"Selma" Offers a Captivating Story and Worthwhile Commentary on Present Day Race Relations

Critics argue Selma grossly misplays the dynamic between MLK and LBJ.

While watching Ava DuVernay’s Selma, I was reminded of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (reviewed here). Both films focus on iconic moments in the American civil rights movement, while managing the tricky tasks of humanizing the larger-than-life icons involved. More intriguingly, both also illustrate the forceful guile and cunning strategy required to make such sweeping change.

Yes, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. stood on high ground ideologically and morally, but they also were willing to poke, prod and even play a little dirty to ensure success. These aren’t just stories of saints standing on the side of justice until society came around to their way of thinking – these are tales of men pulling strings to manipulate America into bettering itself.

There’s something I find so incredibly interesting about all of that, about the notion that King (commandingly played by David Oyelowo) and his compatriots in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) specifically targeted Selma because the sheriff there was a hotheaded racist who could easily be baited into doing something oppressive to nonviolent protesters. The film suggests the SCLC wasn’t concerned with long-range grass rooting – they left that to other groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. No, what they wanted were headlines that would put pressure on Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), a president who supported black voting rights, but who had a difference of opinion about the timing of further legislation. “We negotiate, we demonstrate, we resist,” King says in one key scene. “We raise white consciousness. And in particular, the consciousness of whichever white man happens to be sitting in the Oval Office.”

The film has come under fire in some corners for its inaccuracies, particularly related to its portrayal of Johnson as an antagonist to King. The idea that people could watch this movie and come away incensed at the treatment of a white person is pretty mind-boggling, but what makes the whole thing especially odd is that the film delivers a mostly nuanced take on the King-Johnson relationship.

Johnson isn't really the bad guy; he supports change, but doesn't agree with King's time frame. He certainly stands in stark contrast to the film's actual villains, even considering his attempts to slow King down by using wiretap information to expose the good doctor's extramarital dalliances to his wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo). Not only does he surround himself with fair-minded advisers like Lee White (Giovanni Ribisi), but he also rebuffs a suggestion by J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) to shut down King "permanently and unequivocally" and chastises George Wallace (Tim Roth) by saying "I'll be damned to let history put me in the same place as the likes of you."

Is this exactly how it happened? Probably not, but it makes thematic and dramatic sense, and it seems a lot more logical than the assertion that Johnson masterminded the whole march or that he was totally innocent of wiretapping King (I think it's an injustice to show Johnson taking aim at King's marriage, but the dude was president of the United States, for god's sake; he damn well knew about those wiretaps). The New York Times and Washington Post have done fairly good assessments of the entire controversy for those interested in reading more on the topic, but as far as opinions go, I tend to agree with this take in Slate.

The film posits that MLK's mission in Selma was to change the discourse among the inherently good but generally apathetic multitudes within white America, to impress upon them the immediacy of the situation. Johnson becomes the major stand-in there, and the film argues that the work put in by King and his brethren eventually allows Johnson (and a large contingent of whites) to see the light, to transition from sympathy to empathy, as evinced by his words, “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.”

This message is one that's still incredibly relevant today, given all the present day upheaval surrounding unjust treatment of blacks by law enforcement and the recent church slayings in South Carolina. Watch the scenes that depict the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing or the beating of Jimmie Lee Jackson (Keith Stanfield) and tell me they don't seem eerily familiar. It's easy to rationalize, explain or condemn certain situations on an individual basis while pretending there is no larger race problem in America, but on aggregate such justifications don't fly any better now than they did 50 years ago. Is black life better in America now than it was in 1965 when MLK led the march to Selma? Yes, certainly, it is, just like it was better in 1965 than it was in 1865 when Lincoln was trying to abolish slavery. But it isn't where it should be, and that's an American problem.

DuVernay gets that, and Selma encapsulates it, perhaps at the risk of smudging the role of Lyndon B. Johnson. But, I found myself cheering for the man when he put Wallace in his place and later when he spoke so passionately when presenting his bill. I believe that was the film's intent, so it's hard for me to say the film is casting Johnson in a negative light. It's much more accurate to say the film is turning him into a metaphorical beacon.

Is it incongruous that I'm defending artistic license here when I took a movie like Saving Mr. Banks to task for playing loose with history? Maybe. Maybe, I'm just blinded by my ideological persuasions in both cases. But, I have to call it the way I see it, and while I see a relevant thematic purpose in this instance, I only saw corporate propaganda in the former.

Selma is not a perfect history lesson, but if it encourages people to "interrogate history" as DuVernay suggests, and if it makes people a bit more empathetic in their considerations of race relations today, then it's a movie that offers a whole lot of value. When you toss on top of that the notion that it is a well-made and captivating story on the micro level, well that's really something.  A-

"Foxcatcher" Doesn't Measure Up to Bennett Miller's Previous Output

Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum shine, but Foxcatcher is an airless effort.

With Foxcatcher, Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) has crafted yet another pensively restrained, immaculately composed and expertly acted examination of unbridled obsession and determination and held it at arms length. However, this time out, the distanced and disciplined approach that worked so well in the director's earlier films make Foxcatcher feel kind of inert and airless.

Foxcatcher focuses on the relationship between Olympic wrestling brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) and John Du Pont (Steve Carrell), the creepy millionaire who served as their benefactor. Both Mark and Dave are former Olympic champs, but Mark lives firmly in the shadow of his older brother, which makes him ideal prey for the resentful and self-important Du Pont, a man who knows a thing or two about living in the shadows of family (in his case, his mother).

There's not much point in saying any more about the film's plot. A tragedy involving these men attained headline-grabbing true crime infamy, but the particulars of that incident are opaque, poorly defined, and relegated to the film's final moments. Foxcatcher is much more concerned with ruminating on its long list of themes, including isolation and repression, class disparity and subjugation, unchecked entitlement and compromised integrity, and, if all that isn't enough, the fractured male psyche and distorted American values. There's so much going on here, and yet it feels like almost nothing happens.

The film is technically accomplished, and the actors all do nice work. Ruffalo, who has made a career of breathing life and dimensionality into thinly written parts, is especially affecting as the warm-hearted, at-ease-with-himself Dave, and Tatum continues to impress with the emotional brute routine. Both actors bring an ape-like physicality to their roles, while doing a good job of communicating an innate brotherly bond.

Meanwhile, Carrell is buried under prosthetics and definitely a world away from his typical roles. He's pretty solid throughout, and great in isolated moments, but his acting calls a lot of attention to itself and not in a good way. His approach stands in stark contrast to his more natural costars, and the fake nose threatens to overpower his performance. I'd say there's more good than bad in the portrayal, but there's definitely something off-key about it.

Foxcatcher is a major comedown for Miller, which maybe isn't fair given just how good Capote and Moneyball were, but the film isn't some major catastrophe. It's certainly worth catching -- Ruffalo's performance alone is worth the time, and there is a ton of other stuff to admire about the film besides. The thing just feels a little empty to me, and ultimately this is one of those films that I'm bummed I didn't like more. B-

"Dallas Buyers Club" and "Mud" Justify the McConaissaince

It's that damn McConaughey. He's so hot right now!

Considering Matthew McConaughey’s recent Oscar win, the fervor surrounding True Detective and his lead part in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, it’s apparent that we are in the eye of the McConaissaince. As a result, this seems a perfect time to finally put together some thoughts on Dallas Buyers Club and Mud, two 2013 entries I enjoyed quite a bit but never got around to reviewing. I figure it's definitely a good idea to strike before the McConalash sets in.

As a long-time McConaughey defender, I've enjoyed every minute of his comeback. It’s been funny to see the reactions of so many people who had previously written him off solely based on a few paycheck gigs in hollow romantic comedies. Guy always had screen presence to burn, and although he’s limited in some ways by an unshakable accent, he actually operates within a pretty wide range.

At the Oscars, Ellen joked that McConaughey is dirty pretty, but that’s actually an accurate description of his general movie persona. He possesses an oily magnetism that naturally suggests a seedy slickster or a morally compromised antihero, but then there’s the likable swagger and the intense vulnerability bubbling under the surface. He’s sort of a new age Michael Douglas, albeit with a six pack and a Texas twang.

McConaughey deviates from that wheelhouse occasionally (i.e. Contact, Amistad and The Wedding Planner), but like many good actors, he’s found his greatest success by playing into and off of his stock archetype. That assessment is certainly true of Dallas Buyers Club and Mud.

Dallas Buyers Club is a biopic about Ron Woodroof, a homophobic, womanizing good old boy who contracted AIDS in the early ’80s back when it was largely looked at as a gay disease. When Ron realizes the U.S. medical system and the ass-backwards FDA can’t help him, he decides to go south of the border to gain access to unapproved drugs. Soon, with the help of a transvestite partner named Rayon (Jared Leto), he begins smuggling the drugs into America and selling them to fellow AIDS sufferers as part of a monthly membership called the Dallas Buyers Club.

Leto and McConaughey lost a lot of weight for Dallas Buyers Club.

It’s interesting to me that this film languished so long in developmental limbo, because, beyond the topic of AIDS, it’s basically a conventional David vs. Goliath movie, one I suspect most would enjoy if they could get past their discomfort with what they perceive as “gay themes.” The film casts a critical eye on the FDA for being in bed with Big Pharmaceutical Companies to the detriment of the public, but it’s mostly an inspirational character piece about personal growth, redemption and the strength of the human spirit. A large part of the narrative hangs on the growing friendship that develops between Ron and Rayon, and it is all reminiscence of the similarly affecting dynamic Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks shared in Philadelphia.

The film starts like a bat out of hell and then gets into a comfortable rhythm before basically petering out. There’s a structural imbalance to the film, but it is buoyed by an excellent cast that includes winning support from Jennifer Garner, Steve Zahn and Griffin Dunn. McConaughey and Leto both won Oscars for their transformative performances, and while I probably wouldn't have gone with either of them in the stacked year that was 2013, the awards are well deserved. Leto does about everything he can to make Rayon into more than a walking plot device, and McConaughey owns the screen. I know some were annoyed McConaughey rode his comeback story to a victory on Oscar night, particularly at the expense of Leonardo DiCaprio, but this performance feels more charged and awards worthy than those by recent winners like Colin Firth and Jean Dujardin.

Although Dallas Buyers Club received the bulk of the attention, Mud is actually the more interesting McConaughey film to be released last year. Steeped in southern lore and magical realism and populated by a community of river dwellers, Mud instantly recalls last year’s excellent Beasts of the Southern Wild, but it is largely a homage to the works of Mark Twain. There are stand-ins for Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Jim, and there’s even a character named Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), which the internet tells me is the name of the man who inspired Huck Finn. The film even has the feel of classic American literature due to its poetic atmosphere, thematic parallels and rampant symbolism (one could easily imagine a term paper on the significance of the titular character’s shirt or the evocative image of a boat lodged high in a tree).

McConaughey plays Mud, a fugitive wanted for murder and hiding out in the aforementioned boat on a deserted island in the Mississippi River. When Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Loffland), two tween boys from Arkansas, encounter him on an exploratory adventure, Mud makes them a deal. If they’ll bring him food and help him make contact with his long lost love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), he’ll gift them his pistol and grant them the squatter’s rights to the boat. Neckbone is intrigued by the pistol, while Ellis is mostly captivated by the romance of it all.

Ellis takes center stage for much of the story, and the film is ultimately a fable about a boy coming to grips with the mad complexities of love. He’s struggling with both the dissolution of his parents’ marriage and his infatuation with an older girl, and in Mud he seems to a have found a kindred romantic soul. He holds out hope that the connection between Mud and Juniper can confirm his faith in love, which can often seem like a cruel joke in the way it melds euphoria with abject disappointment.

The three lead characters of Mud would fit right into a Twain novel.

There’s a lot going on in the film, and writer/director Jeff Nichols juggles most of it very well. While we see the entirety of Ellis’ relationship with his crush, the dynamic between his parents (Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon) is fragmented and the one between Mud and Juniper isn't on screen at all. We see what Ellis sees and understand as he understands, and it speaks to the mastery of what Nichols has done that confusing character motivations on the part of some of the adults (especially the women) come into sharp focus as the film reaches its conclusion.

If there’s a misstep, it’s in the inclusion of a subplot involving Neckbone’s uncle. While it allows Nichols regular Michael Shannon to log some screen time, the whole thing feels inconsequential and adds unnecessary bloat to a film that would've been well served by cleaving off 10 minutes.

The below the line aspects are all top notch, and there’s some really great and subtle acting on display here. Both kids give emotive lived-in performances, and Witherspoon does well with a tricky role, striking the right balance as a woman intrigued by grand romanticism, but ultimately reticent and skeptical. And as was the case in Out of the Furnace (reviewed here), Shepard gets to be an old bad ass, but this time he gets a bit more of an opportunity to flex his acting muscles.

As for McConaughey, I’d argue that outside of Rust Cole, this is the greatest performances he’s ever given. There are so many seemingly conflicting things to play here – hope, regret, deception, honor, disgrace, warmth, danger, desperation –and he does it all with such nuance, taking what is a pretty mythical character and grounding him in palpable reality. Nichols has said he wrote the role with McConaughey in mind, and that’s easy to believe. Mud is an excellent showcase for McConaughey’s charisma and chops, and the film even contains a meta joke about being shirtless that is somehow weaved into the fabric of the character.

Like McConaughey’s performance, Mud has an organic quality to it that makes it easy to overlook as merely good at first. But then it lingers in the mind, growing in stature the more you ruminate on it. There’s so much to love here – the themes, the tone, the performances, the cinematography, the music, the iconography. This film is literally overflowing with riches. My favorite takeaway was the shootout toward the end of the picture, a set piece that overcomes its clichéd nature through sheer excellence in staging and visceral impact. When a coming-of-age drama succeeds on so many levels that it even contains my favorite action scene of the year – well, that’s pretty neat.

Dallas Buyers Club B, Mud A-

Tom Hanks Shines in Searing "Captain Phillips"

Once the accent settles in, Tom Hanks kills it in Captain Phillips.

Captain Phillips is a gripping, well-crafted film about a real-life Somali pirate hijacking that turned into an ill-conceived hostage situation. As he did with United 93, director Paul Greengrass presents the story almost like a documentary, and despite the facts being public knowledge, he infuses the whole thing with an almost unbearable amount of tension.

The film opens with two scenes designed to set up the viewpoints and concerns of our two leads –Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks), the captain of a transport vessel to Kenya, and Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the fearless and desperate leader of a four-band pirate crew that will eventually hijack Phillips’ ship. The latter scene does a nice job of subtly showing why Somalis would turn to piracy, but the former is a tin-eared exercise – the one blight on what is a very tight and attuned script from screenwriter Billy Ray.

The film mostly sticks to the actual story, which lends the whole thing a no-bullshit credibility but results in a lack of the sizzle and depth that might have been included in a more fictionalized account. We learn very little about any of our characters, and while they all feel like real people, we’re mostly denied of the movie moments that would really sell their dimensionality. However, the measured, fly-on-the-wall approach creates a participatory feel, so it's really a strength and a weakness all at once.

At 134 minutes, the film is pretty long, and it does start to drag once the pirates take Phillips in their desperate attempt to salvage their botched takeover of the Maersk Alabama. That said, I think the extended sequence inside the claustrophobic lifeboat is important to get viewers into the cornered mindset of the helpless inhabitants, as Phillips becomes more and more convinced he will not make it out alive, and the pirates become increasingly terrified and delusional about how the situation will play out.

The extended time is also essential in building the sense of dread, and it really sets up the denouement of the film in which Hanks gets to drop the façade of resolute cool headedness and let all the bottled up pressure and fear come flowing out. It’s a strong film overall with great technical work across the board and ace support from newcomer Abdi, but I suspect Captain Phillips will be remembered most for these final emotional moments with Hanks. The man’s an all-time great, but his breathtaking vulnerability in the infirmary scene (a breakdown on which can be read here) may be the strongest moment in his illustrious career. B+

Cheeky Approach Makes Gangster Squad a Worthwhile Ride

The titular squad is filled with interesting actors.

On paper, Gangster Squad is a movie that’s right up my alley. It plays in the same LA-set noir sandbox as personal favorites like LA Confidential, Chinatown, and Sunset Boulevard. It’s directed by Ruben Fleischer, who, even after the misstep of 30 Minutes Or Less (check out my review here), is still a director worth watching due to the style and finesse he displayed with Zombieland. And it features a slew of talented actors – Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Emma Stone and Anthony Mackie to name a few – who consistently bring their A-games.

By nuts-and-bolts description, Gangster Squad is a film I should hate. It’s utterly predictable and paint-by-the-numbers, most of the characters are one or two-trait animals at best, and it consistently indulges in nonsensical “movie moments” (like a climatic moment where the protagonist tosses his gun aside to box with the bad guy or a scene where the gunslinger throws a can in the air and keeps hitting it to prove his bona fides) that would normally get under my skin.

And yet, in practice, Gangster Squad is a movie I’m ultimately quite taken with. The key, I think, is in the eye-popping style and glib tone that make it far more Dick Tracy than LA Confidential.

It’s essentially a sensationalized cartoon noir that makes no bones about being an overt riff on Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables, liberally lifting many of the same archetypes – scenery chewing mob head, climatic shootout on steps, and a rogue unit of cops that includes a dogged leader, a sharpshooter, and a dweeby bookish type. It actually would make for a great LA companion piece to DePalma’s Chicago-set classic.

Set in 1949, the film focuses on the battle between the mob-connected Mickey Cohen (Penn) and the titular gangster squad lead by “bull in a china shop” John O’Mara (Brolin), who is introduced single-handedly taking down one of Cohen’s brothels.

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling continue to showcase 

fantastic chemistry in their second pairing together.

At the film’s outset, Cohen already supplies prostitutes and drugs in LA, and is in the process of making a play to have his hands in every wire bet placed west of Chicago. He’s got most of the important cops, politicians, and judges in his pocket, excluding Chief of Police Bill Parker (Nick Nolte), who sees Cohen’s reign as enemy occupation. Impressed by O’Mara, Parker recruits the former WWII vet to assemble an off-the-books team and wage guerilla warfare on Cohen in a battle for the “soul of Los Angeles.”

At the suggestion of his crafty and very pregnant wife (Mireille Enos), John avoids recruiting top of their class cops (most of whom are likely targets to be on Cohen’s payroll), and instead assembles a rogues gallery, including a knife-wielding, black beat cop (Mackie), a wary, technology expert (Giovanni Ribisi), and an old celebrity sharpshooter  (Robert Patrick) and his rookie Latino sidekick (Michael Pena). Eventually, the disengaged Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Gosling), who is bedding Cohen’s top moll (Emma Stone), finds his own reasons to join on as well.

The well-paced film clocks in at a lean 113 minutes, leaving little room for full-rounded characterizations. It’s just as well, because much more would seem incongruous with the tone of the piece.

Nevertheless, the principles find admirable ways into their characters. Brolin is a solid anchor, giving a mostly straight (but always interesting), performance that plays well off of his more stylized costars. Impressively equipped with a prosthetic nose and droopy eyelids, Penn is a frothing-at-the-mouth live wire, and his Cohen is a close cousin to Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro’s performances in Tracy and Untouchables.

A climatic fight scene between Sean Penn and Josh Brolin

is one of the many trite"movie moments" that Gangster 

Squad manages to get away with.

But the true scene-stealer is Gosling, whose character is a combination of his charming cad from Crazy, Stupid, Love and ferocious id from Drive. With a stylized higher octave, Gosling creates a creampuff character who is initially pure charisma, and he has a palpable chemistry with everyone he shares the screen with, particularly Brolin and Stone (with whom he also sizzled in Crazy, Stupid, Love). His Jerry is called a “lamb in wolves clothing,” but there are moments where the madness seeps through, and Jerry ultimately comes across as the most deceptively dangerous player in the ensemble.

Stone has the husky voice and right look for her part, but she's an incredibly modern presence and gets little to do beyond her well-played tête-à-têtes with Gosling. Meanwhile, Ribisi and Enos provide a certain degree of pathos and conscience, while Mackie, Patrick and Pena offer up ace comic relief.

The trailers aren’t really selling the inherent humor of the film, but they are focusing on the action, and that’s not a misleading a smoke screen as it has been in the promos for Zero Dark Thirty. There’s plenty of action throughout, and it’s all top notch, particularly a CG-enhanced car chase midway through the film. The violence is prevalent and often indulgent, particularly in the gruesome ways Cohen has people killed.

In the end, Gangster Squad is a predictable movie that pays little more than token lip service to three dimensionality and any sort of self-reflection about the methods of such a deadly task force. However, it’s all done with an eye toward making the most enjoyable movie possible, and the effort is made noteworthy by a distinctively cheeky tone and a game cast. B