The Ides of March

"'The Situation' in The Situation Room"
or
"A Little Problem with the DnC"

The bobble-head version of George Clooney is back in The Ides of March, the new film directed by...George Clooney.  You remember the bobble-head Clooney, don't you?  It was the loosey-goosey version of the actor that was popular during his "ER" days, a combination of looseness and arrogance, and it made up his persona in his early film career, before the time he decided that he'd get serious about his career after the debacle of Batman & Robin.

Well, that wobble of the head returns in Ides, adapted from the play by Beau Willimon (by Willimon, Clooney and Grant Heslov) called "Farragut North."  I've always seen that wobble as an indication that whichever character he played with it had a lack of moral rectitude, an imperfection of the spine or sensibility that disconnected the head from the rest of the persona—a flaw that lent unpredictability to what actions they'd take, a toss of the head like a toss of the coin.  And it is one of the ways that Clooney telegraphs what his Governor Mike Morris, candidate for President on the democratic ticket, might be capable of.  It keeps you guessing, whatever the words from his mouth might indicate, about the actions this man might take in his run for power.

It is tough to express surprise at the roads political films—or films about politics—might take these days.  It's all about disenchantment with the process and how power—or even the quest for it—corrupts.  It's an old saw that goes back long before Shakespeare and back to The Greeks.  And very few films—or plays—about the Court of Kings, fact or fictional,  can look clear-eyed at the process, thinking that ideals might remain intact.  Even Mr. Smith Goes to Washington deals with the innate corruption of government and pleads for a clinging to of ideals from our public servants...or even an acknowledgment that they are servants, rather than our Masters.  What was nice about things like "The West Wing" was that, despite the maneuverings, manipulations and moral morasses that went with the job, public service was declared an altruistic aspiration, a noble thing, however down and dirty things got to accomplish anything.  Most, though, like The Candidate or All the Kings Men (any version) have it as a "given" that compromise of purpose, process and principles are par for the course, that it is next to impossible to determine the true measure of a political man.  The only variable is how corrupt that man (it's usually a man, and white) can be.  Post-Watergate and The Lewinsky Affair, even a film like Absolute Power assumes, without doubt, that The President of the United States is capable of the most craven of murders.  The Ides of March doesn't swerve from that cynicism.

The film begins with Morris' Head of Communications, Stephen Myers (the ubiquitous Ryan Gosling—if his Drive performance is a "1" and Crazy, Stupid Love is a "10," in dramatics, this is is an average "5") approaching a microphone, coming slowly into focus, a process that is completed when he is at the podium—the shot will be mirrored later in the show.  He begins to slap-dashedly spew homilies about his religion, and then the speech deteriorates into babble.  Not that it is important, he is merely a stand-in, checking a microphone for his candidate at a technical rehearsal for a televised debate.  It would pass without much notice, except at the real debate, Morris uses the same lines words for words defending his lack of religion when challenged on the point.  It is clear, at that point, that Myers is Morris' surrogate, putting words in his mouth, articulating the governor's message, packaging the man to appeal to the lowest common denominator and the highest number of registered voters.  

The campaign manager is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a jaded veteran of the political trenches, spinning, manipulating and point-man for acquiring the parties' nomination a few months down the road.  Zara is the Big Picture Packager, Myers is Dr. Details.  On the other side is campaign manager Tom Duffy, who is played by Paul Giamatti—and let me just say what a pleasure it is to see Hoffman and Giamatti, two of the best character-spinners in movies today going up against each other.  It is a match made in Political Purgatory.

Before too much gets underway, Clooney introduces another character in a shot that tracks her movements, flouncing, buffed, polished and toned, towards campaign HQ: this is Molly Stearns, intern (Evan Rachel Wood) and just the way Clooney introduces her puts you on alert that she is important to the drama, far more than her job of bringing coffee would indicate. Wood is a fine actress, and as with Down in the Valley, she's able to convey twin faces of innocence and corruption, the theme of the film at which she is the fulcrum. Already one sees where things are going, but one wonders if Clooney has the directing chops to make it fresh.

He does...kinda.  There are nice little touches of how the film seems to bifurcate into twin halves reflecting each other,* the actors make the dialog snap and there's just enough "play" in the film to keep you guessing about what is "real" or political theater. And there's one scene that's shot very simply—a tension-inducing pull-in to a black van that makes you suspect the worse (which, for some it might be) that is rather nifty.

Ultimately, though, as well as the film is presented and played, it is not telling us anything we don't already know...or fear...that hasn't been said for the last 60 years, when, post-Eisenhower and the star-struck Kennedy years, we ditched the notion that politicians are concerned with the People, rather than their prestige and perks.  The Ides of March has no spine of its own to speak of and brings us nothing new, offering no solution (not even providing dramatic satisfaction)...but merely more of the same, just like every election season.

The Ides of March is a Rental.

* Clooney did a good interview with Charlie Rose about the film—Rose has a cameo for verisimilitude, as do a few other familiar talking heads—in which he said "The first half of the film is for democrats and the second half is for republicans." Exactly right.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

"Love Sucks (A Cautionary Tale)"
or
"It Takes a Village (To Make a Divorce)"

The sad thing about romantic-comedies, circa the 21st Century, is their dependence on formula: Boy Meets Girl/Boy Loses Girl/Complications Ensue/Boy Wises Up/Happy Ending; or Girl Meets Boy/Girl Loses Boy/Girl's Self-Worth Depends on Boy/Romantic Rival Meets Terrible Demise/Happy Ending (of a sorts).  The last few I've seen of the genre have depended on hitting these plot-points, no matter what city, what occupation, or what sex the film centers around.  Even Bridesmaids, for all its wit and wildness, still ended with the assumption that everything will be alright if "the girl" gets "a man." The "by-the numbers" dance steps that most rom-coms boogie to have the ability to regress me back to the five-year old boy I was who hated "kissing scenes;" the final rosy fade-out inevitably spoils the most romantic of comedies for me, failing to warm my the cockles of my heart or make me feel all-gooey-fuzzy.  Instead, I walk away cheerlessly cynical.  Been there.  Done that.  A fish needs a bicycle.


So, it's a nice surprise, bordering on the revolutionary, when a romantic-comedy turns the formula on its ear enough that I enjoy it.  Don't get me wrong, Crazy, Stupid, Love* has a "happy ending," but there is also a nice glowing lack of resolution.  This is a movie that dares to say that Love is hard work, and, yeah, it sucks, but it could be worth it, because, like Life, it beats the alternative.

This is not where it starts, but where it starts to get interesting: Chick-magnet Jacob (Ryan Gosling,** he has a nicely subtle double-take for comedy) is in a bar in mid-closer with his latest fling when he takes the time to call over a half-stewed Cal Weaver (Steve Carell, showing exactly why he deserves to be out of TV and in films, something that doesn't happen nearly enough).  The reason?  Cal's moaning is throwing off Jacob's technique.  Cal's been doing that a lot lately (at the office he's told: "Amy heard you crying in the bathroom - we all thought it was cancer.") No, it's not cancer.  After 25 years of marriage, Cal's wife (Julianne Moore—she's great) has revealed she wants a divorce AND she's slept with another man (Kevin Bacon, he's also great).  This offends Jacob's self-absorbed sensibilities: "Seriously, I don't know whether to help you or euthanize you."

So, Jacob helps Cal to "man up"—a younger "Obi-Wan" to the elder's bowl-cut Luke with credit cards as lightsabers, and this, if not turning Cal's life around, at least making it busier.  And complicated.

Running parallel to the story is Hannah's (Emma Stone, big-eyed waif) relationship problems ("You're life is so PG-13!" says her token-Asian friend, Liz).  That's because she wants to be engaged to office co-worker Richard (Josh Groban—rather risky of him to look so bad in this movie) and is focused on that, so much so that she plays ignorant to Jacob's innuendos when he approaches her while trolling in a bar.

And, at this point, to say anything more would be saying too much, spoiling the fun and sending the whole Jenga-construction of the film crashing to the rec-room floor (In fact, I've probably said too much already).  Just when you think everything is going as smooth as satin sheets, the film-makers throw you an extra wrinkle, and it's been a log, long while since a rom-com has done that.  The dialogue is fresh though the situations seem familiar—everyone's conceptions of Love and Romance seem to be based on The Movies and directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa *** and writer Dan Fogelman **** are only too happy to skewer them, while paying some respect—the complications teetering on the sit-comish, then resolving with the most graceless of dismounts.  Applaud anyway because if they're not the best of executions (the performances help here), there are extra points for "artistic" and "difficulty."

Adding to the fray are the effects all this confusion have on "the kids" (Jonah Bobo, Joey King) and the friends (John Carroll Lynch—he's becoming one of my favorite character actors—and Analeigh Tipton).  It, after all, takes a village to make a divorce...very uncomfortable.  And special mention should be made to the movies' best utility player, Marisa Tomei, who surprises with just about every performance these days (Okay, okay, Marisa, you DESERVED that Oscar, okay?).

Highly enjoyable.  Bravo.

Stupid, Crazy, Love is a Full-Price Ticket.

* Yes, it has the superfluous comma, you English Majors, but if you see the title as a list rather than "adverb, adjective, subject," it makes a bit of sense, and the film actually earns the charity for considering the possibility. 

** Gosling is an odd bird.  It's taken awhile for me to warm to him (I'm one of the few people to have seen his awful work in Fracture, but he has a nice laid-back dead-pan style of comedy—as displayed in Lars and the Real Girl—that hews closely to his dramatic work.  Just a nudge, either way determines comedy or tragedy.  He's dangerously good.

*** Okay, this is scary, but hear me out: Ficarra and Requa have written such films as the remake of Bad News Bears, Cats & Dogs, Bad Santa (a bit raw, but actually rather sweet) and...wrote and directed the little seen gay romance, I Love You Phillip Morris—as subversive and weirdly sweet movies to be seen in a long time.  Forgive the early credits—these guys are good.

**** Okay, now REALLY hear me out: Fogelman wrote the screenplay for Cars and the screen-story for Cars 2, wrote Fred Claus...but did fine work on both Bolt and Tangled for Disney.  Seems he can write for real people, too, and not just 'toons.

War, Inc.

"War, Inc." (Joshua Seftel, 2008) It's hard to say exactly when the satire of "War, Inc." starts to outwear its welcome. It does a very neat job of skewering so much that was wrong with the Bush Administration and its gung-ho weldng of the Military-Industrial Complex made simple, while at the same time being rather prudish about why it might not be such a good thing to export American culture to other parts of the world. Perhaps the problem is it doesn't take anything seriously, not its believes-in-nothing protagonist, not its comical situation (it's trying to be "Dr. Strangelove" but has more in keeping with "The Americanization of Emily" or even "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home"), it would probably sneer at the legitimate instincts that might engender such over-reactions...and then when it decides to get serious about something, you start looking around for the apple-pie salesman. Let's review.

Hauser is a corporate hit-man (what inspires John Cusack to play assassins—not enough action movie offers?) working for the multi-national, multi-faceted Tamerlane Corporation. Hauser gets a new assignment from the just-out-of-office Vice President (Dan Aykroyd, animating Dick Cheney) to assassinate one Omar Sharif (seriously), the head of UgiGas in Turaqistan, where America has just won the first-in-history 100% "completely out-sourced" war. Hauser is posing as an event-planner for Tamerlane's first Corporate meeting in its new acquisition, the centerpiece of which will be the marriage of Turaqistan's jail bait pop-star Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff, miles away from Disney) to one Ooq-Mi-Fay,* all in an effort to inspire Democracy in the Turaqistanis with American culture.

Already you can see the combination of deep thought and juvenilia mixed in one big lumpy stew, but the movie occasionally scores grisly points: reporters in Turaqistan enjoy the "Imbedded Journalistic Experience," a Six-Flags-like jerk-ride that lets them gape at high-def war-footage while strapped into comfy high-chairs feeling the buffets; and one point Hauser checks in with a chorus line of Turaqistani women high-kicking...with artificial limbs. All visitors be they friendly or terrorist walks away with a Tamerlane SWAG-bag, a running gag that doesn't stale.

Hauser is so dead inside, that the only way he can feel anything is kicking back with a shot-glass of hot-sauce straight, although he is frequently diverted by a left-wing journalist (Marisa Tomei, excellent...again!) trying to get to the bottom of anything. Yonica Babyyeah is your basic Britney-Jessica-Christina-Paris-Lindsey-Miley sex-'tween (authentically played by Hilary Duff, who convincingly curses like a sailor) although the point of the vapidity of America's pop-culture is done to death. John Cusack's sister Joan is his administrative assistant in a performance that is extreme even for her. Sir Ben Kingsley rounds out the cast as Tamerlane's Supreme Commander Walken, in an American accent highly reminiscent of the bad ones Laurence Olivier used to sport, when he deemed to slum as a colonist.

Eventually everything comes to such a frothy rabid boil that it curdles, so much so that even someone sympathetic to its ideas (like me) would rather invest their time in writing a letter to their congressman than sitting through this thing again.

* His father's name is Ooq-Yu-Fay. That might be the tipping point right there.

The Wrestler

"Career Suicide"
or
"Falling at the Meat Market"

The body is bulked up like a Macy's balloon. The face is lumpy and puffed from bad plastic surgeries to enhance his cheek-bones. The voice is full of razor blades, punctuated by phlegm-caked gasps. For awhile now, Mickey Rourke has only taken roles that hide his mangled features. But he's been never less than interesting in those roles (even when he's been less than intelligible). Whether with sunglasses or the elaborate make-up that turned him into Frank Miller's "Marv'" in Sin City,"* Mickey Rourke has hidden himself as he does his sporadic film work. Whatever demons drive the actor have made securing financing for films featuring him difficult at best.** There have been a lot of missed opportunities: can you imagine Mickey Rourke in a Quentin Tarantino film? There's a sleaze-match made in back-water heaven.

So, here he is, Main-Eventing "The Wrestler," freak-showed out, his face obscured for the first few minutes of the film, as if delaying the inevitable and pretty soon, you ignore the puffery and start to see the performance, as restrained and gentle as anything he's done in years. He's getting all the acclaim for the film's "broken-down piece of meat" scene in the trailers, but there are moments of brilliance here—the animal-eye-of-panic that occasionally creeps out of Robin ("Call me 'Randy'") Ramzinski, aka Randy "The Ram" Robinson during a match, and an extended scene that begins as "The Ram," a heart attack forcing his retirement, steels himself for a shift working the deli counter at his day-job super-market. He spends a sullen couple of hours learning the ropes, and then—Ram-Jam!—his natural entertainer's instincts kick in as he starts dealing with customers. It's a scene that brings out a smile because Rourke is ad-libbing his way through it, glorying in the eccentricity of it all. It's as good as it gets for Rourke and his anti-Rocky character.

It is not fair to say that Rourke is the only reason to see "The Wrestler." Marisa Tomei does good tough work here as a working-class stripper, and Evan Rachel Wood makes a lot of the under-written role of Randy's estranged daughter. And while Darren Aronofsky became overly-stagey in his last film "The Fountain," here he's dogging Rourke's path with tight point-of-view compositions that breaks the faykabe and paints the world of the small-time pro wrestler—at least from the point-of-view of a face at House shows.. The petty rivalries and the macho camaraderie, the brief pre-show negotiated calls, and the sweaty stage-craft of brutality are all on hand-held de-glammed display. It's a world of soiled bandages and card-tables and getting back into the ring. It's as sordid a picture as Aronofsky can make it, but it doesn't hide the moments of personal grace between screw-ups and free-falls. It also shows that the biggest falls these post-modern gladiators take are the self-inflicted ones. It's final shot is one I've been thinking about for days.

"The Wrestler" is a Matinee. Not quite top of the card.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
Mickey Rourke as he appeared in "Diner"

* The man even did his press interviews for the film in the camouflaging "Marv" make-up. How twisted is that?

** He was nearly fired from "The Wrestler" even after Arronofsky had secured a deal for making it for less money than intended. The actor in the wings? Rourke's "Rumble Fish" co-star Nicolas Cage.