Movie Review Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) 

Directed by Martin McDonagh

Written by Martin McDonagh

Starring Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Peter Dinklage 

Release Date November 10th, 2017 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri stars Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes, a mother whose daughter was brutally raped and murdered. The crime has not been solved after eight months and a frustrated Mildred is at her wit's end when she sees three empty billboards on a lonely street side outside of the town of Ebbing. Hoping to light a fire under the local Chief of Police, Jim Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), Mildred books all three billboards with a message directed at the chief.

It’s not long before Chief Willoughby is at Mildred’s door and a series of events unfolds that you will not be able to predict. Everyone from the Chief’s loyal deputy, Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) to the billboard owner Red (Caleb Landry Jones) to everyday folks like James (Peter Dinklage), who has a crush on Mildred, gets drawn into the ensuing chaos. Some, like Dixon, are the cause of the chaos. Others, like Red and James along with Mildred’s son Robbie (Lucas Hedges), get swept up in the story.

Written and directed by Martin Mcdonaugh, director of the remarkable In Bruges and the middling Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is lacking in McDonough’s usual biting wit but is nevertheless infused with the same angry energy of his previous films. Mcdonaugh is a writer-director fascinated by injustice, righteous anger, and the destructive power of guilt and those themes are dominant and well-explored in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Frances McDormand is a force of nature. Her grief-stricken performance in Three Billboards could not possibly be more effective. Mildred’s grief comes from being a mother but also from a deep well of guilt, especially over the shocking final words she shared with her daughter Angela (Kathryn Newton), seen in a powerful flashback scene. Mildred wants the police to go to all lengths to catch her daughter’s killer and McDormand gives us the tragic sense that revenge may be all the feeling she has left.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Women Talking

Women Talking (2022) 

Directed by Sarah Polley 

Written by Sarah Polley 

Starring Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Ben Whishaw 

Release Date December 23rd, 2022 

Published December 22nd, 2022

Women Talking is directed by Sarah Polley with a script Polley adapted from a book by Marion Toews. The story is set inside a cloistered Mennonite community in 2010. After having endured sexual and physical abuse from the men in their colony for years, the newest assault has the women of the community questioning what to do to stop this from happening again. 8 women are assigned the task of determining what must be done, either staying and fighting the men or leaving and never returning, risking what they've been raised to believe would be God's wrath, eternal damnation. 

Regardless of the risks involved, a decision must be made and over the course of Women Talking we here the reasoning behind what must be done, staying and fighting or leaving. Each comes with its own peril. Fighting the men is going to be violent and result in grave harm or perhaps death. Leaving meanwhile, risks losing a place in the kingdom of heaven plus the fact that the women have no idea where they will go if they leave. 

That last bit is critical but you have to think about it for yourself. A less talked about aspect of abuse is economic or circumstantial abuse. This is abuse that occurs when one partner renders another partner helpless via their circumstances, physical, financial, et cetera. Essentially, because these women are cut off from the outside world, cut off from resources, they are left with no choice but to rely on their male partners. Leaving is a possibility but it comes with a grave uncertainty as to where to go and what will happen next. 

Add to that fact that these are women with small children or elderly women who've spent their whole lives in this community and it dawns on you just how massive this decision these women are making truly is. The competing emotions of anger, resentment, fear, uncertainty, the desire to be free of abuse and the years of indoctrinated servitude, these women are doing far more than just talking, they are facing a monolithic challenge. 

Among the eight women chosen to make this impossible decision are Ona (Rooney Mara), a rape survivor who became pregnant from her assault. Salome (Claire Foy), also a recent survivor who is eager to stay and fight. Mariche, a mother of several children who has suffered repeated abuse from her husband. Mariche wants to stay and cope with the problems though her coping seems to involve changing absolutely nothing about their circumstances. 

Click here for my full length review at Viva.Media 

Movie Review Promised Land

Promised Land (2012) 

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Written by Gus Van Sant 

Starring Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Frances McDormand, Rosemarie Dewitt, Hal Holbrook 

Release Date December 28th, 2012 

"Promised Land" has an earnest charm that sadly isn't enough to repair its airless, smug storytelling. Written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, "Promised Land" is an achingly liberal tract about the environmental dangers posed by gas companies and while there is a nobility of ideas, there is a distinct lacking in execution.

Born in a Small Town

Damon stars as Steve Butler, a rising star at a gas company called Global. Steve is from Eldridge, Iowa and was deeply influenced by the loss of a Caterpillar plant in Davenport that, for a time, devastated the local economy of his hometown and surrounding towns. That loss drives Steve today to buy up struggling family farms in hopes of enriching people who remind him of his former neighbors.

That much of what Steve is selling are lies does wear on him but he hopes that the potential for big checks for himself, and the small town folks he's buying up, will make up for his bad karma. Steve's partner Sue (Francis McDormand) is driven more by her paycheck than her backstory.

Together they travel to a small farming community in Pennsylvania where they hope to sell the locals on selling their land to the gas company. Steve and Sue find trouble however, in a local teacher (Hal Holbrook) and an out of town environmentalist (John Krasinski), eager to stir up anti-natural gas sentiment.

Small Town Showdown

That's the set up for a small town showdown but where the film goes from there is far too silly and smug to support the kind of drama that the stars and director Gus Van Sant want to create. We know from the beginning, as Steve is dunking his head in a bathroom sink, that a crisis of conscience is imminent. We also know the crisis of conscience is coming because Damon is a well-known liberal activist playing a character working for an evil gas company.

Whether you're inclined to agree with Damon and Krasinski or not doesn't really matter. You can be a hardcore, left wing, liberal Democrat and still find "Promised Land" mind numbingly predictable; at least in the case of Damon's Steve. If you can predict where Krasinski's character is headed, you're better at this than I am and you will also still be dumbfounded by it.

Charming Stars

All of that said, and putting my issues with the film aside, it's impossible for this group of stars, which also includes Rosemarie Dewitt as Damon's love interest/savior, not to have a little charm. Krasinski pours on the smug as the righteous environmentalist but he does deliver a charmingly bad Bruce Springsteen karaoke performance. Damon is a little more troublesome as he has the burden of predictability around his neck.

Thankfully, Damon is well teamed with Dewitt and their scenes together crackle with the chemistry of a more interesting movie. McDermott is her usual fascinating, funny self as the more pragmatic and resigned character than Damon. And then, of course, there is Holbrook who lends the film his integrity for a couple of pretty good scenes.

Is "Promised Land" a bad movie? No, but it is far from a good movie. The film telegraphs its intentions and never raises enough interest to get around its predictability. There is a good deal of skill and charm in the acting and direction of "Promised Land" but it is in service of a failing, predictable, tract of a story.

Movie Review Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) 

Directed by Bharat Nalluri 

Written by David Magee, Simon Beaufoy 

Starring Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Lee Pace, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong 

Release Date March 7th, 2008 

Publoshed March 8th, 2008 

From the awkward title to the pre-world war two England setting there is nothing all that hip about Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. However, with a cast that includes Oscar winner Frances McDormand and Oscar nominee Amy Adams there is more than just potential. A terrific trailer with the palette, now the movie is in theaters and this seemingly un-hip period piece proves to be a smart, funny, romantic and sexy romp. Directed by first-time feature helmer Bharat Nalluri, Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day offers surprises at every turn and top notch performances from two of the best actresses working today.

London in the late 1930's lived under the cloud of potential war. With Germany on the march on the continent, the British Isles were in a war stance that left many residents out in the cold. Jobs were as scarce as most resources and among the affected as our story begins is Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand). Having been fired from her third stint as a governess, Miss Pettigrew finds herself on the streets. When told by the employment agency that she is no longer desired as a child care worker, Miss Pettigrew takes a chance and steals a job off her ex-boss's desk.

She assumes the lead is for another governess position. However, when she arrives at the flat of Delyssia Lafosse (Amy Adams) she has a few unexpected moments. Miss Lafosse has no children. Her need is for someone to keep an eye on her. She is balancing romances with three different men who offer three very different but important choices for her. There is Tom (Phil Goldman) a playwright and producer who has the power to give Delyssia her big break in his next West End offering. Then there is Nick (Mark Strong) the owner of the nightclub where Delyssia performs and the man who bankrolls her flat and her lifestyle.

And finally there is Michael (Lee Pace) , a piano player fresh from a prison stint. He has been her loyal piano man for a long time as well as her best friend and likely her true love. Michael wants Delyssia to run away to America with him and she with him but it would mean giving up her comforts and her shot at fame and fortune. Each of these relationships comes to a head in one day with the arrival of Miss Pettigrew who accepts the job of social secretary, her real job is more well described as boyfriend wrangler. As Delyssia romances one man, Miss Pettigrew distracts and disposes of the others.

My description makes Delyssia sound like a bad person but as played by the high energy, super-cute Amy Adams she is a fresh and spirited young woman doing anything she can to survive in hardscrabble times. Adams and McDormand are perfect foils as Adams is high spirited and sexy, McDormand is level headed with a quick, observant wit. Both women bring dignity and strong willed self respect to these two desperate characters but it is their spirit in front increasingly desperate moments that is truly winning. There is nothing like watching talented actresses in roles that are their equal. It is so rare and such a treat.

The supporting cast of boyfriends and even a love interest for Miss Pettigrew, is top notch lead by the especially winning Lee Pace. Fans of the show Pushing Daisies know that Pace can play deadpan as well as loving puppy dogs. He plays both exceptionally well in Miss Pettigrew, providing the rooting interest among Delyssia's many suitors. Ciaran Hinds gets a rare good guy role as a rich, lingerie designer who decides to give up his life of models and socialites for a woman who is his equal in every way including age.

Bharat Nalluri's last effort was the massive TV movie Tsunami: Aftermath a true life tale of the survivors of the devastating wave that ravaged the coast of Thailand in 2005. That film showed he could handle large scale effects and grand emotional arcs as well as smaller human moments. Here Nalluri shows an unexpected talent for old school farce with a touch of the British Upstairs/Downstairs comedy. It's a deft, quick witted effort that also manages to be romantic and even sexy. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a terrific little movie and one of the few must sees of early 2008.

Movie Review Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give (2003) 

Directed by Nancy Meyers

Written by Nancy Meyers 

Starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand, Amanda Peet, Jon Favreau

Release Date December 12th, 2003 

Published December 11th, 2003 

A strange thing can happen to an actor when they get almost too good at what they do. Audiences no longer perceive what they do as a performance. Jack Nicholson is one of those actors with that wonderful problem. After years of showing off that roguish, untamable charm, many people believe that is the man in real Life. Nicholson's personal life, from a tabloid perspective, does nothing to change that perception. Nicholson's new film Something's Gotta Give, co-starring Diane Keaton, and directed by Nancy Meyers, slyly plays to Jack's perception and then against it to terrific romantic and comedic effect.

Nicholson stars as Harry Sanborn, a record company owner with a fetish for younger woman. Specifically, Harry only goes for woman under 30. His latest little twinkie is Marin Berry (Amanda Peet) who brings Harry to her mother's beach house in the Hamptons for a romantic weekend. Unfortunately, she didn't know her mother, Erica (Keaton), would be there, leading to an awkward meeting in the kitchen between Erica and Harry in his underwear.

From there, things go from bad to worse after a disastrous dinner. Harry and Marin retire to the bedroom and Harry has a heart attack. On the orders of doctors, Harry can't travel and must stay at the beach house, even though Marin is returning to the city. Left alone, Harry and Erica bicker in your traditional romantic comedy fashion until they find a little common ground, and after Harry accidentally catches Erica in the nude. This begins a romantic series of events that aren't what you expect.

This being a romantic comedy, there must be arbitrary roadblocks to keep the lovers apart. One of those is Harry's doctor, played by Keanu Reeves, who takes an interest in Erica. Others are less obvious and are played as emotional roadblocks but are really choices that are made according to the needs of the script.

Director Nancy Meyers knows her chick flicks, having directed Mel Gibson in the blockbuster What Woman Want. Meyers knows the right comic beats to hit and how to get what she wants from her actors. That said, she brings little else to the table as a director. Meyers must rely heavily on the skill of her actors to carry off the material and lucky for her, she is truly blessed in Something's Gotta Give.

To watch a pair of pro's like Nicholson and Keaton fall in love onscreen is a true joy and while not all of the situations the characters find themselves in work, these two brilliant actors make a good deal of them work. Most of the best comedic moments in the film are played with merely a sideways glance, a skill that you just can't teach.

The first half of Something's Gotta Give plays off of what you expect of Jack Nicholson, that free swinging playboy reputation that will follow him for the rest of his life. However, once the two leads are left alone, the film becomes more about Keaton's wonderfully neurotic Erica. A playwright, Erica begins writing her moments with Harry into her latest play leading up to one of the film’s great gags on the set of the play just before it opens.

Something's Gotta Give has elements of your typical romantic comedy, a few too many of those elements for my taste. It wants to be insightful about romance in the later years of life and aging in general but its tone is a little too light for any real insight. What the film has going for it is two terrific actors who never seem to have peaked even as they get older. For that reason, I recommend Something's Gotta Give.

Movie Review: Aeon Flux

Aeon Flux (2005) 

Directed by Karyn Kusam

Written by Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi 

Starring Charlize Theron, Martin Csokas, Johnny Lee Miller, Sophie Okonedo, Frances McDormand

Release Date December 2nd, 2005 

Published December 1st, 2005 

Aeon Flux was born on MTV's short lived but groundbreaking animation showcase Liquid Television. The short cartoons were brilliantly weird and entirely wordless. Our heroine was an anarchist in dominatrix gear making trouble wherever she went and losing her life at the end of every adventure. When Aeon Flux was given her own half hour show on the network the bizarre action extended to wildly esoteric, nonsensical dialogue, and kinky sexuality, all of which combined to make Aeon a cult legend.

The character seemed long dead when Hollywood finally came calling with a full length live-action film. Charlize Theron as the lead and hot indie director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight) both seemed like interesting choices. However, the most important thing was the script, which went ahead without Peter Chung the creator of the series. Without Chung's guiding influence, the film adaptation of Aeon Flux morphed into yet another sci-fi action adventure retread.

The year is 2415. Most of the world's population has been wiped out by some mysterious virus. There is now only one city left in the world where the last 5 million people on Earth reside. One man, Trevor Goodchild (Martin Csokas), has found the cure to the virus and has become a leader. With his brother, Oren (Johnny Lee Miller), Trevor has crafted a perfect society called Bregna.

Underneath the surface of this new perfection, a group of mercenaries, called Monicans, has sprung up to expose the lies hiding behind the veil of the Goodchild society. People have been disappearing randomly throughout Bregna and somehow the government is behind it. One of those missing is the sister of a Monican assassin named Aeon Flux (Theron).

Sexy and deadly Aeon is tasked with killing Goodchild, which it is thought will bring down the government and expose what happened to the missing citizens. However, when Aeon finally gets her chance to complete her mission, a flash of memory that links Aeon and Trevor prevents her from finishing the job and opens up another secret that threatens to blow the lid off of Bregna.

In looking at Aeon Flux and separating it from the television series, there are some appealing moments and solid sci-fi work. Director Kusama, with the help of cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh and production designer Andrew McAlpine, occasionally capture some terrific sci-fi landscapes. A scene where Aeon and a cohort scale the courtyard in front of a government building is an excellent action sequence and a visually imaginative sci-fi creation.

Praise also goes to costume designer Beatrix Aruna Pazstor who creates a sleek and sexy future wardrobe for Theron. While I would have loved to see what Pazstor might have done with some of Chung's designs from the series, she does a terrific job in creating some beautifully sexy and functional gear to adorn Theron, which I realize is not the most difficult job, but still well done.

Unfortunately the script and plotting of Aeon Flux fails the fine technical work. Writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, ostensibly working from the framework of an episode of the TV show, craft an entirely unoriginal sci-fi story about cloning, the environment, and government corruption. Typical targets of a typical sci-fi movie, and typical is something that Aeon Flux should never be.

The brilliance of the series was to take on familiar sci-fi tropes and turn them on their ear with oddity, sexuality, and imagination. The film adaptation lacks all three. Even odder, however, is Kusama's decision to keep one minor detail of the television series: flat, monotone line deliveries. The series, one assumes, employed a flat, almost lazy approach to dialogue because it was never about what was being talked about. The movie is about something, the characters have a point to make and a goal to achieve, and when they approach their dialogue in this flat way they simply seem bored.

Watching Aeon Flux as a fan of the original series is like having teeth pulled without anesthesia. Gone are all of the elements that made Aeon Flux exciting. Gone is the wildly eclectic dialogue, the mixed sexuality, and the obtuse plotting. Granted those are elements that are anathema to most mainstream audiences but the reason to make Aeon Flux into a feature film was because of these elements. Taking away what made Aeon Aeon leaves one to wonder why make the film at all. Why not develop an original sci-fi character for Theron to play and leave Aeon Flux, and more importantly her small but loyal fanbase, alone?

Aside from the occasionally attractive visuals the one reason to see Aeon Flux is Theron. Getting her post-Oscar curse out of the way, like Adrien Brody (The Village) and Halle Berry (Catwoman) before her, Theron hopefully can put this behind her and get back to more interesting work, like her other 2005 effort, North Country.

Theron has had a most unique career. A pariah before her transformative Oscar-winning role in Monster, she suffered through far worse films than Aeon Flux. Garbage like Devil's Advocate, Sweet November and The Astronaut's Wife were a trial by fire for Theron, who responded well by making all of those films a distant memory in Monster. Aeon Flux should merely be another minor bump in the road for this terrific actress.

Movies like Aeon Flux are why people hate movie studios and the people who operate them. We know why Paramount made Aeon Flux, because it was easy to market through its subsidiary, MTV, which also happened to own the rights to the character. It's the laziest form of dealmaking and filmmaking. For the artistry and hard work that went into crafting it, Aeon Flux is just that much more of a disaster for the gutlessness that went into stripping the character of what made her unique.

Creator Peter Chung is still hoping to make a direct-to-video Aeon Flux animated film. After the annihilation of his work in the live-action arena, Paramount owes one to Chung and to the real fans of the real Aeon Flux.

Movie Review North Country

North Country (2005) 

Directed by Niki Caro 

Written by Michael Seitzman

Starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Frances McDormand, Sean Bean, Richard Jenkins

Release Date October 21st, 2005 

Published October 19th, 2005 

Director Niki Caro made a huge splash with her debut film Whale Rider. That sweet, smart coming of age flick not only brought an Oscar nomination to the amazing young actress Keisha Castle Hughes, it also established Caro as a director who could write her own ticket for whatever project she wanted to make. Her choice was to work with another Oscar nominated actress, Charlize Theron, on what is, by virtue of both of their involvement, a serious prestige picture about a difficult and dramatic subject, the very first sexual harrassment class action suit in US history.

With the weight of expectations on North Country Niki Caro had a lot to live up to. That the film nearly meets those lofty expectations is a sign of her talent and the strength of the story she wished to tell.

Charlize Theron stars in North Country as Josie Aimes, a single mother returning to her tiny hometown in Minnesota after escaping her abusive husband. To say that her homecoming is not exactly welcome is a slight understatement. Though Josie's parents, Hank (Richard Jenkins) and Alice (Sissy Spacek), love her deeply, her life choices up until now have been a grave disappointment. Pregnant at sixteen, Josie claimed to not know who the child's father was. Running away with the baby soon after, Josie found herself in a series of bad relationships, and pregnant again.

Now back home and fighting with her father over having left her marriage (despite the husband's abuse, her father cannot abide a divorce and even wonders if she brought the abuse on herself) Josie needs a job and a new place to live. An old friend, Glory, played by the wonderful Frances McDormand, puts Josie on to a job working in the mine that is the town's only source of stable employment. Unfortunately it's also where Josie's father works, yet another source of father-daughter tension.

If her father was the greatest of the resistance Josie faced working in the mines she would be lucky. Sadly, the male workers of the mine have made quite clear ever since women have been allowed to work there that they are not welcome. The sexual, emotional and occasionally physical intimidation of women is an everyday reality for Glory who has weathered it well enough to become a union leader. For Josie, however, the abuse is shocking and terrifying and likely compounded by some very dark secrets from her past.

Eventually all of the abuse and frustrating put-offs from management force Josie to take a bold step. With the help of a local lawyer, Bill White (Woody Harrelson), Josie aims to sue the mine and stop the abuse and if at all possible make the mine a safe place for the women who work there after her.

North Country is an exceptionally well-told story both in terms of scripting and filmmaking. Director Niki Caro showed her adeptness for compelling visual storytelling in Whale Rider and continues to mature in North Country. With Cinematographer Gustavo Santaolalla, Caro washes out the scenery to capture the often grim and gritty feel of the Minnesota winter. The visuals are so strong that the bitter cold of the north country chills the theater.

The script by Michael Seitzman, based on the book Class Action by Clara Bingham, creates a fictional character in Josie Aimes-- a composite of a number of different woman, including Lois Jenson, who was the first and most heroic plaintiff in this historic case. Especially compelling is the backstory that Seitzman and Niki Caro craft for Josie and the way that backstory informs the rest of the movie. Her experiences in the past are something that many women can sadly relate to, though to detail those experiences would reveal far too much I think.

The backstory is weaved into the movie's main story in a way that builds to an emotional flourish that lifts the film's otherwise weak courtroom scenes. If there is a flaw in North Country it is the by-the-numbers battle in the courtroom. Caro does as much as she can visually-- the court scenes are brightly lit but no less cold than the outdoor scenes-- but the scenes never rise above typical courtroom cliches. My opinion of this aspect of the film may be colored slightly by my opinion of the film's ending, which takes place in the courtroom and is a major letdown.

Of course Josie would not be the extraordinary character she is without the exemplary performance of Charlize Theron. At the head of an amazing cast that includes Oscar winners Sissy Spacek and Frances McDormand, as well as Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins and Sean Bean, Theron never let's you forget this is her movie. In North Country Charlize Theron essays a tough but vulnerable performance with depth and meaning. It's a performance worthy of such weighty subject matter as the very first and most difficult battle in the fight against sexual harassment.

The improvement of Charlize Theron as an actress in just the last three years is remarkable. Just four years ago seeing the name Charlize Theron on a movie poster was a stomach turning moment. Her shrill, unlikable, over-the-top performances in The Astronauts Wife, Devils Advocate and Sweet November are now a very distant memory. Monster changed everything and now North Country affirms that Charlize Theron is a true actress and a star, not just another pretty face.

North Country is the kind of heart rending cathartic drama people go to the movies to experience. A film that earns all of its emotional involvement and audience participation in the experience. North Country is also the rare modern movie that combines that emotional journey with a visual one that is its equal. Niki Caro and her team evoke not only the freezing cold of the north but the feel of a town caught in a time warp. The men are Neanderthals, the women are repressed and longing, and the whole thing is disturbing for people who lived through similar circumstances and people, like myself, who cannot fully relate to the struggles women have faced in the workplace.

North Country is an education, a history lesson about how far woman have come in establishing themselves in the workplace. It's a lesson that needs to be taught and retaught because as the old adage goes; those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Our current laws on sexual harassment may at times seem ridiculous or overblown but they stem from a place of necessity because the type of abuse demonstrated in North Country should never be allowed to take place.

For Oscar watchers like myself North Country is a must see. Niki Caro's direction, Michael Seitzman's script, Gustavo Santaolalla's photography and the supporting performances of Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins are all worthy of nominations. However, it is the performance of Charlize Theron that will have Oscar fans buzzing all the way to the big night. Theron has a very good chance of becoming the seventh actress in academy history to win two lead actress Oscars.

Had the ending of North Country been a little stronger I think a best picture nomination would be assured for North Country. Still, despite my minor misgivings, this is one terrific drama. A moving crowd pleaser with an important message and filled to overflowing with terrific performances. North Country is a must see for the new season.

Movie Review City by the Sea

City by the Sea (2002) 

Directed by Directed by Michael Caton Jones

Written by Ken Hixon 

Starring Robert DeNiro, Frances McDormand, James Franco, Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe

Release Date September 6th, 2002

Published September 8th, 2002

Ok I know what your thinking, DeNiro is playing a cop AGAIN?  However I would ask you to think of it differently. I see DeNiro playing a cop in City By the Sea much like Springsteen playing Thunder Road. We have heard him play it lord knows how many times and its not always great, but when Springsteen hits that perfect pitch and finds his groove, Thunder Road becomes a new song as if you had never heard it before. That is what DeNiro does in cop movies, and in City By the Sea DeNiro has found the groove. 

In City By the Sea, DeNiro is Vincent Lamarca, NYPD homicide cop. LaMarca lives somewhat contently alone in an apartment one floor above his girlfriend, Michele, played by Frances MacDormand. The relationship is still blossoming but seems to be serious. However, LaMarca is distant and is hiding some painful family secrets. Secrets that are about to collide and impact his personal and professional life.

While on the job LaMarca and his partner Reg (George Dzundza) latch onto a murder case about a drug dealer floating in the Hudson. The body has floated down the coast from Long Beach, where many of Vincent's secrets await him.

Earlier in the film, even before we meet Vincent, we meet his son Joey played by James Franco. Joey is first seen wandering the boardwalk trying to sell a guitar and it's obvious why. Joey is a junkie. After scoring, Joey and a friend go looking for more and visit a drug dealer named Picasso. The deal goes bad and Joey murders Picasso. Joey and his friend dump the body in the river and I think you know the rest.

So the plot is a little contrived and a great exaggeration from the 1997 Esquire article by pulitzer prizewinning journalist, the late Mike Calary. The plot is merely a contextual convenience, something to motivate the more interesting drama. The great part of City By the Sea is the relationships between the characters. 

DeNiro and MacDormand have amazing chemistry, DeNiro and Franco are perfect counterpoints, and even DeNiro and Dzundza shine. While Dzundza,a highly underrated character actor, gets stuck in the one role everyone knows will be tragic, he and DeNiro make up for it with the ease of dialogue that make both more wellrounded and fleshed out characters.

The other star of the film is it's setting, played as Long Beach on the coast of Long Island New York. In actuality it's the Boss' home turf of Asbury Park. The rundown boardwalk shown in the opening credits as it looked in it's heyday, looks as if it has a thousand stories of it's own to tell. The abandoned casino where Joey lives reminded me a lot of the Dance Hall in Carnival Of Souls. Whether that is intentional I can't say but the look of the casino and Franco's ghostly visage do at least hint at homage.

City By the Sea isn't perfect, as I stated the plot is pure convenience. But the characters and the relationships they develop are magnificent, especially loved DeNiro and MacDormand.

For the first time in a longtime we are treated to an adult relationship that feels real. There is no easy rapport, no all consuming over the top passion. Merely two adults who have found comfort in one another at a time when they desperately needed it. In a scene set in a coffee shop we watch an actual adult conversation of real weight and emotion that never panders to the audience and never begs for emotional reaction. It just is what it is, two adults having an intelligent conversation. We take for granted just how rare that is in modern Hollywood.

Movie Review: Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading (2008) 

Directed by The Coen Brothers 

Written by The Coen Brothers 

Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins 

Release Date September 12th, 2008 

Published September 11th, 2008 

As a way of cleaning the fictional blood off their hands, Joel and Ethan Coen followed their Oscar nominated, blood-soaked masterpiece Fargo with the brilliant, offbeat comedy The Big Lebowski, a movie so wonderfully fun and gentle it could heal even the darkest mind. This same pattern plays out for the Coen's again with the back to back, triumph of opposites, No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading. After going dark and broody, for an Oscar win, the Coen's did another 180 and deliver arguably their silliest, giddiest effort to date.

In Washington D.C a CIA analyst, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), has just been fired. In a fit of pique he tells his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) he wasn't fired he quit. Osbourne plans on writing his memoirs, though his wife wonders, to his face, who would want to read that? Naturally, the wife is cheating on him. She is cheating with someone sunnier and far less complicated, a doofus federal marshal named Harry (George Clooney) who likes to jog after sex.

On a different planet yet somehow the same movie are Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt). Best friends and employees of the same cookie cutter franchise gym, Linda is desperate for plastic surgery that is beyond both her means and necessity and Chad is basically along for the ride, his good nature being all that bonds him to the story.

Banging these two universes together is the discovery of a computer disc at the gym that contains Osbourne's memoirs filled with CIA secrets that Linda and Chad believe will be worth money to Cox and if not Cox maybe the Russians. Watching everything in permanent apoplexy are the CIA brass played by David Rasche and J.K Simmons who manages to bring his dad from Juno and his Spider-Man newspaper boss together for another brilliant supporting turn.

The bonds of these characters deepen in ways that are entirely contrived but who cares when we are all having such a good time. Joel and Ethan Coen establish a tone of such wonderful goofball whimsy in Burn After Reading that one forgets to fact check the movie as it goes along to make sure everything makes sense.

I have a theory about the Coen Brothers and George Clooney. After three movies together in which Clooney has become more and more of a doofus, it's clear the Coen's enjoy taking one of the world's handsomest actors and making him a fool. Like the kids picked on in High School taking their psychic revenge on the most popular kid in school, the Coen's appear to revel in making Clooney the fool and he appears to be having a ball doing it. 

The Coens make similar magic with Brad Pitt, taking another of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive and turning him into a himbo doofus to wonderful comic effect. Brad Pitt is hilarious as an airhead who has no awareness of his own ludicrous attractiveness. There is a subtext to the way the Coen's use both Clooney and Pitt, cleverly twisting the cool, charismatic personas of both actors into something wild, strange and hilarious all at once. 

Burn After Reading is a good natured, if occasionally dark and violent, little comedy. The Coen's can't seem to escape a slight body count and yet they still manage to keep things on a ludicrously, deliriously bright and funny tone. Burn After Reading has some faulty bits of logic and a couple of plot holes and contrivances that would come to light under more scrutiny but who cares. The point of Burn After Reading is just being hilarious. 

The Coen Brothers do such a terrific job of distracting us with goofiness and good nature that we forget the plot, the motivations, even the surprising amount of violence. The film is R-rated for violence and for something that Clooney's character builds that will either make you gasp or laugh uncontrollably. Either way, that scene alone with a smiling Clooney and a curious McDormand is worth the price of admission.