Movie Review J Edgar

J. Edgar (2011)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Written by Dustin Lance Black

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Judi Dench 

Release Date November 9th, 2011 

Published November 7th, 2011

J. Edgar Hoover's place in American history is remarkable. From the 1919 Anarchist Bombings to the Lindbergh baby to every famous gangster taken down by arrest or death, Hoover was there. When John F. Kennedy was killed; it was Hoover who informed Bobby Kennedy of the President's death with a terse phone call.

Hoover's place in American history is unquestionable regardless of his unethical, even treasonous acts. J. Edgar Hoover is a towering figure casting a shadow across the 20th century that touched everything from Al Capone to the Cold War to Kennedy's assassination to the beginning of Nixon's downfall.

A Fitting Tribute

The movie "J. Edgar," directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is a fitting tribute to the man. J. Edgar captures the best and the worst of the man who coined the phrase G-Man and revolutionized law enforcement while becoming infamous for his abuse of power and his private struggles with his sexuality.

The story of J. Edgar begins with an elderly J. Edgar Hoover (DiCaprio) dictating his memoirs. We begin with the origins of the Red Scare, the 1919 Anarchist Bombings. Hoover, at the behest of the Attorney General, a target of an assassins in the bombings, giving Hoover the authority to investigate the bombings with new, broader law enforcement powers.

Anarchist Bombings Raid

The Hoover led raid on a suspected communist labor headquarters was a debacle. While it could be proven that leaflets found at the scene of the bombing of the Attorney General's home were printed in this location there was no evidence that the people inside the supposed communist outpost had taken part in acts of terror.

Everyone, aside from Hoover, including the Attorney General lost their jobs because of the raid Hoover organized. With the infrastructure of the then Bureau of Investigations, the Federal moniker would be added later, and the job of director fell to Hoover as the last man standing. He would stay in the position for more than 40 years.

Three Important People

In his time as the head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover had only three people close to him, his mother (Judi Dench), his secretary for 40+ years, Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) and Hoover's right hand man, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). The relationship between Hoover and Tolson has been the topic of great conjecture for many years.

The movie "J. Edgar" treats the romance between J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson with respect and care. Keeping in mind the times in which these men lived, a repressed era when homosexuals faced grave persecution, it makes sense that the relationship is very reserved. That said, "J. Edgar" is not without passion as DiCaprio and Armie Hammer demonstrate remarkable chemistry.

Private Punchline

J.Edgar Hoover's private life has been a punch line for many years. That's because while going out his way to use rumor and innuendo about alternative lifestyles in order to blackmail and manipulate other powerful individuals, it's a karmic comeuppance that Hoover's own private life becomes fodder for ridicule.

That said, director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black treat Hoover's cross-dressing and homosexuality with grace and caring. In fact, it may be Eastwood's considerable tenderness in treating Hoover, making him something of a tragic victim of his time, which may be bothering people the most about "J. Edgar."

A Remarkable, Oscar Worthy Effort

Those who wish only to condemn Hoover's awful excesses will struggle with the moments in "J.Edgar" when Hoover is treated with respect and care and even rendered sympathetic. No man or woman is defined in a single way; there are always degrees and shades. Most of J. Edgar Hoover's life was spent on the wrong path but other parts of his life are worthy of a fair revision.

"J. Edgar" is a remarkable film. Clint Eastwood's direction is artful and studied while Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is layered with sadness, strength and a compelling will. The Academy Awards season has begun and "J. Edgar" is one film highly likely to make an impact on Hollywood's biggest night.

Movie Review Sorry to Bother You

Sorry to Bother You (2018) 

Directed by Boots Riley

Written by Boots Riley 

Starring LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Danny Glover, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, Armie Hammer, David Cross, Steven Yuen, Omari Hardwick, Jermaine Fowler

Release Date July 6th, 2018

Published July 6th, 2018

Sorry to Bother You is among the most bracing and stupefying movies of this century. Directed by Boots Riley, no film aside from perhaps Get Out, has felt this alive in this moment of our shared American history. This absurdist masterpiece about identity politics, corporate greed, liberal guilt and moral licensing, works on so many unique levels of satire it can be hard to keep up with but it’s damn sure worth trying to keep up with.

Sorry to Bother You stars LaKeith Stanfield, a star of the aforementioned Get Out along with equally of the moment series Atlanta on FX. Stanfield plays Cassius Green, a lean and hungry young man, quite literally hungry, he has almost no money, who we meet as he attempts to lie himself into a new job. Cassius is applying to work at a telemarketing firm and once hired he finds himself struggling to make sales.

Then, an older telemarketer, Langston (Danny Glover), gives Cash some very important advice, use your white voice. Here’s where the transgressive kick of Sorry to Bother You kicks in. Immediately, Langston gets on the phone and the surreal voice of Steve Buscemi is coming out of the mouth of Danny Glover. Soon, Cash gives his white voice a shot and he’s a natural with the voice of David Cross laying over that of LaKeith Stanfield.

This is the first layer of the identity politics satire at play in Sorry to Bother You. It gets a great deal more intense after that, after Cash realizes how powerful he can be with his ultra-confident white voice. Soon, Cash is promoted to Power Caller and is working in a pampered office with a six figure salary while his friends, including Union organizer, Squeeze (Steven Yuen) and girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson) are left behind to try and fight for more pay without the power of Cash’s earning power to help their position.

Cash’s rise through the ranks is rapid and he soon catches the attention of the company’s biggest client, a slave labor corporation known as WorryFree. WorryFree CEO Steve Lift (Armie Hammer) is a psychotic mashup of Martin Shkrelli and Elon Musk, with just a dash of Jeff Bezos’ union busting egotism. Whether intentional or not, the notion of Worryfree signing workers to lifetime contracts that offer them room and board in exchange for permanent employment feels like a shot at Bezos and the conditions he’s rumored to have created for Amazon warehouse workers.

Then again, the way it is framed, the corporate satire could play off of any number of modern, soulless, labor busting CEOs. Where this satire winds up is a stunner of transgressive ideas that are terrifyingly and yet hilariously staged. Sorry to Bother You is wildly unpredictable  and boldly weird, a refreshingly artful and funny mix. A scene featuring a party at Lift’s house features one of the most explosive and uncomfortably real scenes I have ever witnessed.

The scene is textbook moral licensing, a concept wherein people, or a group of people, excuse their worst behaviors by doing something they feel is moral or selfless. In this case, allowing Cash into their world gives the white people at Lift’s party, in their minds, the moral license to ask him to demean himself and his race for their amusement and it's okay because they claim he is now one of their peers.

We aren’t finished though with the multiple levels of transgressive satire in Sorry to Bother You. Boots Riley turns social science into a gorgeous work of art. With an incredible cast that also includes a stellar performance by Tessa Thompson and a horrifyingly pitch perfect villain turn from Armie Hammer who combines the worst qualities of the billionaire class and amps them with eye-bulging energy.

President Calvin Coolidge famously said of D.W Griffith’s Birth of a Nation that it was “History written with lightning.” I’m taking that statement away from Griffith’s racist screed and giving it here to Boots Riley Sorry to Bother You. THIS is history written with lightning, just history that is in progress, as we speak. This film is a bolt of lightning to our collective soul, an electrifying and vital work of art.

The more we allow corporate greed to separate itself from moral guidance, the closer we get to Sorry to Bother You. The more we condone or fail to recognize moral licensing, the closer we get to the vision of Sorry to Bother You. We need to recognize these things and Sorry to Bother You is a clarion call to recognize these vital issues and its artfulness is a hilarious and horrifying guide to the kind of moral rot that could be our future if we fail to change.

Identity and politics and satire all in one package, Sorry to Bother You deserves Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Lakeith Stanfield, Best Supporting Actress for Tessa Thompson, Best Supporting Actor for Armie Hammer, Best Director for Boots Riley and Best Screenplay, among other awards. That’s how incredibly brilliant Sorry to Bother You is. I haven’t seen a movie this excitingly, scathingly, bravely, transgressive as this in my life and I am excited this exists.

Movie Review: The Social Network

The Social Network (2010)

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Aaron Sorkin

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara

Releease Date October 1st, 2010 

Published September 30t, 2010

For the past five years Facebook has been rising through our culture and becoming a phenomenon. It's a phenomenon that does not merely exist on its own but captures the rise to predominance of online culture vs. all other forms of discourse. Lives are lived online as much as they are in real life in many cases and much of those lives date back to one night when one 20-year-old college kid had a few beers and banged out the computer code that would cause a social networking revolution.

David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" is the mostly true story of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the purported founder of Facebook. There is some question as to whether Mark, now the world's youngest billionaire at 26 years old, actually came up with the idea or if he stole it, adapted it and reaped the rewards. The film takes its shape from depositions in two different lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg by friends and attempted colleagues.

Writer Ben Mezrich used the depositions as well as numerous interviews and investigative reporting as the basis for his sensational book "The Accidental Billionaires" which comes to thrilling and enthralling life onscreen as "The Social Network." Under the expert direction of David Fincher and the whip crack, witty dialogue of writer Aaron Sorkin, the founding of one website and the personalities behind it becomes a dialogue about the modern internet culture and a commentary on the direction of society.

Flashbacks begin and end in "The Social Network" with crash cuts to Mark Zuckerberg sitting in an entirely irritated state in a lawyer's office. Eduardo Severin (Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg's former best friend and the man who put up the money to start Facebook and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer, in a remarkably non-showy, dual role) are suing Zuckerberg over Facebook but for very different reasons.

Forget the merits of either suit, it's clear Severin had a real beef while the Winklevoss's and their partner Divya Narenda were grasping at straws having simply a generic idea that they asked Zuckerberg to code for them and failed to administer on their own, the lawsuits are merely the ordering device. The meat of "The Social Network" is in the extraordinary casting, acting and writing as well as David Fincher's remarkable talent for setting a scene. 

Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg as a social illiterate who sees other people as a means to an end. We see at the start of the film a fictional account of Mark on a date with a girl played by Rooney Mara. It's evident to us, if not immediately to her, that Mark has no real interest in her beyond the physical need to be a normal 20 something male being seen in public with an attractive woman. Mara's character is a device but a terrific one; the date establishes who Mark is, his motivations and desires and the scene is filled with smart, fast paced, witty dialogue that gets the movie off to a running start.

Eisenberg owns the screen in this opening scene; his words fly like Edward Norton's fists in "Fight Club" and are occasionally as devastating. David Fincher's "Fight Club" was an indictment of consumer and pop culture disposability and "The Social Network" picks up where "Fight Club" left off by cutting the computer chord that binds the audience to Facebook and showing us the true face of social media, the good the bad and the ugly.

Opposite Eisenberg is Andrew Garfield as the much maligned and abused Facebook co-founder and CFO Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo is the genius and sap who made several hundred thousand dollars as a very young man, pledged some of that money to Mark Zuckerberg and watched his supposed friend attempt to jettison him from the company they founded together. Through Garfield's fierce yet sensitive performance we see how Saverin was seduced, betrayed and bewildered by Zuckerberg and the fast paced, wired world of Facebook.

Justin Timberlake is a lightning bolt of humor and charisma as Sean Parker, the former Napster founder who dazzled Zuckerberg by being the social butterfly Zuckerberg could never be but envied deeply. Parker is the high side of Internet culture, the freewheeling good times, the connections that work out and the potential for trouble that can arise from making connections with people you don't know. He is the polar opposite to Andrew Garfield's Saverin, whose story is another more truthful metaphor for the online experience of attempting to connect with friends and strangers in an online wasteland of forgettable status updates.

Facebook and the culture of social networking are by nature, not important. It brings little to nothing of value to the world. It is the intangible equivalent to candy. It's sweet and tasty or it can be souring, even disgusting. It can brighten your day or make you sick but in the end, Facebook, MySpace and the rest have no value beyond the metaphorical sugar high of faux connectedness.

The strength of "The Social Network" as crafted by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin lies in recognizing the emptiness of the Facebook world and using the real life creators and their stories as a means of exposing the emptiness. Vapid status updates, perfunctory friend requests and questionable relationship statuses are the heart of Facebook and through the characters of "The Social Network" the stark reality of social networking becomes resonant, jarring messages for audiences merely expecting the sex, drugs and computer coding behind the pop phenomena of Facebook.

In "Fight Club" Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter watched the world fall apart around them as they held hands and connected truly for the first time. Facebook and the world of social networking comes crashing down in "The Social Network" and the witnesses are us, the audience, many of whom have spent far too much time taking Facebook far too seriously.

Movie Review On the Basis of Sex

On the Basis of Sex (2018) 

Directed by Mimi Leder

Written by Daniel Stiepleman

Starring Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Sam Waterston, Kathy Bates 

Release Date December 25, 2018

Published December 21st, 2018 

On the Basis of Sex stars Felicity Jones in the life story of sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We join the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she became one of the first classes at Harvard to allow women, all the way back in 1954. Mrs Ginsburg was already married to her beloved husband, Martin (Armie Hammer) and was eager to start a family all while navigating the sexist and incredibly demanding schedule of a Harvard Law student.

As if her life weren’t difficult enough, in short order, Ruth becomes a mother and her husband develops testicular cancer and cannot attend his own Harvard law classes. So, Ruth attends and takes notes in Martin’s classes, attends her own, writes papers for herself while taking dictation from Martin for his coursework and while the two are raising their baby daughter. To say this woman was driven and brilliant is quite the understatement.

When Martin graduates and accepts a position at a high powered New York City law firm, Ruth completes her Harvard coursework while also attending classes at Columbia to be close to her husband. She then struggles to find a law firm that will hire her despite graduating at the top of her class. Ruth ends up accepting a teaching position at Rutgers where she finds herself at the center of a cultural revolution as her students are taking to the streets to demand social change.

Inspired in part by her students and by her daughter, Jane (Cailee Spaeny), Ruth finds a lawsuit that challenges the status quo in a way that will reverberate through the years in the battle against sexism. A Colorado man was denied a caregivers tax break because only women were allowed to be caretakers to family members who were incapacitated by illness. If Ruth can prove that the tax law is discriminatory against a man, it could create a precedent that could knock down dozens of laws that give different rights to men than to women.

On the Basis of Sex was directed by Mimi Leder, a solid pro director who brings a strong polish to this otherwise very straightforward biopic. There is certainly a remarkable amount of hero worship going on but it’s not entirely unearned. As played by Felicity Jones, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is some kind of real-life superhero, a rebuke to anyone who says you can’t have it all. Top of her class, married, two kids, and one of the most notable legal careers of modern American history. Indeed, that is heroic.

If I have any issues with On the Basis of Sex, it’s with the compressed timeline of the film. At times, because of the editing and the odd transitions, it can be difficult to track where we are in time. The film employs time jumps to get to the juicier parts of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life but in that, we have a moment where she goes from having one child to suddenly having a toddler son in such an abrupt fashion that you might miss a scene just catching up to where we are in time.

On the Basis of Sex is just a tad sloppy here in there from a structural standpoint but that’s a relatively minor issue. It’s one of those things that separates a good movie from a great movie. On the Basis of Sex is quite a good movie in my estimation but it’s not great. Leder’s approach to the life of Ginsburg is just a little too antiseptic. I am not asking for there to be dirt or grit, but some will find the level of hero worship approaching hagiography.

On the Basis of Sex is the second movie of 2018 dedicated to the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The other is a more necessary and comprehensive documentary called RBG. That film does render On the Basis of Sex a tad redundant. While On the Basis of Sex is kept to a specific portion of Ginsburg’s life and that gives it at least a different focus, RBG’s comprehensiveness makes it the far more essential portrait.

On the Basis of Sex is a sturdy and involving drama, a little loose in the editing but certainly not a bad movie. The lead performance from Felicity Jones is energetic, intelligent and engaging and the supporting cast is solid, with Armie Hammer as the standout as Martin Ginsburg, an unsung hero who supported his wife every step of her journey, even as every other man in her life created new barriers to her success.

If you had to choose one movie on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, RBG is far more essential but On the Basis of Sex is strong enough that I can recommend it.

Movie Review Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals (2016) 

Directed by Tom Ford

Written by Tom Ford 

Starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Armie Hammer, Michael Shannon

Release Date November 18th, 2006 

Published November 16th, 2006 

“Nocturnal Animals” is a daring film of unique power and affect. Directed by fashion designer Tom Ford, the film stars Amy Adams as Susan, a desperately unhappy Los Angeles art dealer whose past comes back to haunt her in the form of a book written by her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). Reading the book, alone in her enormous and empty home over a weekend where her new husband (Armie Hammer) is out of town, Susan is struck by feelings for Edward she thought she’d lost years ago.

The book is called “Nocturnal Animals” and it is dedicated to Susan. The book is a revenge thriller about a family traveling through a West Texas desert when they are menaced by a group of criminals. We see the story play out in Susan’s imagination with Edward in the lead role of Tony, a good man but not one well suited for a confrontation with criminals. We watch as the confrontation between Tony’s family and the criminals grows from harassment to kidnapping and to something extraordinarily disturbing.

The film goes on to lay in the back story of how Susan and Edward met, fell in love and eventually fell apart. Susan devastated Tony and created a resentment that lasted nearly two decades. The book he’s written is in many ways a reflection of his hurt feelings but you will need to see the movie for yourself to follow that line of logic as I will not spoil anything here.

Michael Shannon plays a role in “Nocturnal Animals” that I am reluctant to go into in order to avoid spoilers. That said, Shannon is Oscar-level brilliant. Shannon acts with every inch of his gaunt frame and with his devastating glare. The character is not unlike a Quentin Tarentino character full of pith and anger in equal measure but slightly less morally ambivalent. It’s an exceptional performance, easily one of the best single performances of 2016.

“Nocturnal Animals” is the second feature film for Director Tom Ford following his artful debut, 2009’s “A Single Man” which won an Oscar for Colin Firth’s remarkable lead performance. Coming from the world of fashion, Ford has a phenomenal eye. Both “Nocturnal Animals” and “A Single Man” are gorgeous to look at even as they explore the uglier side of life. Even the grittiest moments of “Nocturnal Animals” have a beauty to them that most filmmakers would have foregone in trying to underline the grit. Ford smartly uses the crisp, clear cinematography to show that beauty exists even in the dark.

I must add a bit of a caveat to this review. Though I am recommending the movie highly, “Nocturnal Animals” is not for all audiences. The first moments of the film are taunting and provocative and will cause some people to walk out of the theater in protest. Full disclosure, I turned away from the screen on my first viewing and had to force myself to confront the images the second time I watched the film for this review. The opening has little to do with the rest of the movie but I appreciate how this credits sequence jolts us in the audience to wide attention.

Moviegoing is often a passive experience and the credits sequence of “Nocturnal Animals” breaks through that passivity in no uncertain terms. Could the film have done without the jolt? Probably. The story being told is quite good and the performances of Adams, Gyllenhaal, and especially Michael Shannon are strong enough to jolt audiences on their own. That said, I understand the inclusion of the opening and on reflection I appreciate the jolt even as it is quite forceful.