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“INSIDE”: On a desert island

September 21, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Willem Dafoe

“INSIDE” My rating: C+ (Prime Video)

105 minutes “ MPAA rating: R

Before drifting away into ambiguity, Vasillis Katsoupis’ “Inside” serves as both a reasonably diverting escape tale and as a one-man acting showcase for Willem Dafoe.

It begins with a high-tech burglary.  Dafoe’s Nemo (we only know the character’s name from the credits) is dropped by helicopter onto the roof of an NYC high rise.  He makes his way to the penthouse, a sprawling living space that takes up the entire top floor.

The towering walls are covered with expensive modern art…and that’s why Nemo is there. The absent owner of this palace has a collection worth millions; Nemo and his confederates (we only hear them through the walkie-talkie he carries) have a shopping list of items to steal.

But it all goes haywire.  The apartment’s security system is way more sophisticated than the robbers thought, and within minutes of arriving Nemo finds himself locked inside. His partners in crime sign off, leaving him to whatever fate awaits.

It’s kind of like Robinson Crusoe with a panoramic view of Manhattan.

Nemo’s desperate attempts to disarm the security system are disastrous.  Over the course of his imprisonment the apartment’s damaged climate controls send the temperature soaring to 100 or dropping almost to freezing. Our man spends days sweltering in his skivvies, and then must bundle up in pilfered clothing as the temp plummets.

More bad news: His tinkering has rendered inoperable the in-house phone that otherwise could be used to call the front desk downstairs.

The apartment’s owner apparently turned off the utilities before leaving for an extended European vacation, so Nemo has neither running water nor gas with which to cook the few items he finds frozen in the fridge. Luckily a couple of tropical trees in a huge planter are periodically watered by tiny hoses connected to a timer, so Nemo strategically places cups and saucers to collect the daily spray.

He can’t even watch TV.  The big set in the living room will only deliver feeds from security cameras around the building, so our man must find entertainment eavesdropping on residents and staffers — especially a pretty young maid he dubs Jasmine (Eliza Stuyck).

“Inside” chronicles in minute detail Nemo’s day-to-day survival regimen and his escape attempts, which include building a shaky scaffolding of cannibalized furniture in an attempt to reach a skylight 20 feet overhead.

Dafoe embodies the character’s physical and mental deterioration with virtually no dialogue. Nor are there flashbacks to tell us anything about Nemo’s past.  Is he just a thief or is he also an art lover?  (Would an art lover paint mustaches on the priceless portraits on the walls?) At one point he passes the time by drawing his own mural on a wall.

It’s all very minimalist and for at least its first half “Inside” is a gripping survival story.

But “Inside” wears out its welcome, slipping ever more deeply into improbability.  Example: Nemo deliberately starts a fire, setting off sprinklers that leave him ankle-deep in water.  Yet apparently the rest of the building is unaware of the deluge…I mean, wouldn’t all that water leak down to the floors below?

Perhaps the biggest bugaboo, though, is Katsoupis and co-writer Ben Hopkins’ decision to leave us hanging without a clear resolution. They probably thought of it as artful.  I kinda felt like it was a cheat.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THEATER CAMP”: Glorious amateurism

September 18, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Molly Gordon, Ben Platt

“THEATER CAMP” My rating: C+ (Hulu)

92 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The people who made “Theater Camp” are, quite obviously, former child actors.

Which is why anyone who ever devoted a few formative months of their youth to singing, dancing and dreaming of stardom will find this film triggers a tsunami of fond memories.

For some that will be enough.

I wanted more. 

Maybe it’s because “Theater Camp” — written by Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman and directed by Gordon and Lieberman —is a bit too much in love with its own mythology to bring out the knives.

I was hoping for “Waiting for Guffman”-level laughs.“ What I got was a bunch of narrative backstage cliches without the really biting satire that would lift the film from the modestly amusing to the truly memorable.

Here’s the setup: Joan Rudinsky, the long-time founder/director of Camp AdirondACTS  (played in a prologue by Amy Seders) is hospitalized and in a coma.  In her absence a skeleton staff overseen by her theatrically clueless son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) are struggling to keep their young campers occupied, fed and engaged in producing the summer’s penultimate show, a musical tribute to Joan.

The usual “types” are on display, with the central characters being Angelo and Sylvia (Ben Platt, Gordon) who fell in love when they were students at AdirondACTS and, since Angelo’s coming out, have been best buds.

Problem is, Sylvia  seems to have marketable talents (she’s been asked to audition for a cruise show) while Angelo seems destined never to move beyond the camp.  This makes for some tension.

Meanwhile the inept Troy is considering a buyout from the rival (and much more posh) summer camp across the lake.  Also he’s getting romantically encouraging vibes from the other camp’s CFO (Patti Harrison).

There are some modest laughs here, but the approach is gentle and sweet, possibly the result of the filmmaker’s improvisational approach. The hoped-for avalanche of social comedy never materializes.  

In fact, “Theater Camp” only really comes together in the last reel when the kids put on their big tribute to Joan and in classic movie fantasy fashion transcend amateurism to dleliver an inspired night of musical theater. 

| Robert W. Butler

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“UNKNOWN: CAVE OF BONES”:  Intimations of the hereafter 

September 9, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

“UNKNOWN: CAVE OF BONES” My rating: B  (Netflix)

93 minutes | No MPAA rating

One of my all-time favorite documentaries is Werner Herzog’s 2011 “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” in which the eccentric filmmaker took a 3-D camera into a French cave to record the incredible wall paintings of animals rendered more than 30,000 years ago.

The makers of that art were clearly human, and as I noted at the time, “Cave…” is about nothing less than the birth of the human soul.

The perfect bookend to Herzog’s masterwork is “Unknown: Cave of Bones,” Mark Mannucci’s chronicle of the the almost decade-long exploration of the Rising Star cave system in South Africa.

Rising Star contains a treasure trove of bones belonging to hominids that lived between 250,000 and 300,000 years ago.  They were small creatures with brains about the size of a chimpanzee’s. They are regarded as animals, not humans. 

This newly discovered ancient species was dubbed homo naledi.

Early on we meet paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, an American-born South African in charge of the project.  He, along with a couple of colleagues, becomes our narrator and guide into a mystery that stretches back to the beginning of our world.

The deeper explorers penetrated the cave, the more surprises they encountered. 

 Lee Berger

In a room so inaccessible that only the thinnest of scientists could squeeze through to it (Berger tells us up front that  he’ll never see the place save on a video feed…he’s too hefty to make his way there) the team discovered the bones of one  individual who had undergone special treatment.

His/her remains had not been abandoned on the cave floor. They had been deliberately buried. Moreover, the body had to have been carried or dragged up and down a daunting series of chutes, inclines and crawl spaces to get there.

Wait a minute.  Burial implies a social system. It implies that these creatures had the emotional capacity to protect or honor  the remains of a beloved individual.  And it strongly suggests that homo naledi was contemplating an afterlife.

But weren’t these just, well, animals?

It gets better. The scientists discover a burial in which a stone had been placed in the deceased’s hand…a stone that apparently had been knapped to create a sharp edge and a pointed end.  

In other words, a tool.

And cross-hatch patterns are found scratched into the cave wall.  We call that art.

Unfolding as a kind of real-life mystery, “Unknown…” alternates terrific footage from inside the cave with talking head commentary from Berger and fellow primatologists Agustin Fuentes and John Hawks. 

These guys are scientists.  They deal in facts.  They’re uncomfortable with metaphysical postulating.

And yet their worlds are rocked by the notion that 200,000 years before homo sapiens emerged there were creatures exhibiting human-like behavior: funerary rituals, tool creating, art making. Raising the question of just how we’re supposed to define the words “human being.”

Mannucci’s documentary is immeasurably aided by the use of animated sequences to suggest how homo naledi might have looked and moved.  These black-and-white sequences are painterly, blurred just enough to give an idea of this ancient world without depicting details that might not be supported by the evidence.

  The result is a haunting, unexpectedly moving dreamlike experience that leaves the viewer in quiet awe.

| Robert W. Butler

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“WHAT I’M WATCHING”

August 30, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Idris Elba

“HIJACK” (Apple+):  I’d watch Idris Elba clean his ears with a Q-Tip. In “Hijack” he is but one member of an excellent ensemble delivering the year’s best nail-biter.

This seven-part miniseries unfolds in real time.  Shorty after taking off from a Middle East airport, a British passenger jet is taken over by gunmen. Their motivations are unclear until late in the drama, but every episode cannily drops breadcrumb clues that we must sort through.

In that we’re like passenger Sam Nelson  (Elba), a heavy-hitting corporate negotiator flying back to his native London.  Nelson isn’t a man of action. No kung fu, no fisticuffs. He’s a thinker who places himself between the hijackers and the terrified passengers in an effort to prevent what looks increasingly like a high body count.

“Hijack” unfolds not only in the air, where we meet all sorts of passengers — as in John Ford’s “Stagecoach,” they represent all aspects of humankind, good and bad —but also on the ground as the British authorities, air traffic controllers and anti-terrorism experts  try to stave off a worst-case scenario in which the air liner is shot down by military jets.

Perhaps the show’s deeply satisfying complexity is the result of a seven-person writing staff who keep coming up with new and intriguing twists.  Meanwhile directors Jim Field Smith and Mo Ali make the most of the yarn’s claustrophobic elements. 

With its real-time delivery “Hijack” is the perfect one-day binge. 

Timothy Olyphant, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor

“JUSTIFIED: CITY PRIMIEVAL” (Hulu): More Raylan Givens?  YES, PLEASE.

Timothy Olyphant reprises his signature role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in this eight-parter (too short, but still) that finds our Kentucky-bred lawman working a case in Detroit (as gritty in its own way as coal country).

Nearly 16 years have passed since we last saw Raylan, and if anything he looks sexier than ever.  Maybe it’s because he’s now older and a bit wiser, long divorced and traveling with his teenage daughter, who is way too cocky for her years. (She’s played by Olyphant’s real-life kiddo Vivian…the apple didn’t drop far from this tree).

The villain this time around is Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), a seductive/terrifying good ol’ boy who likes to preen in his tidy whities. Early on Mansell kills a judge and steals his little brown book of bribery.  The idea is to blackmail the “respectable” folk listed in this incriminating volume. 

Toss in Mansell’s grudge match with the local Albanian ganglord (Terry Kinney), his affair with a fortune-hunting casino cocktail waitress (Adelaide Clemens, suggesting the good girl she played in “Rectified” has gone bad),  and an uneasy partnership with a dive bar owner (Vondie Curtis-Hall), and you’ve got plenty of nerve-shredding action.

But there’s more,  with our boy Raylan finding a sympathetic soul in Mansell’s criminal attorney, winning played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. It may be the year’s most unexpected and satisfying TV romance.

Oh…and the final episode ties up loose ends with a coda that damn near rivals the final sendoff of “ Six Feet Under.”

Matthew Goode as Robert Evans, Miles Teller as Al Ruddy

“THE OFFER” (Paramount +): The making of 1972’s “The Godfather” was every bit as gripping as the film itself…at least according to this 10-part miniseries which, we’re told, was inspired by Al Ruddy’s experiences while producing the film.

Miles Teller plays Ruddy, whose track record (“Hogan’s Heroes,” a motorcycle movie) hardly seemed up to adapting Mario Puzo’s best-selling Mafia novel to the big screen.  Basically Ruddy learned the hard way, putting out daily brushfires (budget problems, location hassles) and finding himself aligned with real-world mobster Joe Columbo, who initially opposed the film as being anti-Italian and later padded the production’s payroll with his non-working “workers.”

Teller provides a solid center to the film, but the real fun comes from a small army of  supporting players who chew the scenery with relish:  Matthew Goode as studio head and ladies’ man Robert Evans, Giovanni Ribisi as frog-voiced Joe Columbo, and Brit character actor Burn Gorman as Charles Bluhdorn, the Austrian owner of Paramount and the very image of a capitalist martinet.

Though they have cannily cast actors who sound (and sometimes look) like stars Al Pacino and Marlon Brando, the series’ makers don’t try to re-enact moments from the actual movie.  But frequently we watch the faces of crew members as they oversee a scene being shot, and their awestruck expressions make it clear that movie magic is being captured.

For most viewers “The Offer” will be a huge package of surprise revelations.  Director Frances Coppola (an excellent Dan Fogler) had to fight off numerous attempts by the studio brass to fire Pacino (he was deemed too short, too actorish). The production barely scraped together enough money to send a skeleton crew to Sicily. 

And according to Ruddy’s telling, he was held captive by thug “Crazy” Joe Gallo who demanded money from a production that had none left.

For movie geeks “The Offer” is a total pigout.    And the highest praise is that as soon as you’ve finished it you can’t wait to watch the original “Godfather” one more time.

| Robert W. Butler

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“BARBIE”: Having it both ways

August 18, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie

“BARBIE” My rating: B (Theaters)

114 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

I’m pretty late to the Barbie party, having only just recently caught Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.” 

Given that I’m playing catch-up, this is less a straightforward review than a collection of observations about what has become a major cultural phenomenon.

You needn’t be a past or present Barbie doll owner to enjoy the movie, but it sure helps.   

The screenplay by Gerwig and significant other Noah Baumbach draws endlessly from the 60-plus-year history of Barbie, going so far as to resurrect as characters discontinued dolls like pregnant Midge, “Ken’s buddy” Allan (an hilarious appearance by Michael Cera as the lone wimp in a sea of muscled Kens), Video Girl Barbie (with a tiny TV screen embedded in her back) and even Sugar Daddy Ken (???).

As someone unfamiliar with all the Barbie permutations, I still found these characters amusing.  But I can only imagine the giddy joy experienced by little girls (now women) who retain fond memories of these long-lost inhabitants of the Barbie universe.

The film is undeniably diverting and occasionally even moving, and packed with visual and aural jokes. But it cannot — in my opinion — live up to all the hype that has been generated since it hit the theaters.

In fact, I found myself becoming bored in the picture’s central section.  For all the diverting eye candy and well-aimed jokes, the characters are still defined by their “doll-ness.” They are commercial objects, and as such remain essentially artificial rather than fully formed.

Within the limitations imposed on them, our Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are able to suggest a dawning emotional and intellectual depth. But I was never able to accept them as fully human.

There is, however, one moment that almost brought me to tears.

 In the film’s central passage Barbie and Ken are transported to contemporary Los Angeles.  There are plenty of jokes about doll world/real world culture clash.

But in one brief but throat-lumping scene, Barbie sits at a bus stop next to a white-haired old lady.  She stares at the senior citizen for a moment and then says with near-reverence: “You’re beautiful!”

So much going on in just two words.  There are no old people in Barbieworld, of course. The filmmakers could have played this encounter for laughs. But instead of being frightened or repulsed by this vision of mortality, our heroine is awed by the human truth exhibited by one old lady waiting for her bus.

Now that’s a GREAT movie moment.

“Barbie” has it both ways.

The film is a wicked satire of all that the Barbie franchise stands for; at the same time, it is never mean spirited. In fact, it’s a celebration. A balancing act for the ages.

Ryan Gosling is going to win an Oscar.

One bit of hype is absolutely true: Gosling is spectacularly entertaining as the shallow, preening Ken.  It is a great comic performance that isimultaneously generates uproarious laughter while subtly suggesting a dawning consciousness.

The conservatives are right to be terrified.  

The film is an incredibly effective parable about female empowerment, as Barbie (all the Barbies, actually) gain self-awareness. 

Moreover, “Barbie” dives headfirst into political commentary when the Kens establish a Taliban-ish patriarchy over Barbieland. One of the film’s major themes is that of female desire (spiritual, not sexual)  butting heads with male oppression. 

Whether this constitutes man-bashing is in the eye of the beholder.  Our friends on the right seem to think so.

I’m on board with the film’s point of view; even so, there were moments when it felt like Gerwig and Co. were endlessly rearguing their case.  The phrase “beating a dead horse” comes to mind (an appropriate choice, given that a key manifestation of the Kens’ newfound toxic masculinity is an obsession with galloping stallions).

The film feels padded. 

Most of what I found problematic about “Barbie” would have shot right past had the movie been, say, 90 minutes long instead of two hours.  Better too short than too long.

The execs at Mattel  (owners of the Barbie franchise) are either geniuses or idiots — not sure which.

“Barbie” is full of jabs at  corporate culture, going so far as to cast Will Farrell as the bumbling president of Mattel.

How the hell did the screenplay get a pass from the company’s bigwigs?  Since when have corporations developed a sense of humor…particularly self-satire? Like, making fun of their own products?

In the end it doesn’t matter.  By serving as the butt of the filmmakers’ jokes, the corporation has found itself in the midst of a marketing bonanza.  No doubt in the wake of all this sales of all things Barbie  have gone stratospheric. 

Talk about a happy ending.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THE BEANIE BUBBLE”: Too cute by half

August 4, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Elizabeth Banks, Zac Galifianakis

“THE BEANIE BUBBLE” My rating: B-(Apple+)

110 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Notwithstanding a transformative performance from funny guy Zac Galifianakis and solid work from his three leading ladies, Apple+’s “The Beanine Bubble” left me wondering just what message its creators wanted to send.

Part cautionary tale, part character study, part historical recreation, this feature debut from directors Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash  manages to entertain even while spreading itself so thin that there’s a gaping hole in its middle.

“The Beanie Bubble” is based on the real-world  rise and fall of Ty Warner, a designer whose plush Beanie toys made him a multi billionaire in the 1990s. The Beanies weren’t just huggable animal toys for the kiddies…by some weird quirk of mass psychosis and greed they became unregulated investment instruments. Customers snatched up each new Beanie character with the dream of re-selling the dolls at an immense profit.

Kind of like crypto before crypto.

Galifianakis, Geraldine Viswanathan

The screenplay by Gore and Zac Bissonette (the latter the author of a  best-selling nonfiction study of the Beanie Baby phenomenon) borrows its basic form from no less a cinematic landmark than “Citizen Kane.”  Like Orson Welle’s masterwork, this is a study of an enigmatic individual through the eyes of those who knew him…in this case three women key to Warner’s personal and private life. (We’re told that while fictional, these three characters are based on real women in Warner’s past.)

Moreover, the film assumes a twisted  timeline, darting back and forth between incidents that covered more than a decade.  The tale could easily have been told chronologically; the choice to slice and dice the narrative may have been seen as a way of keeping the audience on its toes.  I frequently found it confusing.

Elizabeth Banks portrays Robbie, a working class gal who under Warner’s tutelage grows from auto repair shop employee to high-powered entrepreneur. She not only partners with Warner to build the Beanie brand, she becomes his lover (despite having a physically handicapped husband whom the film conveniently forgets).  Thing is, their “partnership” was never formalized, so that when the inevitable breakup arrives, Robbie has no legal standing.

Sarah Snook, Galifianakis

The second woman in Warner’s life is Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), a teen who rejects her parents’ dreams of a medical career to sign on as a part-time receptionist at Warner’s Ty Inc. Maya is a smart cookie who immediately sees the possibilities of marketing Beanie toys through a new invention called the Internet. She’s also the one who realizes that Beanie fans are using newfangled sites like ebay to resell the toys for huge profits, thus creating a market that Ty Inc. may cannily manipulate by limiting the kinds and numbers of new toys manufactured.

Both Robbie and Maya, in their retelling of events, claim that Warner is an insecure child-man, a decent enough designer but a short-sighted businessman, and that it was their innovations that led to the company’s success.  (If customers rioting at toy stores can be considered a success.)

Like Robbie, Maya is financially screwed by Warner, who keeps her on at minimum wage despite her obvious value.

And both women make the case that once they left the company, Warner ran it into the ground, culminating with the burst of the so-called Beanie Bubble that left hundreds of thousands of “investors” holding the bag.

The third voice in all this belongs to Sheila (“Succession’s” Sarah Snook), the single mother of two young girls who finds herself falling for the charmingly boyish Ty Warner. The guy seems too good to be true…and of course he is.

Holding it all together is Galifianakis’ flamboyant turn as Warner.  Despite his outrageous pastel suits and effeminate edges, this is not an overtly comic character.  But he is wildly entertaining, overflowing with infantile enthusiasms and, once you get past the shiny package, some dark interior rumblings. 

It’s a tough gig.  Yeah, there’s plenty of business for an actor to sink his teeth into, but ultimately the Ty Warner we get is the one the three women want us to see.  Galiafanakis has to make his character come alive within the limitations imposed on him by his three narrators.

For those accustomed to Galifaniakis going for the big laugh, be aware that he here keeps himself on a short leash. This may be his best effort yet at pure acting.  He loses himself in the role  (there were times when I forgot it was him). But at heart his character remains something of a maddening mystery.  

| Robert W. Butler

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“BLOOD AND GOLD”: Tarantino lite

July 30, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Robert Masser

“BLOOD & GOLD” My rating: B-  (Netflix)

98 minutes |  No MPAA rating

Killing Nazis.  What could be timelier?

And the Netflix actioner “Blood & Gold” spends more than 90 minutes wiping up the floor with Hitler’s odious henchmen. It’s like Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” without the nods to arthouse sensibilities.

Directed by Peter Tornwarth (who co-wrote the screenplay with Stefan Barth), this Czech-lensed bloodbath owes more than a little debt to the traditions of spaghetti Westerns.  The eccentric soundtrack sounds like something found in the effects of the late Ennio Morricone, there’s a big emphasis on hidden treasure (as in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”) and the film’s scuzzily-bearded  leading man, Robert Masser,  has perfected the Eastwood squint.

Hell, the film even begins with a hanging.

In the last days of WWII German deserter Heindrich (Masser) is run down by his comrades and left dangling from a tree.  He’s cut down by Elsa (Marie Hacke), who brings him to the farm she shares with her mentally-challenged brother Paulie (Simon Rupp).

Elsa and Paulie are no lovers of the Reich; their father was taken away for voicing anti-Hitler sentiments. 

Roy McCrerey, Alexander Scheer

As fate would have it, Heinrich’s former unit — led by the imperious and hideously scarred von Starnfeld (Alexander Scheer in maximum Prussian asshole mode) and his sadistic sergeant (Roy McCrerey) — have decamped to a nearby town. They’re searching for a fortune in gold bars purportedly owned by a Jewish family arrested some years before.  They’ll tear the place apart to find the treasure.

In this they will have competition from a couple of local good ol’ boys and the scheming mistress (Jordan Triebel) of the burg’s pompous/cowardly mayor.

Not to mention the havoc wreaked on the swastika-bedecked crew by Heinrich, Elsa and Paulie, who are motivated not by greed but by revenge.

So there’s not a lot of substance or subtext here.  But this show doesn’t need it.

Thorwarth, whose last film was the nifty vampire-on-an-airliner effort “Blood Red Sky,” is a wiz at staging terrific sequences which push the limits (without ever going too far over the top) of believable mayhem.  I’m tempted to rewatch “Blood & Gold” just so I can fast forward to the action scenes.

Call it a guilty pleasure.

| Robert W. Butler

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“OPPENHEIMER”: Destroyer of worlds

July 20, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Cillian Murphy as J.Robert Oppenheimer

“OPPENHEIMER” My rating: B+ (in theaters)

180 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Christopher Nolan’s monumental and astoundingly dense “Oppenheimer” is a study in contradictions.

It starts with contradictions of one man — physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), who led the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic weapon and later wondered if he’d done the right thing — but throws an even  wider net. 

Such as: The contradictions between scientific inquiry and the fear of what we might discover. The contradictions in the rules we live by, when we bend them and when they stiffen.

The three-hour film follows the creation of the atom bomb, but while that provides the plot it isn’t really what “Oppenheimer” is about. Looming over it all is the fallout (not the radioactive kind) of that literally earth-shaking moment in history.

We’re talking about big moral questions and writer/director Nolan presents them in all their maddening complexity, without telling us which side we’re supposed to take.

“Oppenheimer”is less an emotional experience than an overwhelmingly intellectual one.  I can think of no other film in recent years that left me thinking so long and hard about the questions it raises…and the answers it cannot give.

Long a lover of warped time lines (“Memento, “ anyone?), Nolan here cuts back and forth between several of them.  

Of course there’s the race to beat the Nazis in making an atom bomb, with Oppenheimer creating a small city from scratch in the New Mexico desert so that his scientists and engineers (and their families) can work in secure isolation for as long as it takes (more than two years, as it turned out). 

Another timeline centers on a 1954 Atomic Energy Commission hearing, a McCarthy-ish kangaroo court called to determine if Oppenheimer — by now a critic of America’s Cold War policies — should be stripped of his high-level security clearance.

And then (in black-and-white footage) we witness the 1959 Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr., in a career-high performance). Strauss is the former AEC chair and Eisenhower’s nominee for Secretary of Commerce. Many of the questions aimed at him  concern his relationship over the years with Oppenheimer, whose reputation by this time is marred  by the widespread belief that he was a Communist sympathizer.

Robert Downey Jr.

Nolan’s screenplay deftly weaves together these threads, and while we may not at first understand just what is going on (why so much emphasis on Downey’s Strauss, surely a minor figure in all this?), the setup pays off with a last-act revelation that most viewers won’t see coming.

At the heart of it all is Cillian Murphy’s brilliantly contained portrayal of Oppenheimer.  What’s amazing about all this is that Oppenheimer was not a demonstrative character — he wore a mask of scientific calm and reason. Yet Murphy’s eyes suggest all that’s churning in that head. 

Only after the film is over does the viewer realize he’s been totally sucked in by a performance that ignores the usual big actorish moments. 

Instead he is quietly intimidating. Oppenheimer is a genius who taught himself Dutch in six weeks so that he could present a lecture on molecular physics in the audience’s language. He’s not a great mathematician or lab guy, but he sees/imagines  what others cannot.

He’s arrogant. Gently dissing young leftists he advises that to  really understand Das Kapital it should be read in the original German. 

He’s a moral puzzle, described as “a dilettante, womanizer and Communist,” yet he’s a man whose conscience will not leave him alone.

I’m not sure I’d even like J. Robert Oppenheimer…but he was precisely the man America needed at the time.

Getting far more stirm und drang screentime  are the women in Oppenheimer’s life. Florence Pugh plays Jean Tatlock, whom he meets in a  gathering of college Commies and with whom he maintains a sexually-charged relationship even after it’s obvious she’s slipping into mental illness. 

And then there’s Mrs. Oppenheimer, played by Emily Blunt.  For much of the film Blunt seems little more than window dressing, but in the third act she becomes a fireball of righteous indignation when her husband’s patriotism is questioned.

Matt Damon is terrific as Gen. Leslie Groves, heading up  the project’s military component. Groves is a mix of old-school discipline and pragmatism…he was willing to waive objections over political purity to get the brains he needed.

Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon

Then his job is to keep a lid on scientists whose natural inclination is to share information, not compartmentalize it. There’s not much humor in “Oppenheimer,” but Graves’ cat-herding frustration provide most of it.

There are dozens of other speaking roles here, some taken by familiar faces who may have only limited screen time.  Just a few of them: 

Oscar winners Rami Malek, Casey Affleck and Gary Oldman (the last as President Harry Truman). Josh Hartnett. Jason Clarke. Matthew Modine. Tony Goldwyn. James Remar.  Kenneth Branagh. Tom Conti (as Einstein!!!). Dane DeHaan. Kansas City’s own David Dastmachian. 

Nolan masterfully keeps all these balls in the air.  His accomplishment is doubly impressive because “Oppenheimer” has so few look-at-me-ma moments.  Very few directorial flourishes.

But those he does indulge in are woozies.  

Early on Nolan delivers almost abstract visions of swirling sparks and dividing cells to suggest the workings of Oppenheimer’s imagination.

The buildup to the detonation of the first atomic bomb outside Los Alamos is a tension-packed slow burn. The emphasis isn’t on the nuts and bolts of making the bomb, but on the nervous anticipation of Oppenheimer and his crew.

Would it work? Would it, as some members of the team suggest, start a chain reaction igniting Earth’s atmosphere and killing everything?

We already know the answers, but audiences nevertheless will be on the edge of their seats.

And in the midst of a rowdy, patriotism-drenched celebration of the end of the war, Oppenheimer looks out over his audience of cheering colleagues and imagines their faces dissolving in the heat of a nuclear blast.

It’s an image that says more than pages of dialogue.

“Oppenheimer” is the ultimate yes/but experience.  For every argument it presents there pops up a counter argument. Was it immoral to drop the big one on civilians?  Would it have been better to sacrifice 500,000 American lives in an invasion of Japan?

Those who want to be spoon fed answers will find “Oppenheimer” frustrating.  Tough. The film tells us the world doesn’t work like that. Black and white is rarely that.

Like I said, contradictions.

| Robert W. Butler

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“WAR SAILOR”: Cast adrift

July 18, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

Kristoffer Joner

“WAR SAILOR” My rating: A- (Netflix)

“War Sailor” is a clunkily literal title for a sublimely moving experience.

This mini-series (presented on Netflix in three parts, although it played theatrically in its native Norway as one epic film) is a celebration of sacrifice. Sometimes it’s almost too much to take.

During WWII thousands of Norwegian merchantmen stranded at sea by the Nazi invasion of their homeland continued to move food, weapons and other materiel vital to the Allied cause. One in six died, the victims of German U-boat attacks.

Writer/director Gunnar Vikene celebrates their almost unfathomable suffering by concentrating on the experiences of two men, Alfred (Kristoffer Joner) and Sigbjorn (Pål Sverre Hagen), longtime friends who in 1939 ship out as mates on a freighter.

Alfred leaves behind a young wife, Cecelia (Ine Marie Wilmann), and three children, including young Magdeli, who is so sure her father will never return that she tries to hide the documents he needs to board ship.

Sigbjorn, on the other hand, is a rather sad fellow, a bachelor who experiences family life vicariously. He’s a sort of uncle to Alfred’s kids.

Pål Sverre Hagen

“War Sailor” contrasts the misadventures of the two men with the wartime experiences of Cecelia and the children.

It’s not all heroics for our protagonists. In fact, heroism is in short supply. As men without a country Alfred, Sigbjorn and their fellow Norwegians suffer a form of indentured servitude. They want to stick it to the Nazis, yes, but they’re in the demoralizing position of sitting ducks. If attacked they cannot fight back.

Small wonder they consider going over the side of their boat when it docks in New York City, where it will be hard for the authorities to find them.

Meanwhile in occupied Norway, Alfred’s family must watch as a U-Boat facility is constructed just a few blocks from their home; as a result they will endure the terrors of air raids as the Brits try to blow up the submarine base.

One wonders if filmmaker Vikene wasn’t inspired by Homer’s “Odyssey.” There’s plenty of terror and action, while the subtext is always of a men wanting to return to their wives and loved ones.

Ine Marie Wilmann

“War Sailor” offers some of the best ensemble acting seen in recent years. It’s been perfectly cast down to the smallest role, and the players are so effective that every few minutes one has to resist the temptation to stop the show for a little recovery time…the fear, angst and loneliness of these characters (as well as some moments of selfless brotherhood) can push audiences to an emotional edge.

No kidding. It’s that good.

And the technical production is outstanding. I cannot imagine how much it cost to produce this spectacle, nor can I figure out which effects are CG and which are actually unfolding in front of the camera. Whatever the case, the show perfectly balances the universal with the deeply personal.

| Robert W. Butler

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“ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED”: Double life

July 12, 2023 by butlerscinemascene

“ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED” My rating: B (Max)

104 minutes | No MPAA rating

For more than a decade movie star Rock Hudson was the embodiment of American manhood.

That he was a gay man playing a deep, deep role in every aspect of his public life was well known to his colleagues and coworkers.  Yet just about everyone joined ranks so as not to destroy the romantic  illusion…after all, that illusion generated wealth and steady employment for hundreds of in the movie and TV industry.

But you’ve got to ask…What sort of psychological issues came of spending a good half  of your life pretending to be something you aren’t?

The answer, according to Stephen Kijak’s fascinating new documentary “Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed,” is that Hudson seems to have suffered no lasting damage.  He was a master at compartmentalizing the two sides of his life.

On the screen and in the public eye he was just a hetero guy from Illinois who managed to retain his modesty even after rising to the heights of movie stardom.

In his private life Hudson  hosted parties packed with young, often nude, men.  He often traveled with the gay couple who were his oldest friends in Hollywood (actor George Nader and his lifelong companion Mark Miller).  Hudson didn’t try to hide his sexuality from his fellow actors, and he was  considered to be such a nice person that no one who knew him would even consider divulging his “secret.”

At the same time Hudson was cautious, never allowing himself to be photographed with any of his sexual partners…not even snapshots while on vacation.

“All That Heaven Allowed” nicely limns Hudson’s career.  There is particular emphasis on his early years under the tutelage of agent Henry Willson, who made a specialty of representing handsome young men, bedding them when it suited him, and guiding their careers through the studio system.  

It was Willson who gave the young actor Roy Fitzgerald a new name — Rock Hudson..a melding of the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River  — and who drilled the “gayness” out of his physicality and vocal patterns. And when the scandal magazines began asking why the handsome hunk was still a bachelor it was Willson who arranged for Hudson to marry Willson’s secretary…a union that lasted only two years but for the time being stopped wagging tongues.

Like any movie star bio, this one features tons of clips from Hudson’s films.  But what’s flabbergasting are the innumerable times when Hudson was given situations or dialogue that today read as screamingly gay…and yet the mainstream press and the ticket buyers never picked up on it.  (Or maybe they they did and willfully ignored it.)

In any case, it pushes this doc into the deepest corners of the meta universe.

The illusion was broken for good in the early 1980s when Hudson became the first celebrity to admit contracting — and to die from — AIDS.  The film points out how the actor’s fame and fate built public support for research into the disease (the Reagan administration preferred to look the other way, even though Nancy Reagan was one of Hudson’s dear friends).

One is left with the impression that despite a life in what one commentator here calls “the shared misery of the closet,” Rock Hudson led a largely contented existence.  He did pretty much what he wanted, and if having to play straight in public was a painful burden, he didn’t let on.

| Robert W. Butler

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