The Intern

3 Stars (out of four)

It is nice to see a comedy come along that don't insult or condescend to its audience or demean its characters.  The Intern is not broad or farsical entertainment, just a very sweet look at a bunch of people with their own set of problems trying to make it in the world.

The Intern starts with Ben (Robert DeNiro), a genuinely nice widower and retiree at a bit of a crossroads in his life.  He has learned what many retirees learn, the boredom of retirement.  He has already traveled the world, picked up hobbies and spends a lot of time with his children and grandchildren, but still cannot find enough to fill the time or hole in his life that was left without his wife and job.  One day, he finds an Internet company that is advertising for an internship program for senior citizens.  He obviously gets ithe job and quickly ingratiates himself on everybody with his laid-back and very friendly attitude.  He ends up working for the company's founder, Jules (Anne Hathaway), a very driven young woman trying to keep the company vibrant and profitable.  She has a reputation of being hard to work for as she is very peculiar how things have be.  While they initially don't mesh very well, Ben begins to break down the walls she has and they eventually become a great team.

This movie is a joy to watch because it is fun, but never really insults any of its characters.  Yes, personal quirks are sometimes the butt of some jokes, but those jokes are more sweet than mean.  Instead of being a sardonic satire like The Office or Office Space, The Intern is more of a lighthearted look at making your way in the world in today's new business environment.  No character is cruel or mean.  Even though Jules is very hard to work for, she is not the Glenn Close she-devil in The Devil Wears Prada (another Hathaway film), but merely a driven, detail-obsessed woman used to getting her way because her way generally works.  She deeply loves her company and vice-versa, but it has grown too fast and she is overwhelmed.  Ben, meanwhile, could come across as the sage old guy, like Yoda in a tie, but it doesn't do that either.  He is instantly likable because he is a hard-working, genuinely good guy who sets an example that everyone sees and is drawn to.  It is after they know him that he touches everyone with advice that comes from experience.

But the winning element for me is that the movie never condescends to anyone.  The people are real people with real problems.  There are no broad caricatures or mean depictions.  There is no one talked down to.  This movie could easily degenerate into simple, easily digestible pigeonholes, but it never does that.  What is particularly nice is the relationship Ben and Jules have.  It starts warily, but not antagonistic.  As they grow to know and understand each other's problems and quirks, a genuine friendship develops.  Nothing is too over the top or unbelievable.  This is just a genuinely fun and warm comedy that is thoroughly enjoyable.

Sicario

3.5 Stars (out of four)

In preparation for this review, I looked back at my review for Prisoners, the first film I had seen from Dennis Villeneuve (who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite directors), and I was struck by how similar I felt about the themes of both movies, reflections on the consequences of morally questionable actions when you are reasonably sure about the reasons for those actions.  If it's possible, Sicario is even darker than its little brother in terms of scope and tone and took me to very unpleasant places.  It is also disturbingly and unflinchingly accurate in its depiction of the drug war raging on our border.

The movie opens up in a small town outside Phoenix, where FBI Special Agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is on a team to investigate a kidnapping.  After a brief shootout and bombing, it is discovered there are 42 bodies wrapped up in the house's walls.  She is then selected to be part of a special task force to go after the drug lords behind it.  She agrees, and thus becomes our eyes and moral center for much of the rest of the film.  Throughout the movie, we are then taken on a brief tour of the enormous scope of the drug war on both sides of the border in an operation that becomes increasingly dark and illegal.

It's interesting they chose a woman to be the center of this film.  She unfortunately doesn't do very much but watch and become increasingly appalled at the lengths and methods the task force is running.  Perhaps they chose a woman to be the antithesis of every man in the film, who, apart from her partner, are all complicitly evil at various levels?  In a way, this is very effective as the film's moral ambiguity needs a moral center.  This movie is being compared a lot to Steven Soderberg's multiple Oscar-winning film Traffic, not the least being their similar themes.  But while Traffic was more of a wake up call based on its timeframe, this movie finds us smack dab in the middle of a war in all but name (i.e. our military fighting the drug lords).  The only thing that kept me from giving this four stars is that it degenerates into a little bit of wish-fulfillment, similar to Clear and Present Danger, where we strike at drug lords, but there is no real retaliation or consequences.  This smacks a little bit of unreality, but otherwise, everything leading to the climax of Sicario is dead on.

This movie took me to some very unpleasant and dark places I don't normally like to think about, which tells me just how effectively presented this material was.  As good as Prisoners was as far as suspense, Sicario makes it look like a garden party.  I have rarely seen such a perfect mix of music, angles and subject matter to keep the viewer totally rapt. This film never lets up the tension, and it is both disarmingly blunt in its depictions of the atrocities of the Mexican Drug War and subtle in its use of beautiful composition mixed with evil intent.  Every scene is claustrophobic and suffocating, filled with low angles, low lighting and tight spaces to make you subconsciously feel trapped.  As I listened to people afterward, that was the recurring element over and over again, the non-stop tension.

I have seen enough of these movies in my life and know the craft enough to know when I am being manipulated, as all movies expressly do to their audiences.  So, it is a mark of excellence, to me, when I find myself really being really affected by the events I see on the screen.  This movie is excellent in every way, other than it ends a little too cleanly for my taste.  However, from what I have seen, there is already a sequel in the works that deals with the outcome of the events set forth in this movie, again to be directed by Villeneuve.  I can only hope it is as good as this one.  Be warned, this is not the normal actioneer or suspense movie.  It hits really close to the bone and will disturb many who see it who are unaccustomed to real violence.  There is nothing glitzy about this film.  It is exciting, yes, but very cruel an unrelenting, just like its subject matter.

Black Mass

3 Stars (out of 4)

Well, Oscar season is now upon us and our first major contender is here with Johnny Depp in Black Mass, and it opens with a bang.

Black Mass is a story about the South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, played with a steely menace by Depp.  It is actually a pretty straightforward biopic depicting a point in time when he went from a small-time neighborhood boss to one of the biggest gangsters in Boston.  The trick was that a childhood friend, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) ended up working for the FBI, an organization that at the time, was trying to bring down the Italian mafia.  So, the ambitious Connolly naïvely suggests to his bosses the use Bulger as intelligence asset against his rivals and protects him.  Bulger, like the wily criminal he is, sees this as an opportunity to force out his enemies and take over their businesses, which he does with gusto under the full sponsorship and protection of the FBI.  Connolly then cajoles, obfuscates and even threatens colleagues and criminals alike to help Bulger no matter what, until their mutual downfalls.  Another complicating fact is that Bulger's brother, Billy (amazingly played by Benedict Cumberbatch, no hint of his British accent, ever), is Massachusetts' senator and arguably one of the most powerful men in Boston, if not the entire state. The film is ambiguous about whether or not Billy actively helped his brother at any time, which helps the tension.

While Martin Scorsese's multiple Oscar-winning film The Departed was a remake of the great Chinese potboiler, Infernal Affairs, the setting, and in particular, Jack Nicholson's character, was primarily based on Whitey Bulger.  The interesting thing to me about Black Mass is that gangster films usually depict both sides of the criminal life, the danger and the glamor.  In this case, there is nothing glamorous about Bulger's life, setting. or the man.  Depp plays him as a very cool, but angry menace that could snap into murderous intent instantly.  Depp's makeup, sunglasses, and generally dour expression throughout the whole film make him look like a living skull, which I am sure was deliberate.  At times, it is almost distracting as he goes through the movie more like a coiled snake, ready to strike anybody or anything without a trace of emotion except anger.  The movie makes the point that his son and mother's deaths left him an angry shell, but it is almost as if he is in a red haze for the whole movie.  

Edgerton is also very good as Agent Connolly, in a role that I think will be overlooked because of its extreme unlikeability.  He is so desperate to make a name for himself, so driven to prove that he is not "Southie" gutter trash, that he unleashes this menace on Boston and protects him at all costs.  Now, one of the double-edged issues of using criminal sources is that they are criminals and will continue to do criminal things.  But they are a necessary evil for the bigger picture.  This movie, however, demonstrates a particular problem, how far should you go to protect a source?  The movie suggest Bulger strung the FBI along for some time before he gave them any actionable intelligence.  But when he did, it was a gold mine that allowed Connolly, and by extension, the FBI, to take credit for major arrests that effectively ended the mafia influence in Boston.  But as a result, they got a worse devil in Bulger, who Connolly thought he could control.  The movie doesn't explicitly say whether or not this case is why FBI agents are not allowed to work in areas they grew up, it certainly seems plausible this is why.  In any case, the movie is good and a fine entry into the gangster genre.

No Escape

3 Stars (out of four)

The previews held some promise that this would be  a good thriller, and it was, but it was kind of run-of-the-mill.

So, No Escape has Owen Wilson and Lake Bell playing a mother and father with two girls moving to an unnamed Asian country (but looks a LOT like Thailand) to work for a water company.  On their way there, the country is beginning an extremely violent coup.  By the time Owen and family check into their hotel, events are already in motion.  The next morning, he goes to buy a newspaper and gets stuck literally on the middle of a violent street confrontation with police and protesters.  He manages to get back to the hotel just in time to find a mob pulling out foreigners and killing them on sight.  He quickly manages to get in the hotel, get his family, and what follows is one of the worst two days imaginable as they try to escape the country without being killed.

Now, the reviews have been savaging this film because of its extreme bloody nature, and I think this demonstrates how naïvely sheltered Americans can be.  Rarely have we experienced the kind of upheavals many countries have, and even then, they tend to be very contained.  Maybe it's the unflinching look at what being inside not just a riot, but a real revolution, is what critics don't understand.  Maybe it's because there are two endangered children in the story?  Maybe it's due to Lake Bell's attempted rape.  In any case, it is harrowingly real as to the level of brutality.  It is a little over-the-top as far as how murderous these guys get, especially with their own people, but recent history has given us such orgies of violence from the Khmer Rouge to Syria to El Salvador to Burma to pick your conflict in Africa.  But in this case, these guys appear to be everywhere and an unstoppable force, wiping out everyone wherever they go.  It struck me a tad unrealistic, but then again, I've never been in the middle of a revolution, either.

Maybe people are having such visceral reactions because they don't want to see very realistic depictions of violence in their popular entertainment.  There has always been a sanitization of real violence in American movies, and this movie, for the most part, sticks to those sanitized rules, except when violence is done to other Asians. I once read a movie review (I think for Executice Decision) that said the indications a movie is racist is when the villains are interchangeable with each other, ie Asian, black, whatever with no consideration to their motivations.  I would hold its rather the treatment of the victims is the yardstick.  We are obviously seeing this from the disoriented view of our white family.  On the other hand, the Asian victims in this film are not just meat for the grinder in increasingly horrible ways while the white family is "safe" because we Americans need a happy ending where we don't die.

The circumstances are very conventional cat-and-mouse dodging of bad guys.  There is nothing particularly original about the film other than this is a typical family thrown into a chaotic situation.  In any case, it is very exciting, albeit tough to watch at times.  For the most part, this movie was really good outside of the omnipresent killers, and a really odd plot twist with Pierce Brosnan that is a little deus ex machina.  But all in all, I really liked it.

Train Wreck

1.5 Stars (out of four)

Oh, I so wanted this to be good.  Amy Schumer's comedy can be brutally funny at times.  But, much like suppositories, this movie proved that she is only good in SHORT doses, and the longer it goes on, the more painful and humiliating it gets.  I admit, I like her a lot. Her internet shorts "Inside Amy Schumer" consistently make me laugh until I hurt.  That said, there is some stuff I don't get about her.  Now, I'm no prude, but what is up with her wine-swilling, barely functioning alcoholic persona mean?  Is she lampooning younger women today who drink way too much wine, or is she trying to be hip?  It really isn't clear sometimes.  This weird persona of hers is on full display in her movie, written with Judd Apatow, Train Wreck.

The story starts with two young girls being told by their father that monogamy is unrealistic and you should only live for yourself.  Flash forward an undetermined number of years and she is a writer for a Maxim-type men's magazine and she is essentially screwing her way through New York City.  For an assignment, she interviews a sports doctor who has revolutionized joint replacement, and works for Doctors Without Borders.  After being dumped by her boyfriend for her philandering ways, she begins to fall for this doctor, but she is so screwed in the head with misconceptions about relationships in general and men in particular, she doesn't know what she wants.  Hilarity ensues.

Now, I am not saying this movie isn't funny, because it is very funny in parts.  The stereotypical feminine relationship between her boyfriend and Lebron James is particularly hilarious, especially Lebron.  Normally, the kiss of death is to let athletes act (Brett Favre, Michael Jordan, Shaq and Mike Tyson ring a bell?  They're not funny.  You're not laughing with them, but AT them.  It's sad), but in this movie, Lebron is so earnest, it's impossible not to love his performance.  Amy herself, despite all the stupid stuff in this movie, is absolutely fearless in her eviceration of everything, including herself.  Which makes what I'm going to say next, so tragic.

You know how you broads hate it when we (men) tell blonde jokes and women-are-bad-driver jokes?  Why is that?  Because it shows an absolute idiocy in understanding women and reduces them to negative stereotypes that go for the lowest common denominator.  News flash!  All women are different.  They're not dumb, stupid, forgetful, flighty or crazy.  Now ladies, I know you don't want to hear this, but here goes: all men are not dumb, muscle-bound brutes who are totally clueless.  "But," I hear you shrilly yelling at me, "you men have been doing this for years!  What's good for the goose...etc, etc etc.."  To which I reply: this dumb stereotype has been going on in almost every female-based comedy or rom-com in the past thirty years.  Enough!  It gets old!  Get some new material!  This joke has played out a loooong time ago.  Be more clever than the knuckle-dragged so and prove us wrong.

Another thing I don't get with today's comedy is the very brutal and unimaginative takes on previous taboo subjects.  For instance, there is a scene where Amy wants her muscle-bound boyfriend to talk dirty and it gets more and more pathetic.  It ends with him getting almost gay when he compares her ass to another dude's.  I have said it time and again, anything for its own sake is gratuitous and lazy.  The same goes for crudity.  Just because you show an escalating argument where one guy keeps getting more and more graphic about how he will anally rape another guy (See?  The non-gay guy is saying more and more gay things to another guy. He must be a closeted gay!  Isn't that funny?) doesn't make it funny.  And dwelling on it after the rule of three doesn't make it any funnier.  This modern tendency to focus on the obvious and drag it to uncomfortable lengths (starting with Austin Powers and brought to new heights by the incredibly unfunny TV show, The Office) isn't funny.  Crudity for its own sake is a cheat and it's lazy. It's the same reason I hate Andrew Dice Clay's comedy.  I don't mind the occasional dick and fart joke.  In the right place, they can be quite funny.  In Train Wreck, it was the opposite.

And that's too bad because Amy is a great comic.  But in this movie she comes off as selfish, oafish, stupid, blind, arrogant and ultimately pretty unpleasant.  The cast of Seinfeld were the same way, but they had that magic sauce that Train Wreck lacked: cleverness.  Anyone can make a joke about hanging a towel off a guy's dick (as they do in this film), but that's a lazy cheat.  This movie's premise was great and could have been comedic gold, but came out mostly as sludge with moments of real brilliance in it.  And that is the final tragedy, because Amy deserved better than this.  She is crass, but incredibly witty.  In here, she's just...sad.

Straight Outta Compton

3.5 Stars (out of four)

1987 was a big year musically.  Two groups exploded on the scene that both had comparatively short life spans and yet profoundly altered their respective genres with a very nihilistic but urgent attitude, and oddly enough,with almost identical messages.  They both spoke of hellish urban life, dangerously twisted lifestyles focusing mostly on the destructive power and allure of drugs, and systemic harassment by law enforcement and authority figures.  The first was Gun 'N' Roses with the seminal metal album Appetite for Destruction.  The other was N.W.A. with their explosive debut album, Straight Outta Compton.  I once read a review that said Straight Outta Compton was hip-hop's Appetite for Destruction.  In a sense, that is a fair comparison.  Both albums immediately branded their respective groups as the most dangerous in America, both were acerbic and resonated with a real street authenticity, and both laid the groundwork for a much harder style of metal or rap, respectively.

While historical revisionists like to say hip-hop began in the 70s with groups like the Sugarhill Gang, I don't remember hearing the term until N.W.A. and their equally important contemporaries, Public Enemy came on the scene, and back then, it was called rap.  By the time N.W.A. showed up, rap had become sort of acceptable family entertainment with the likes of Young MC, The Fat Boys, Tone Loc and Dz Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince reigning the charts.  And while music historians will debate the birth of hip-hop, Gangsta Rap unquestionably started with N.W.A.

So, how is the movie?  Pretty good as far as music biopics go.  The movie starts quite stylistically, but very quickly becomes a by-the-numbers rise and fall story. In fact, this may be the best-produced and most expensive episode of VH1: Behind The Music.  That's not to say the movie isn't interesting or entertaining, because it is.  The subjects are very compelling and in the case of N.W.A. alums Dr. Dare and Ice Cube, both have had a big influence on American pop culture for decades.  This is a very important story to tell because of the very reason N.W.A. existed in the first place.  Both Public Enemy and N.W.A. spoke about issues tearing apart the black community.  But while Public Enemy seemed to focus on larger philosophical explorations of race and injustice, N.W.A. were, as Ice Cube says, reporters for what they saw every day: more personal stories of the death, destruction and hopelessness prevalent in inner-city communities that caused and still causes a very nihilistic, "live today-die tomorrow" ethic for many young people living there.  After N.W.A., these sentiments are just repeated over and over again: the ghetto sucks, life ain't nothing but bitches and money.  But N.W.A. was talking about this long before anyone else and created a new gangsta style and attitude that has been ruthlessly copied ever since.

The movie does not tread any new ground as far as themes go.  The music business is crooked and the young artist tends to get screwed in the end.  The movie makes an interesting contrast with N.W.A.'s manager Jerry Heller and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight.  They are essentially identical in all ways except their methods.  While Suge Knight is a brutal thug who robs artists of their money through intimidation and violence, Jerry Heller does the same, through shady business practices of the shady music business.  My biggest complaint is the movie relies too much on the viewer having some previous knowledge of the subject.  In the beginning especially, it glosses over the importance of characters like Alonzo Williams or of the LA hip-hop station KDAY.  They are mentioned briefly with no context to their importance for the nascent group.  The movie also deals primarily with the famous guys. Ice Cube, Easy E and Dr. Dre.  This is probably a necessity for time, but other N.W.A. alums MC Ren and DJ Yella barely warrant a mention and Arabian Prince isn't mentioned at all.  Finally, this being a biopic financed by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, it feels they are whitewashed a bit, that they could do no wrong and that the world was out to get them.  But like their music, this movie isn't about objectivity, but rather how they saw the world.  It's not really an objective documentary, but an understandably biased autobiography.

So is the movie good? It sort of depends on your attitude going in. If you hate hip-hop and gangsta rap's attitude and don't want to try to understand where the frustration comes from, this movie will not change your mind, and may even strengthen your perconceptions.  But it has a point of view, a valid one, and one more important than ever as U.S. race relations are going through rocky times again.  If one understands where the animosity comes from, real progress can be made to address it, which makes N.W.A.'s art arguably more important now than it ever was.

Spy

3.5 Stars (out of four)

Boy, I love to be surprised, and that usually happens for me in comedies based on how mind-bogglingly stupid the state of comedy has become lately.  From the scene-chewing hammy crap of Jim Carrey that passes as slapstick, to overly-sensitive parents who don't want their darlings to hear the words boobs and butts, much less see one, to overly pansy, politically-correct liberal-types who don't understand the concept that effective humor tends to be brutal and will offend, to the lazy producers who churn out a never-ending stream of fart jokes; humor has definitely taken a hit in the last 15 years.  It's become so bad that Will Farell playing a pan flute for an extended sequence is considered funny AND repeated in the sequel.  My god, what happened to the funny?  With the occasional sublime comedy like The Hangover, Bridesmaids or Ted occasionally slip through the cracks, a good, rip-roaring adult comedy is difficult to come by lately.

And then Spy came along.

I admit, I went into this movie sorta under protest.  As much as I liked Bridesmaids and Melissa McCarthy did make me laugh in it, to me, she was not the strongest element in that film.  Most of her movies lately have appeared to be retreads of that comedy template, the fat person with no sense of self or propriety.  But as in similar cases with Dumb and Dumber, American Pie, and The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, I must apologize to the filmmakers.  This movie was FANTASTIC!

When the CIA's top spy (Jude Law) is killed on a mission, his partner at HQ, Susan Cooper (McCarthy) is activated into service to track a ruthless arms dealer (Rose Byrne, also from Bridesmaids).  Along the way, a hell-bent-for-revenge CIA operative Rick Ford (Jason Statham at his unhinged best) keeps almost blowing Cooper's cover because he feels she's not up to it.  Hilarity ensues.

Now this could have gone off the rails if they would have made Cooper to be the stereotypical bumbling fat person played for laughs.  But instead, the filmmakers go the exact opposite way and play her totally straight, which works beautifully.  Cooper is a natural talent for the work, but is a little unorthodox in her appearance, which makes the comedy juxtaposition so much fun and interesting.  They play her realistically, lacking in confidence in herself and her abilities.  This has held her back as other people push her aside because they underestimate her.  Many overweight people will understand this, that this tends to be a truism in real life.  Most people don't respect overweight people for whatever reason, and that is why overweight people are the last safe group to make fun of.  Look at any comedy.  Who is the lovable, clumsy, dorky loser?  The fat guy/gal.  Lately, Hollywood has been overcompensating for this by making fat people strong, but incredibly crude, devoid of any sense of decency or decorum.  In either case, the end result is the same, the fat people are a freak show in every sense of the word.  Don't believe me?  Look at any fat person in any comedy over the last 20 years.  They are either gross, stupid, unaware or clumsy, or a combination of all four.  But Spy turns this trope on its head, that the overweight person is quite capable and the stereotypical beautiful people don't know what to make of it.

While the F-bomb is thrown around a LOT, the movie relies mostly on the subtle for its comedy.  The jokes are sharp jabs grounded in reality, with such acidity in some cases that I felt my skin burning.  That's not to say it isn't over the top.  Jason Statham is a comically deranged version of every character he has played in the past, and he is absolutely brilliant.  Many times, he rants about how all his loved ones were killed and the horrible things that happened to him.  The funny thing is, each of these rants are basic plots to every one of his previous films.  The end result is hilarious.  Louie C.K. has been making the rounds in the last few years with his brand of the wickedly perverse wrapped up in the banal.  You feel almost guilty laughing at his jokes.  The humor comes from a VERY dark place and you don't see it coming.  Spy has that same quality for me.  This is NOT an Austin Powers-flirting-with-the-dark-side-but-still-PG-13-family-friendly-type of film.  Nor is it a Borat or Bruno-let-it-all-hang-out-type of film.  This is not for kids. Leave them home.  Don't be cheap and spring for the babysitter, or send them to that mutant hellspawn atrocity, The Lego Movie.  Spy is pure adult, guilty pleasure.  Don't question it.  Just enjoy it.

A final word to 20th Century Fox's promotions department.  Despite this movie making a boatload of money despite your best efforts to ruin it, you really need to hire some new blood.  The commercials were dull, the movie poster campaign unimaginative (see the first two below for the dull, dumb, boring posters for this campaign), and as a whole, lazy except for the third poster on the right.  THAT is a great poster for this movie, and yet I see it nowhere.  Poster design used to be great art, now it's just dull, boilerplate pictures of the cast with a tagline and a title.  The ad campaign did this movie a great disservice.  I almost missed this amazing gem based on that alone.