Another Year

 On the surface this is a movie about the day to day life of an elderly, happily married couple (Tom and Gerri), their son and friends, among them Mary and Ken. All seems well in suburban London until that very last shot of the film, a most disturbing scene, the climax of the movie.
We see Mary at the kitchen table of her friends and as the conversation passes her by she realizes she doesn't matter to them any more. Worse, we see it dawning on her that she may never have mattered to them at all in their relationship of 20 years. The comparison with her car is inevitable, a vehicle that should have brought her a sense of freedom, but turned out to be a lemon if ever there was one. As another commenter wrote, it is a scene of exceptional cruelty. (Can I nominate Ms Manville for an Oscar, please?)
How could this insincerity, this not-so-mild form of wickedness persist over such a long time ? Perhaps it has something to do with the British fondness of manners, but I think it has to do with work, more specifically in Tom and Gerri's case with having a profession, being a professional.
A professional is someone who is applying a set of rules, an algorithm to a standard input to produce a standard output. (What distinguishes a professional from a craftsman is that the input, rules and output are so complex that they defy supervision.) Tom and Gerri are professionals and what they are doing is extending their professional attitude to their personal lives. Their relationship with Mary is professional. Their marriage is dealt with professionally. Their marital bliss is ultimately based on their contentment with the standardized output it produces. Tomatoes anyone ?
Contrast this with Ken and Mary. Ken is an alcoholic in bad physical shape. He was once handsome however and has a good heart. His problem is that he questions the meaning of his job, which in his case seems to amount to questioning the meaning of his life. And then there is Mary. Her goal in life is Love, not work, thereby committing the ultimate sin (not making work your life goal that is).
Two scenes illustrate the stranglehold work has on our lives (and the importance of it for the movie's theme, I think). In the first an Asian couple is visiting Joe, an old man threatened with eviction and a young woman acting as his interpreter, her ability to help the old man, however, limited to the duration of her lunch break. In the second Carl arrives too late for his mother's funeral, having been stuck in a traffic jam. The funeral couldn't be postponed however, another one was already waiting.
So are Tom and Gerri right ? At the dinner table Tom is telling of how he and Gerri met, by chance on their first day in university. This detail hints at the internal inconsistency of their way of life. And of course right at the beginning of the movie there is this session of Gerri with the sleepless patient, an Everywoman. It shows her utterly failing in her role of counselor, her very profession.
Mary is indeed looking for love in all the wrong places. At the end of the film you realize that, despite all appearances Tom & Gerri's was such a place.

Kill the Irishman

America loves the tough guy. The guy who faces the impossible odds and beats them to a bloody pulp. Examples - Rocky, Dirty Harry or Dalton ("Road House"). America also loves the bad guy. The guy that we really shouldn't support but we do anyhow. Examples - The Godfather, Scarface and Henry Hill ("Goodfellas"). In "Kill the Irishman" we are now given a new underdog, bad guy to cheer for, Danny Greene (played by Ray Stevenson). All-American tough guy.
In Jonathan Hensleigh's latest movie based on Danny Greene's life in the 1970s, we see the tough guy who works his way up from the docks in Cleveland, Ohio. Greene has it rough from the beginning, an orphan raised on Cleveland's mean streets. He takes a job on the docks shoveling grain and is soon given the opportunity to become a union leader because he is one of the only guys that reads books. So, he is also a tough guy with some intellect. He literally fights his way into his position of Union Boss. From there he leads a corrupt life assisting the local Italian mafia in robbing the docks where he works.
Does this sound like any kind of movie hero? Why are we intrigued to continue watching? Maybe it's because some of us (mainly us guys) secretly want to be Greene. The guy that doesn't take nonsense from anyone. If someone gets in your way, break his jaw, beat him down and don't worry about consequences.
Things are going well for Greene until his arrest; his bad deeds finally catch up to him. He cuts a deal with the FBI to become an informant and is back home with his wife and kids. He now needs to find work. He soon becomes a debt collector for Shondor Birns (played by Christopher Walken). Although Greene is Irish and Birns is Italian they don't let that stand in the way of their friendship, especially since there is money to be made.
Again things are going well for Greene, he patrols Cleveland with his crew collecting past due balances for the mafia. Being a tough guy he usually lets his fist or hand gun do the talking. Things soon go south for Greene and Birns due to a lost $70,000. Immediately there is a price on Greene's head.
In 1976 there were 36 explosions that rocked Cleveland therefore dubbing it as Bomb City, USA. This is all due in part to the Italian mob trying to kill the Irishman, Greene. He dodges bullets like Superman and survives explosions like John McClain ("Die Hard") then walks away with an indifferent attitude.
How does he survive all of these assassination attempts? He is an Irish Catholic with the grace of God. Greene doesn't show fear; he keeps himself believing his intent is to be a modern day Robin Hood for the community. Even after losing his children and wife, he sticks it out because tough guys never give up. Especially Irish Catholic tough guys.
Should you see this movie? Sure, if you like tough guys and if you like cheering for the bad guy. Greene's take-no-guff attitude kept his character interesting when the story seemed to lag or when there weren't any cars blowing up. He is supported by a cast of strong veterans, Val Kilmer, Vincent D'Onofrio and Paul Sorvino. The film also has an authentic documentary feel to it since Hensleigh incorporates actual footage from newscasts covering Greene's life as a local legend.

13 Assassins

13 Assassins is that big budgeted, ramped up samurai action picture in the same spirit as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, where a group of skilled swordsmen get their destiny all charted out when the people look toward their expertise to uphold justice, and the men stepping up to be counted in the face of societal adversity. It's that typical story of moral courage of a few good men chosen to execute a mission to try and reset the status quo, or die trying while at it.
Miike's film is structured in a wonderfully simple way, and it starts off with perversion in introducing the main villain, Naritsugu Matsudaira (Goro Inagaki) who is the Shogun's brother, but earning a reputation of being a cold heated killer, rapist, and just hell bound bad guy with zero morals or respect for the sanctity of human life. This film would not have worked without this basic, powerful half hour set up where a character so vile gets luxuriously painted to get you to thoroughly hate the person, his action and his guts, while painting him to also be a formidable, skilled opponent that you wonder just how difficult it would be to get to him for a face off, but how delightful it would be to finally get that shot to take him down.
The film then launches into its midsection which played out like a typical heist movie, with the recruitment of the would be perpetrators and an introduction to what they bring to the table, coupled with the meticulous planning in preparing for an almost suicidal mission where a few men would be taking on an army, guessing and second guessing intent and what the enemy would likely react to any planted changes, in an effort to stay an extra step ahead. And there's the tense face off between the leaders from both camps, rivals once when young and now standing on opposites, engaging in barbed dialogue and scare-mongering, psychological tactics to size up a known opponent. It's a poignant scene on how each are duty bound by their orders through their honour and the usual samurai values they live and die by.
With 13 heroic characters crammed into 141 minutes meant an unequal amount of screen time getting devoted to each of them, so a tradeoff becomes inevitable, but the ones who do get introduced in depth thankfully turned out to be as varied and as interesting as can be. There's the leader Shinzaemon Shimada (Koji Yakusho) who got tasked to take up this mission, and in doing so assembled his team which included trusted deputy Saheita Kuranaga (Hiroki Matsukata), a star pupil Kuzuro Hirayama (Tsuyoshi Ihara) whose skill is excellent par none, and various other inner circle, trusted members to undertake this secret mission, including his nephew Shinrokuro Shimada (Takayuki Yamada who also worked in Takeshi Miike twice in the successful Crows Zero series) a compulsive gambler and womanizer who's obviously in this mission on a quest for redemption.
But the character of Koyata Saga (Yusuke Iseya) served as the most interesting of the lot, not being of samurai stock, and chanced upon by Shinzaemon and team en route through a forest, before Koyata's wit and know how in navigation earned his place to be with them. Providing a fair share of comedy and critique on the ways of the samurai, I thought this chap personified a higher being for his stunning turnaround scene at the end which may leave some bewildered, as well as to provide Miike an outlet to deal with some of his more signature stuff, including Koyata's an incredibly large member and high sex drive which did stick out like a sore thumb in the more serious build up where Shinzaemon's troops got down to fortifying and booby-trapping the village.
One needs to look no further than the two Crows Zero films to know that Miike can deliver full scale assaults with balletic qualities, accentuated by an adrenaline pumping soundtrack. If it's action you're craving, 13 Assassins delivers by the loads through a gloriously choreographed 45 minute action set piece utilizing a series of weapons from bows and arrows, spears and explosives, where it becomes like a reverse Bodyguards and Assassins where every angle of the ambushed town got covered in blood and body parts, with plenty of on-screen dismemberment of limbs. It's no holds barred where the element of surprise, and the discovery of being grossly outnumbered, brings forth that sense of inevitable dread amongst those from both sides, as one seeks to cut off the head of the hydra, while the other frantically looking for a way out of being uncharacteristically cornered. Plenty of pathos got built in as well especially in that final few fights, where you will find it hard not to weep for the fallen.
It isn't easy to take down the corrupt who have power and the sworn loyalty amongst the powerful, but this film inspires in that provision of hope that so long as good and able men are willing to make that sacrifice for the common good, there is still that fighting chance to make right the things that have gone wrong under the hands of the criminal. Even Fate would also lend a hand. Definitely highly recommended as this swash-buckles its way to be amongst the best of this year's selection.

Longford

 "Longford," a decidedly British film, is a look at the Earl of Longford (Jim Broadbent) and his resolute belief that a notorious serial killer of young children was worthy of redemption first and parole second.
Myra Hindley (Samantha Morton) was convicted along with her boyfriend, Ian Brady (Andy Serkis), of murdering a string of children in 1964 and '65 -- one of the most notorious cases in British criminal history. Brady was singled out as the real killer and Hindley his accessory -- less evil by half, perhaps -- whom Brady emotionally manipulated. The killing of the children and burial of the bodies in the remote and moody moors near Manchester became a sensation in Britain and led to the pair being viciously ostracized even in prison.
The Earl of Longford -- "an unconventional politician whose liberal views courted controversy in the Cabinet and the national press," according to HBO -- is perfect fodder for Morgan, who also wrote yet another Oscar-nominated film this year, "The Last King of Scotland." What was going on in Longford's mind as he took up the cause of Hindley? It was an obsession of sorts that put him at odds not only with the public and his friends but even his family, particularly his wife, Elizabeth (Lindsay Duncan), though she, too, would come to support Hindley.
For Morgan, the answer makes for an emotionally unsettling, intricately nuanced story that hints at three areas of Longford's personality. First, he made a name for himself attempting to champion and rehabilitate prisoners, a socially progressive streak that lasted his whole life. With Hindley, Longford also found a fellow convert to Catholicism -- and "Longford" posits that this good and just man believed fervently that religion played an integral part in turning Hindley into "a good woman" after the fact. Last, and with judicious shading, Morgan makes viewers believe that Longford may have been falling in love with Hindley as he devoted years of his life to her cause.
At various times in the languid but always fascinating movie, these traits make the viewer's emotional connection to Lord Longford waver, then stiffen. Was he a passionately committed politician who sought justice where others feared to fight? Did his religious beliefs lead him to seek redemption and forgiveness for someone who didn't deserve it? And was his defense of Hindley blinded by love?
Morgan is a skilled dramatist and, much as in "The Queen," he doesn't want to bash viewers over the head in "Longford." This is filmmaking as character study, not straw man showboating (which a less skilled writer could have easily opted for in either movie). Aided by director Tom Hooper ("Elizabeth I" and "Prime Suspect 6"), Morgan tells his story in a way that doesn't put an exclamation point on a tidy historical story -- he opts for a question mark instead, while ultimately and satisfactorily letting the viewers in on the true-life ending.
Though "Longford" is a much smaller movie and in many ways more expressly British -- the "Moors murders" are almost unknown here, while the tribulations of the "People's Princess" are the stuff of near fairy tale -- it presents Morgan with a more difficult challenge. The isolation from a reality she didn't want to acknowledge revealed the emotional hollowness of the queen, and in the end she earned some sympathy. But Lord Longford chooses to support someone the tabloids dub "the most hated woman in Britain," a woman whose unspeakable acts are not immediately offset by her personality. So Longford the man is a tougher sell.
Credit Broadbent with a flinty, gutty performance as Longford. He's able to convey a righteousness at the beginning that's matched by a naive, infatuated wishfulness in the middle and a more sober recollecting in the end. Serkis adds a bracing, cocksure evilness to Brady that helps to unmask Longford's early beliefs. It's yet another standout performance from him.
And finally, Morton is careful not to give too much away as Hindley. The judge in the case said, "Though I believe Brady is wicked beyond belief without hope of redemption, I cannot feel that the same is necessarily true of Hindley once she is removed from his influence." And yet Brady is steadfast in his assertion that Hindley was equally guilty. And her voice was chillingly caught on tape talking with one of the murder victims.
So was she manipulated? Or did she manipulate Longford? To his credit, Morgan doesn't make the movie about Hindley or even the crimes. He focuses on one man who tested his faith and his reputation by refusing to pass judgment.

It's Kind of a Funny Story

¨The difference between today and last Saturday is that for the first time in a while, I can look forward to the things I want to do in my life. Bike, eat, drink, talk, ride the subway, read, run, travel, swim, skip.¨ They say that two heads think better than one, and that might be the case with directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck who have collaborated in the past with films such as Half Nelson (which gave Ryan Gosling his first Oscar nomination), and the surprise critical hit of 2009: Sugar, about a Dominican baseball player trying to make it in the major leagues and adapting to his new life in the United States. The Cohen brothers also prove this point so there is nothing wrong with teaming up as directors. Boden and Fleck have demonstrated their directorial talents before and do it once again with It's Kind of a Funny Story. The three films they have directed are all very different from each other, and this is more or less a dramatic comedy with probably more drama to it than comedy. This isn't one of those laugh out loud Galifianakis comedies, it is much more serious, but there are still plenty of laughs (or at least scenes that will make you smile). This movie has some heart to it as well; there is good chemistry between the two young characters played by Gilchrist and Roberts. The romantic story works, the drama works, and so does the comedy as long as you aren't expecting a film like The Hangover. Boden and Fleck adapted the screenplay themselves from the novel of the same name written by Ned Vizzini. This is not your typical Hollywood film, it is different and you probably would expect that if you've seen the rest of the films they have directed.
Craig (Keir Gilchrist from the United States of Tara series) is a smart kid, who studies at a gifted school, and has a normal loving family, but who deals with depression and suicidal thoughts. He is obsessed with his best friend Aaron's (Thomas Mann) girlfriend Nia (Zoe Kravitz). Craig decides to check himself into a mental institution on Sunday expecting to spend the day there, but doctors decide he should stay a week and follow the program since he claims to be a danger to himself. His parents Lynn (Lauren Graham from Gilmore Girls) and George (Jim Gaffigan) are supportive of the doctor's decision and decide to let him stay at the mental hospital in the adult ward since the juvenile section is under renovation. Craig is really stressed out with his life and about getting the Gates Application for Summer school which would look great for his college resume. His father is always focused on his job, but is pushing Craig so that he can get the application. Craig seems to be obsessed and stressed out with all these little things, and forgotten therefore to enjoy life. In the ward he meets patients with much greater problems than his own. He befriends Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) who teaches him a couple things about life, but who seems to have a lot of issues of his own. Then there is his Egyptian roommate who never speaks to anyone or leaves the room, Muqtada (Bernard White). And finally he meets Noelle (Emma Roberts) a girl about his age who he begins falling for. Together the patients learn from each other and Craig begins to find help in his therapy sessions with Dr. Eden Minerva (Viola Davis), as well as with drawing and music sessions.
It's Kind of a Funny Story might not be as funny as you expect, but it is kind of a sweet story. The film doesn't try to be preachy or anything like that at all, but it is kind of uplifting and one can find a way out of depression by watching this movie. Finding the things one enjoys in life and focusing on them instead of all the other issues can help live a less stressful life. The characters in the ward are much more interesting than the rest of the characters from the outside world. Craig's parents, his friend Aaron and his girlfriend all are left in the background since they are outshined by the patients who are way better developed in the film. Galifianakis shines in every scene he is in, Gilchrist and Roberts are really good together on screen and share some great chemistry, and the rest of the patients all share the most memorable moments of the movie. We are drawn into the world of the mental hospital and could care less about the outside world. One of the best scenes of the movie is when the patients get together for their musical therapy and they all play the song Under Pressure. It's Kind of a Funny Story reminds us that there is more to life than just study and work, it's the little things which can give us the most pleasure out of life. We can't change anything through worrying so why stress out so much. I really enjoyed this movie and recommend it although be warned it's not your typical Hollywood film. It is kind of slowly paced, but once you meet the characters inside the ward it's worth it.