending is happy, neat, and too cute. Gag.

(AMC River East) C+

http://www.trainwreckmovie.com