Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

* * * 1/2
Director: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford

When many of us think about "grown up" superhero movies dealing with themes that evoke real-world issues, we tend to think first of Christopher Nolan's Batman series, which dealt with many ethical questions and issues which became especially prominent in the post-9/11 decade. With The Winter Soldier, the Captain America series stakes its own claim on being the serious, grown up superhero story by spinning a yarn about national security, the military-industrial complex, and the corruption of institutional power. That it does this so successfully while still managing to tell an entertaining story about superheroes, supervillains, and their allies battling it out in the streets and in the air gives it a pretty strong claim to the title of the Marvel Universe's best film to date.

Review: All Is Lost (2013)

* * * 1/2
Director: J. C. Chandor
Starring: Robert Redford

Late in All Is Lost Robert Redford's unnamed protagonist looks up to the heavens and screams the word, "Fuck." He holds out a lot longer than I would have. If the character was based on me, there would be a lot more dialogue because there would be a steady stream of expletives from beginning to end. J. C. Chandor's stark, straightforward tale can be summed up in seven words: "A man struggles to survive at sea." That's pretty much the entirety of the movie, which features only one character, next to no dialogue, and a series of escalating crises that make survival seem increasingly hopeless. In lesser hands this would feel gimmicky, but Chandor's deft execution and Redford's riveting performance make it work.

Review: The Conspirator (2011)

* * *
Director: Robert Redford
Starring: James McAvoy, Robin Wright

History is not linear; it’s circular. What goes around comes around again and again, which means that the best way to understand the events of the present is to look towards the past. Though Robert Redford’s The Conspirator takes place in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, it is equally about the current war on terror and the way that governments and the public react in times of uncertainty and political instability. At its core, the explores the question of how liberty can be of any value when governments can suspend during the times when it is needed the most.

The Best Picture Countdown #58: Out of Africa (1985)

Note: this post has been modified from a previously published post

Director: Sydney Pollack
Starring: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford

Out of Africa is the kind of sweeping epic that doesn’t get made much anymore (at least not well). It has prestige and – dare I say it? – class written all over it and manages somehow to overcome the burdens of a problematic genre to live up to its initial promise. There are reasons why I feel that I shouldn’t like this movie: the “other” culture seen through the eyes of a white protagonist, the white protagonist coded as good by being the sole champion of non-white peoples, and the trope “noble savage,” just to name a few. However, despite those elements, the movie really works for me and I adore it unabashedly.

The film is based on the life of Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen and was a member of the Danish aristocracy. After losing out on marrying the man that she really wanted, she settles for his brother, Bror (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and together they move to Kenya where they are set to run a plantation. The marriage is rocky from the beginning: Karen grows increasingly irritated as she watches her spendthrift husband blow through her money, make bad business decisions which leave the plantation haemorrhaging more money, and making little secret of the fact that he’s seeing other women behind her back. Karen makes the best of it, taking control of the management of the plantation and trying to salvage something from it, and making a real effort to make her marriage work. When it becomes clear that even the fact that he’s given her syphilis (which in turn renders her unable to bear children) won’t make Bror think twice about cheating, she finally calls an end to the marriage.

There are two other men who play important roles in Karen’s life: Farah (Malick Bowens), her servant and friend, and Denys, a British big game hunter who becomes Karen’s lover and is played by Robert Redford with absolutely no attempt at an accent (and, really, why would he? At that point in Redford’s career it would have been distracting to see him attempting an accent). Denys and Karen have an intense attraction to each other both physically and intellectually, but the relationship ultimately leaves both wanting. Karen wants some kind of commitment from Denys, wants, at least in this one way, to be like every other woman around her. Denys wants the freedom to come and go as he pleases, to be alone when he wants to be alone. Karen is more hurt by Denys’ desire to be alone than she ever was by Bror’s infidelities, and this incompatibility eventually drives them apart.

As played by Streep, Karen is a woman of considerable spirit, one who endures much but never succumbs to self-pity. She likes having a man around – first Bror, then Denys – but she shows time and again that she doesn’t need one because she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. She’s independent and able to pursue what she wants with an aggression that’s foreign to the women around her, which some find admirable and others find frustrating and, we can assume, unladylike; yet, at the same time, she longs to fit in through a traditional relationship. Redford is a good foil for her, playing a man who is only willing, or perhaps only capable, of giving so much of himself and their romantic chemistry is off the charts (if there was ever a sexier hair washing scene captured on film, I haven’t seen it).

Much of the film was shot on location in Kenya and director Sydney Pollack makes the most of the natural landscape. The film is beautifully photographed by David Watkin, who won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for his efforts, one of the seven that the film would ultimately take home. The production values of the film are top notch and it’s difficult to argue against the worthiness of those seven wins, even though that’s a sore spot for some because the year Out of Africa won is also the year that The Color Purple lost out in 11 categories. This fact has made Out of Africa’s Best Picture win somewhat controversial, which I think is unfair because it’s a really great and moving film. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the best Best Picture winners there is.

The Best Picture Countdown #53: Ordinary People (1980)

This post was contributed by Robert Fleitz, author of several blogs including His Eyes Were Watching Movies. Head on over and check it out!

Director: Robert Redford
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton

1980 Best Picture winner Ordinary People has the misfortune of being one of those movies that has a bad reputation because it bested what is now considered a superior classic at the Academy Awards (since it beat Martin Scorsese’s adored film Raging Bull for Best Picture and Best Director, and others). Of course, based on the subject matter of the film, this outcome shouldn’t have been very surprising. At face value, the film seems like perfect Academy bait: a family dealing with grief over the death of their son. However, though the film may suffer from some unfortunate preconceptions, it is truly a fantastic, unique and poignant study of grief and familial relationships.

Husband and wife Calvin (Donald Sutherland) and Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), along with their son Conrad (Timothy Hutton) make up the family in question. After the death of their older son, Buck, in a sailing accident, each of the family members reacts to the tragedy in their own way. Calvin tries to cheerfully carry on, Beth becomes bitter and distant, and the guilt-ridden Conrad becomes depressed, eventually attempting suicide. At the beginning of the film, we meet the family some time after the accident, in which they are all trying to live their respective ordinary lives. However, things aren’t completely right as Beth and Calvin begin to experience tension and Conrad decides to go see a doctor, played by Judd Hirsch.

It’s a bit difficult to go into greater detail regarding the plot, as the film mainly chronicles each family member’s attempts at dealing with their long-held grief. In fact, the film’s structure is quite effective in that it basically shows regular days-in-the-life of the characters, with an added tone of underlying sorrow that painfully permeates the entire film. Unlike many grief-centered films, this one does not rely on histrionic monologues to develop its characters. Instead, director Robert Redford allows the quiet script and the brilliant performances to speak for themselves, creating a lived in and real feeling that ultimately affects the viewer in a profound way. This also makes the few intense and passionate scenes much more effective.

As to be expected in a movie like this, it’s the performances that really shine. Timothy Hutton won an Oscar for his role, and he totally deserved it – he completely inhabits Conrad’s pain, guilt, and sorrow, but also stays away from being a miserable sad-sack, instead letting Conrad’s moments of happiness shine through like a memory of the past that makes his current sadness much more painful to witness. Mary Tyler Moore doesn’t have much screentime but she does surprisingly fantastic work as the bitter and distant Beth. Being a “bitter, emotionally removed” character has become a bit of a cliché over the years but Moore made it new and never overdoes it or alienates the viewer. Her complex characterization is so rewarding.

However, there is a reason that Ordinary People hasn’t quite stood the test of time that some of its contemporaries has – it’s by no means a perfect film. Though the screenplay’s passive structure and gradual emotional development is what gives the film a lot of its strength, it isn’t always executed in a way that is completely absorbing for the viewer. Far too often the film loses its emotional steam (and thus, the attention of the people watching it). Admittedly, it often gets this steam back quickly, but for a two hour film, it feels a bit longer.

All in all though, Ordinary People is a well-crafted and emotionally resonant film that gets an unfortunate shaft due to its Oscar prospects. It’s interesting how winning Best Picture can be both a blessing and a curse. However, if its win cursed it with unfair perceptions of its quality, it also blessed it with audiences who will rediscover it for years to come.

The Best Picture Countdown #46: The Sting (1973)

Director: George Roy Hill
Starring: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert Shaw

Why is it that, as moviegoers, we are about to be treated to Martin Lawrence’s third outing in a fat suit but only had two opportunities to enjoy the collaboration between director George Roy Hill and actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford? It’s just not right. The Sting is the second of those collaborations (the first being the also excellent Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), the winner of 1973’s Best Picture, and a smart and stylish film that hasn’t lost an ounce of spark.

Set during the Depression, The Sting centers on Johnny Hooker (Redford), a small time grifter who can’t manage to get ahead without immediately blowing his winnings at the gambling tables. His former partner, Luther (Robert Earl Jones), encourages him to track down Henry Gondorff (Newman), a legendary con man who can teach him how to run “the big con” and finally make a score so big that even he can’t run through it in a day. Before Hooker can find Gondorff, however, he discovers that his last mark was a courier for Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), a fierce crime boss whose goons murder Luther, and that Hooker is next on the hit list. This also puts him on the radar of crooked cop Snyder (Charles Durning), who wants a cut of the money Hooker scammed from Lonnegan.

While dodging all kinds of nefarious characters, Hooker finds Gondorff, who reluctantly agrees to try to scam Lonnegan using a con known as “the wire,” which involves a large number of con artists and a fake betting parlour. Hooker and Gondorff go about setting Lonnegan up, which requires Gondorff to pose as a bookie named Shaw and Hooker to pose as an unhappy underling named Kelly and then gain Lonnegan’s trust by convincing him that together they will scam Shaw (Lonnegan, having never met Hooker, doesn't realize that Hooker and Kelly are the same person). Though Lonnegan throws a few curve balls that force the team to make some quick shifts to their plan, things proceed on track until Snyder drags Hooker into a meeting with the FBI, who convince Hooker that it would be in his best interest to help them arrest Gondorff. As the story approaches its climax, Lonnegan is on track to lose a ton, Gondorff is set to get busted, and the mysterious assassin Salino is determined to kill Hooker.

There are films that you can watch without completely playing attention and there are films that you have to watch with a keen eye. The Sting is the latter type, not only because of the elaborate nature of the central plot but also because there are so many subplots woven into that main plot; the story is something of a juggling act but nary a ball gets dropped. The screenplay by David S. Ward (who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) is really strong, breaking the con up into chapters which denote each phase of the scheme and laying things out in such a way that you can follow what’s going on, but without simplifying it so much that you can’t believe the mark would fall for it. There are plenty of twists and turns, some you can detect before they’re revealed, but others that are kept well enough under wraps that there’s an element of surprise. I think the scene in which the identity of Salino is revealed is particularly well constructed and executed and indicative of the level of craft at play throughout the film.

Of the actors only Redford received an Oscar nomination for this film (to date his only acting nomination), but Newman is equally excellent and both deliver performances that find the right medium between drama and comedy to help set the tone for this tightly plotted caper. As the mark, Shaw renders a terrific supporting performance, crafting Lonnegan so that he’s menacing enough to be believable as a crime lord, but also so openly greedy that it’s believable that he can be taken. To be a good con man, one must possess the ability to read people and the film itself is a great observer of the characters and does a great job at breaking down their weaknesses and showing how those weaknesses can be turned into weapons against them. It isn’t simply a slick film; it’s a very smart one and though it’s arguably not quite as good as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, it’s definitely in the same rarefied league.

Oscarstravaganza: All The President's Men

* * * *

Winner: Best Sound, 1976
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Starring: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards

Every once in a while I see a film that makes me understand why people often say that they miss the days when movies were made for adults. All The President's Men, based on the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is a movie for adults, one that doesn't punctuate it's story with violence or sex, but relies solely on its ability to engage with the audience on an intellectual level. It's a refreshing movie - even 34 years later.

The film is kicked off with the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Washington Post reporter Woodward (Robert Redford) is sent to court to cover the arraignment of the five men arrested at Watergate and quickly comes to believe that there's something bigger going on. His colleague Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) also thinks that something is being covered up and manages to get himself on the story as well. There is tension between the two men at first, stemming largely from Bernstein's unsolicited help in punching up Woodward's copy, but they quickly learn to work together and their styles end up balancing each other out. Woodward's ability to finesse and Bernstein's ability to get to people who are reluctant to see him (he is nothing if not tenacious and just a little bit sneaky) are both valuable assets that pay off big time.

For a while the story seems to be going nowhere. Their boss, Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), threatens to kill it unless they can put the disparate elements they've gathered together into a cohesive narrative, others argue that they don't have the experience to cover it, and many seem to think that there's no story at all. The Post is dangerously close to becoming a joke in journalistic circles, which in turn prompts Bradlee to dig in his heels, standing behind his reporters even as he worries that they might not be able to pull it off and show the government's level of involvement in the scandal. Woodward and Bernstein persist, putting the pieces together with the help of Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook), and writing a story that would forever change the face of American politics.

The end results of Watergate are well known and the film itself doesn't really dwell on the consequences of the story. Instead it focuses on how the story is put together and manages to construct itself in a way that is exciting even when things aren't really moving forward. Woodward and Bernstein spend a lot of time chasing down false leads, getting doors slammed in their faces, and being given the run-around over the phone, but director Alan J. Pakula is able to convey these scenes in an energetic way that builds momentum, which can't have been easy. All The President's Men is made up almost entirely of people doing little more than talking but it's more thrilling than most movies that rely on explosions and car chases as crutches. The screenplay by William Goldman won an Oscar and it's easy to understand why - the script is so solid that it really becomes the star of the show.

All told, All The President's Men was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 4, for Sound, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, and Supporting Actor for Jason Robards. Surprisingly, neither Redford nor Hoffman made the cut as Best Actor, though the field was admittedly a bit crowded that year (the winner was Peter Finch for Network, the other four nominees were William Holden for Network, Robert De Niro for Taxi Driver, Giancarlo Giannini for Seven Beauties, and Sylvester Stallone for Rocky). It's perhaps because it's difficult to think of Woodward and Bernstein as separate people rather than a team (throughout the film they're referred as "Woodstein"), which is really a credit to how well Redford and Hoffman work together. They make a believable team and play their characters as men who have their differences but aren't defined by stylistic quirks. Redford and Hoffman have both had rich careers full of great performances and their performances in All The President's Men are right up their amongst their best.