Thursday, December 25, 2014

The Polar Express

"The Polar Express" certainly starts out with a great deal of ambition while trying to make sure it presses all the right notes required of a Christmas movie. There's a calm, mystical score by Alan Silvesti, the usual composer of director Robert Zemeckis, and quite impressive visual effects. There's a poem (as all stories about Christmas must have) of a young boy who is starting to lose faith in Santa. He picks up an encyclopedia to discover that the North Pole is, contrary to all the stories he's been told, "devoid of all life." (Oh, knowledge -- how cruel you are.) The epiphany of this boy's awareness of Santa is where things start to spoil. The score becomes overly repetitive, and the "is-it-real-or-is-it-not" animation begins to make some of the characters looks like aliens. Fairly soon, it becomes evident that the only thing devoid of life in this film is the film itself.

Trains in the movies are usually magical things. One would think that would be the case here, in a movie that features some sort of ghost-hobo and flying reindeer. It's true that things certainly look quite magical in "The Polar Express." After all, an actual train shows up in front of the house of young "Hero Boy." (Yes, that's what he's credited as.) Our young boy is performed by...Tom Hanks? Yes, not only does Hanks, who has shown us that he can play a man dying of AIDS and a man with a mental disability and everything else, play the train conductor (the central adult character) and practically every adult male role in the film, but also "Hero Boy." Why Zemeckis and crew didn't simply have Daryl Sabara (who voiced the character) provide the motion-capture is something I just don't understand. Anyway, Hero Boy gets on the train to the North Pole because why wouldn't he? If we are to believe that a train can show up (and go to) such a place, then we must believe that Hero Boy would get on that train. (Seriously, what a terrible name for a character.) Hero Boy (argh, it sounds so stupid) meets a group of children, one of whom, Hero Girl (who wrote this?), seems to have a crush on him. Another one, a know-it-all (I suppose I should mention that that's the character's name, as well) is not only performed but also voiced by an adult, which just adds to the misery of hearing a child say the words "wise guy." Then we are witness to two not-so-competent (or safe) train engineers whose annoying attributes make Jingle and Jangle, the humorless elf duo of "The Year Without a Santa Claus," look like amateurs in the realm of humor and efficiency. These are several of the attempts at humor that I can't imagine even children laughing at.

This movie isn't all bad. Hanks does do a mostly sufficient job as most of these characters, even though he hams it up so often. "The Polar Express" looks and feels quite wondrous and even frightening, like the graveyard of forgotten toys. One of them even appears to come to life and wants to attack the young boy. "The Polar Express" turns ten years old this year, and the scenes like that have aged well. So no one would deny that Zemeckis, who started his computer animation trilogy with "The Polar Express," is a master of visual storytelling. But his best movies, like "Back to the Future," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," and "Forrest Gump," focus more on character than visuals. Here, the opposite is true. Its only focus is on visuals, with every sequence trying to top itself, to the point where a giant star on a giant Christmas tree nearly crashes through the skull of one of Santa's elves. And for some reason, 45 minutes into the movie, it embraces its chaotic train ride energy and suddenly becomes a musical. You know how they say you know you've seen a good musical when you leave the theater and the songs are stuck in your head? I can't even imagine the ones who worked on the productions of these dismal songs to have them stuck in theirs upon leaving the studio.

The song that Haley Joel Osment-lookalike sings fortunately finishes, and our characters finally make it to the North Pole, which oddly enough does seem devoid of life (in the figurative, sarcastic sense) but (of course) is inhabited by an army of elves all dressed in red, crawling over each other to shower their adoration on their fascist of a master. The characters (who might just be representing the most annoying portrayal of children in any movie) finally meet Santa Claus (who is also played by Tom Hanks), and then the movie still goes on for another 15 minutes. No exciting train scene can save this film. Ten years later, "The Polar Express" is, for some reason, considered a holiday classic. Call me Ebeneezer, but this movie is crap.

Friday, December 12, 2014

The Theory of Everything

"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer time."
-W.H. Auden, "As I Walked Out One Evening"

In the beginning, the camera immediately shifts from Hawking in a wheelchair to Hawking on a bike. He is a "strange" and "clever" fellow, with crooked glasses and in an intense quest to solve equations and get the girl. These early scenes feature Eddie Reddmayne being calmly lectured and encouraged by his professor, played by David Thewlis, who issues homework assignments that might send students to the hospital. And yet this professor is quite impressed with Hawking, despite the latter's submitting assignments on scraps of wrinkled papers. It is remarkable that such a character falls for a girl whose interest in Medieval poetry of the Iberian peninsula might seem antithetical to his obsession with physics; surely, her belief in God is in opposition to his purely logical mind. But fall in love they do. This is a love story, and while not the best of the year, it works best when seen through that prism. When seen through the prism of the standard biographical film, as the filmmakers and distributors wish us to do, "The Theory of Everything" doesn't shine so much.

As mentioned, it's quite remarkable that these two fall in love. As the Danish physicist Niels Bohr reminded us, religion uses the language of poetry far more than science does. Hawking, upon bringing her home to his family for a Sunday meal, describes to her his requirement to refrain from religious thought when conducting science, but is met with a firm reply: "Sounds less of an argument against God than against physicists." He has met his match. Beyond that, the girl, Jane Wilde (played by Felicity Jones), is rather attractive, while Hawking (with all due respect not only to him but also Reddmayne, who used to model) has a nice smile but a very awkward (yet witty and obviously brilliant) persona. They go to the ball, and there's a majestic dance scene (with no dancing from our two characters), lit perfectly by cinematographer Benoit Delhomme. In the first third of the film, though, despite its pretty figurative and literal fireworks, "The Theory of Everything" seems to be a somewhat bland biographical motion picture, providing not much else. It's like "A Beautiful Mind" but slightly more boring. But of course it will be nominated for Best Picture -- it's the type of movie that makes the Academy salivate.

Hawking trips, just as he develops an idea for the beginning of the universe, and is taken to the hospital. He is diagnosed with motor neuron disease (a.k.a Lou Gehrig's disease) and is expected to live only two more years. His thoughts won't change, but no one will know what they are. He begins to limp, quite noticeably, and in no time he has a cane. Soon after that, he has to crawl up and down the stairs. He is continually told that he has only two years left. This is where the acting gets quite challenging for Reddmayne. Not only does he have to portray a real-life figure, one who is known around much of the world, but also one who starts shy yet articulate but is forced to have his physical abilities stripped from him. He has to convey a lot of emotions -- jealousy, ambition, lust, love -- with few words. Reddmayne gave us some pretty good acting in "My Weekend with Marilyn" and "Les Miserables," but here he is exceptional. You will remember his performance, but forget virtually everything else about the movie.

Why? For one, it tries to compensate by having innovative visual effects -- the fire sequence sparking his epiphany that "black holes are not, in fact, black at all" looks nice, but then the film doesn't give us much more. This is an intriguing story, no doubt, and I think human beings, for the most part, will forever be drawn to these types of fighter stories. "The little one has done it!" as one character exclaims. Hawking isn't simply a brilliant scientist, but a devoted father and husband, even able to chase around his young children in his electronic wheelchair. In spite of all his troubles, he perseveres, continuing to write and even retain his boyish grin, if only to annoy his wife, who is growing frustrated with worrying about him, as he refuses to see specialists regarding his choking spells. His father (Simon McBurney) joins in the prodding. Stephen eventually concedes. 

There's a powerful moment where Jayne orders Hawking's doctor to do an emergency operation because "Stephen must live." She is warned that Stephen might not survive the journey. "He will," she insists. Indeed, he barely does. He has to talk with a computerized voice (an American one, to the surprise of his wife), but he actually seems to be trying to make the best of it, quoting Clark Gable's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" and shouting "exterminate" while playing with his children. And he still likes reading copies of "Penthouse."  

I liked "The Theory of Everything," and yet I was underwhelmed by it. I wanted something a bit more audacious and creative, not a check-the-box style safe movie from Hollywood to try and gain some awards. As I mentioned, Reddmayne is incredible; the movie itself is forgettable.        

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Gone Girl

An Irish prince leaves his perfect wife at their perfect home. How perfect is his life? So much that on the night he fell in love with his wife, there was a storm of sugar surrounding them. There aren't many cinematographers better than Jeff Bronenweth, and his camera makes that scene, in particular, hauntingly beautiful. His excellent cinematography lights a dark, dark world, as is often the case in the movies of David Fincher, the Prince of Darkness. When the man comes home, his wife is gone. His perfect world is turned upside down.

The man in our movie is Nick Dunne, played by Ben Affleck. He goes to a bar to drink with the bartender, who incidentally is his sister (Carrie Coon). Why is he drinking? Why not--it's his fifth year wedding anniversary. The bar is under the name of his wife, played by Rosamund Pike in her best performance. Pike's debut was as a Bond girl in "Die Another Day" a little more than a decade ago, but she hasn't really been given a chance to prove herself since. Here, however, she really shines, in a performance that will (or at least should) get her an Oscar nomination. Her character, Amy, is, in the first half of the movie a "complicated" woman, a "nagging shrew" whom no one particularly likes. But that would be too simple. In the second half, it's an entirely different story for her. I cannot elaborate, but I am permitted to say my opinion of the twist, which is this: While it did provide Pike with an opportunity to demonstrate her talent, it also produced some eyeball-rolling. In the history of dumb movie twists, this might be one of the dumbest.

But back to our couple. Nick is remarkably calm considering his wife has just disappeared. While it can only be natural to side with him as an audience member, the evidence is clearly piling up against him in the movie, and an objective detective (Kim Dickens) continually grills him. Our story bounces back and forth so that we see just how bad Nick and Amy were at marriage; it's as if it could have been titled "Scenes from a Marriage About to Turn Mysterious and Violent." The wife is increasingly frightened by her husband, and perhaps vice versa.

There are a lot of compelling moments here about cable media's obsession with scandal, dangerous "Fatal Attraction"-style marriages, and other human flaws. But one cannot help but feel that these would all be so much more interesting to think about while reading the novel. It seems almost inevitable to think unfavorably about a film adaption if one has seen the original material beforehand, but I haven't read "Gone Girl," and yet I know I would have had a better experience reading it than watching the movie. Yet probably the most interesting ideas (in the novel or the movie) are the gender issues. Despite the fact that improvements for women have been one of the most impressive gains in the rights revolutions we've seen over the past century, we still live in an unfortunate era where women are not only underrepresented but shockingly mistreated (to say the very least). Here, we have a story where women are not only capable of such disturbing violence, but they are also the most interesting characters. Well done, Fincher and company.

Fincher's directing is commendable as always, but his storytelling is a bit weak. Frankly, I often have this reaction when watching many of his films. Other than "Se7en," I can't think of an instance where I was totally amazed at his filmmaking. But he has, at least, gotten quality performances from his players, especially Pike and Affleck. Affleck, who won Oscars for writing "Good Will Hunting" and producing "Argo," has shown us arguably his best performance, and Pike, as mentioned, has never been better. The actors in smaller roles--Dickens, Tyler Perry as Affleck's attorney and Neil Patrick Harris as a rich man who has been obsessing over Amy for years--likewise are quite enjoyable to watch. But while the actors are sufficient and mostly have been given satisfying words from screenwriter Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the novel), this is ultimately a mediocre film. After an incredible climax, it goes on for another unwelcomed twenty minutes. It's certainly intriguing but, like most Fincher movies, forgettable.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Frances Ha

Upon first glance, it would seem that these two young ladies are happily in love. They are Frances (Greta Gerwig) and Sophie (Mickey Sumner), running around and playing in the New York jungle featured so beautifully in black and white, in Noah Baumbach's "Frances Ha." It might take a while, but it becomes more evident that they are not a couple, but instead two young women in love with each other only in the platonic sense. This is a story about friendship, and it's off to a nice start--the black and white, the energy, Bowie's "Modern Love" sprinkled about. But it quickly realizes that it doesn't have much else to offer.

Maybe it's in black and white because it knows there's not much else there. Frances asks Sophie early in the film to tell her "the story of us." That's essentially what this movie is--the story of two friends and "the story of them." Think of all the fine films there have been on such a profound topic--"Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Stand by Me," "Au revoir les enfants," "Bridesmaids"--and compare them to this. How disappointing.

Frances is a character who always "feels bad," constantly apologizing for the most minuscule things. With Sophie, she has an intimate soul mate, one who shares her enormous aspirations--they even want honorary degrees. Frances is a dancer, but she struggles to find work even within the company she dances with. She's an old-fashioned individual, one who watches French movies, reads on the subway, and shuns modern obsessions with phones. This movie is so Woody Allen-esque but misuses the inspiration. At one point, she arbitrarily goes to France to...show us how quirky she is? To really show us that she makes poor choices? I don't know. All she does there is go to the cinema to watch "Puss in Boots," probably because the writers thought we would laugh if we heard the word "puss." It's a bit dangerous to make a movie about New York and Paris in black and white; whereas Woody Allen gave us a hopeless romantic roaming the streets in a pleasant time-travelling adventure through Paris, Baumbach has given us a woman watching a "Shrek" spin-off.

Frances' lack of success and unique personality continue. She finds herself in debt from her trip to France and doesn't find much opportunity in her dance company. She awkwardly makes her way through dinner conversations, in ulcer-inducing moments in this movie that dreadfully fall flat. What exactly is this movie trying to show us through this character? My only conclusion is how annoyed I was, and particularly at the words "I'm sorry." I don't think I've ever heard it so many times in one movie.

There aren't many other things to make up for it. Adam Driver might be a hit on HBO's "Girls," but his film performances have been mediocre or forgettable at best, and he was particularly annoying in the recent "What If." (Let's hope he'll be better in Martin Scorsese's "Silence" and J.J. Abram's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens.") Here, he's not much better. He does offer a humorous line at one point, teasing Frances that he was "pretending to be a liberated woman" in refusing to sleep with her. He plays Levi, one of the artists she moves in with. Another is Dan, played by Michael Esper, who continually says "un-dateable," thereby offering more examples of the awkwardness of the film's screenplay, written by both Gerwig and Baumbach. Such repetition and bad dialogue is the stuff of weak plays. The dialogue is pretty atrocious, particularly that given to Esper. His character claims to be writing a screenplay for "Gremlins 3." Why? Who cares. The so-called dialogue was probably improvised, as if, the filmmakers thought, to give it more legitimacy. So hip. At one point, we are told that "the only people who can afford to be artists are rich." That's deep.

So this "quirky" comedy is actually rather painful, the kind that folks will tell you you're supposed to like, and you must have inferior taste if you don't. It tries too hard to be clever and humorous and fails at both. Greta Gerwig is a remarkably talented actress who simply has chosen a bad role and given a sub-par performance. As the co-writer of this film, she deserves extra criticism. But I'm confident she'll be better next time.

   

Friday, October 31, 2014

The Blair Witch Project

It's not quite reality. In one of the weaker scenes of “The Blair Witch Project,” the somewhat groundbreaking mockumentary horror film of 1999, a character teases his fellow documentarian about her never-ending use of the camera. He now understands why she's in love with it, why she continues to film even though some very strange and eerie things have been happening to them on their trek into haunted woods. This movie is not quite reality, but it sure as hell feels like it. We're told in the beginning that in October of 1994, “three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.” And thus, a genre changed.

I agree with them that the woods during Halloween are haunting enough. Burkittsville (a real-life town of about 150 people) according to our student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard), used to be known as Blair. A small cemetery contains an unusually high number of dead children. Some of them, we are told, were murdered by an insane man who kidnapped them and killed them two-by-two with an ax, with one looking away in the corner. He eventually entered the town and declared, “I'm finally finished.” His reason? A witch was torturing him and told him she would stop if he killed the children. There are several other scary stories like this sprinkled throughout the exposition. One of them is the story of the Blair Witch, a local legend grandparents used to tell their children to scare them to bed early. Mary Brown, an older woman the town has written off as crazy, tells our three protagonists a story of how when she was a young girl fishing with her father, a woman who appeared to be completely covered with hair approached her. Because the three filmmakers note that Mary Brown also claims to be a scientist doing research for the government, they ignore her ominous story and drive off for the woods. There, they meet two fisherman, one of whom describes the story of Robin Weaver, an unfortunate soul who vanished, apparently caused by an old woman--or witch--whose feet never touched the ground.


These stories are eerie enough and would make a fine film of their own, but they're not particularly scary. “The Blair Witch Project,” however, is truly scary. Influenced by other horror films (its utilization of both color and black-and-white is reminiscent of “Night of the Living Dead” and the more obvious similarity is to "Cannibal Holocaust") and obviously influential (with the most obvious influence being on “Paranormal Activity” and a host of other horror films), it might be considered one of the best of all time. While not as scary as "Paranormal Activity," it certainly is more real-looking. Perhaps the reason is that, like "Jaws" before it, our witch is never seen (or is it?). Instead, we are witness to our characters being woken at night to the sound of silent cackles. There are piles of rocks mysteriously placed outside their tent. Their map goes missing. One morning, there appears to be slime surrounding the tent. The camera can barely pick it up, but who cares? It's much scarier to simply take their word for it. In fact, hardly anything can often be seen, and this works mostly to the directors' (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez) favor. The movie is so simple yet brilliant because it rests on our shared phenomenon of being scared in the woods at night. Add a witch and I can't even imagine. 
    
While the three actors are not necessarily bad, the constant improvisation leads to overacting. There's an incessant amount of shouting at each other as they argue their way into madness, constantly being hunted by a witch seen, not heard. Josh teases Heather about the camera, telling her it's not quite reality. Well, for one, it's hardly realistic that a group of characters in such dire situations would continue filming, or that they would have moments of levity and laughter in their breaks from being hunted. The reality of things like witches I'm sure will be debated for centuries, but if such creatures do exist, it can be concluded that they probably lack any sense of compassion or mercy. If there are witches, they are probably more like the Blair Witch than Harry Potter. 

Hungry, cold and hunted, the three continue to do their best to crawl out of the vast woods, but to no avail. There is an absolutely terrifying climax in a house deep, deep in the woods. It's impossible to see what exactly is going on, but it's hauntingly eerie. Handprints everywhere and a silent scream somewhere in the foods. How I would hate to be alone in the woods, hunted by a witch. Terrifying. 


Monday, September 22, 2014

Enemy

Chaos. So begins "Enemy," a film even darker than the previous movie Jake Gyllenhaal and director Denis Villeneuve did, last year's "Prisoners." (Perhaps there's some sort of Von Triers-like melancholy trilogy in the making.) There are genuinely few films quite like "Enemy," so bizarre, so rich, so likely to inspire nausea. It's not a perfect film--at times it becomes a bit full of itself, with upside cameras and bizarre dreams and that sort of thing. But it's quite a thought-provoking one, and one that's gorgeous to look at. The cinematography should elevate Nicolas Bolduc as the new "prince of darkness," and it's as if Villeneuve found the absolute creepiest areas in all of Canada for the scenery.

Gyllenhaal is Adam Bell, a history professor telling his students about dictators and control. Control and obsession. It's a pattern that repeats itself through history, he tells them. His life is fairly mundane. He has a beautiful girlfriend (played by Melanie Laurent) but there doesn't seem to be much in their love life. Upon the recommendation of a colleague, he decides to watch a "feel-good" movie called "When There's a Will There's a Way." He doesn't appear to enjoy it too much. But a bizarre dream (set to operatic music) suddenly shoots him awake and he immediately returns to the movie to find the scene which appeared in his dream. And here he finds himself, or at these someone who looks exactly like him, as if it's his twin brother or something. His twin is Anthony and also is played by Gyllenhaal (obviously). He is the complete antithesis to Adam. Whereas Adam is meak, Anthony is confident. Adam is sloppy, Anthony is neat. The only similarity other than their looks and sharing the same first-letter is the fact that they both have beautiful girlfriends.

Such an eerie movie. There's truly exceptional cinematography here. The whole thing looks so Kubrickesque, with the obvious comparison being "Eyes Wide Shut," as both share themes of obsession, golden cinematography, and eroticism. But "Enemy" is more than that (and superior to "Eyes Wide Shut"). The best analysis of the film has been from Forrest Whickman in Slate. He hints that this is a monster movie without explicitly stating so; Whickman points out several clues, including repeated images of spider webs, some of which are obvious, and some of which aren't. The image of the spider is everywhere, and serves as an interesting representative of totalitarianism. He also notes that while the novel "The Double," which serves as the film's inspiration, is not a story of authoritarianism, its author, Jose Saramago, lived under a fascist regime in Portugal and "his work frequently explores totalitarianism and his experiences under a fascist regime through metaphor and allegory."    

Spiders like patterns, don't they?

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Robin Williams

File:Robin Williams Canada.jpgThomas Brown once noted that death is the cure for all illnesses. This is a morbid way to start a tribute for one of our national treasures, Robin Williams, who died yesterday of an apparent suicide. But let me explain. In "What Dreams May Come," one of his most underrated films, Williams plays a grieving husband whose wife commits suicide. When he, too, later dies, he discovers that she is not in Heaven waiting for him. He is understandably angry, demanding to know why his wife is being punished simply because she ended her suffering. It's a powerful scene, one that could provoke thought and dialogue about suffering and dying.

It appears evident that Williams spent the last several years of his life suffering. He was in and out of rehab, battling drug and alcohol addiction for years. He recently divorced his second wife; his sitcom on CBS, "The Crazy Ones," was canceled after only one season; and the majority of his films in the past decade have been considered flops. Clearly, these were taking a toll. No one deserves suffering, and no one deserves to be blamed for attempting to end their suffering. I feel deeply sorry for Williams and his many family members and for the world, for we have truly lost a decent human being and a comedic genius. I cannot, though, but feel at least an ounce of satisfaction that he will no longer suffer. No one deserves such suffering.


About his acting, where to start? He first got America to adore him through his guest appearances on "Happy Days" as an eccentric alien in the era of sci-fi re-emergence. His character eventually got his own TV show, "Mork and Mindy." There were his dramatic roles, like playing the introverted doctor opposite Robert De Niro in Penny Marshall's "Awakenings," one of the best films of 1990. In his review of the film, Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic called Williams a "unique maniacal treasure, part competent actor, part Jonathan Winters spin-off, part socio-political surgeon." Williams understood that there were essentially no laughs in the film, and that's how the role should be played. There wasn't even a slight hint of the screwball Tasmanian devil he so often became onscreen. In Mike Nichols' "The Birdcage," he understood that the humor there called for him to be the straight man (no pun intended), and while there were moments where Nichols let Williams be Williams, the actor understood that he often needed to cede the humor to Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest and Hank Azaria. It is one of his very best works.


He knew how to play terrifying as well. 2002 was his Year of Hitchcock. The first pitted him against Al Pacino in Christopher Nolan's "Insomnia," taunting his opponent, an LA cop (Pacino) suffering from sleeplessness in Alaska while trying to solve a murder mystery. "Don't worry, Will," he whispers. "You can sleep when you're dead." That same year he played a terribly lonely photo developer who becomes dangerously obsessed with a family in "One Hour Photo." It was the dark characters that made Williams, an actor trained at Juilliard, the most interesting to watch. A perfect example is the last terrific film he made: "World's Greatest Dad," in 2009. I wrote at the time that it was the perfect visualization of the human need to provoke the sympathy of others, and that it was one of Williams' best films.

But Robin Williams will most likely be remembered for his outrageously funny performances: rapidly spitting out humor and slight diatribes in "Good Morning Vietnam," which earned him his first Oscar nomination (he was also nominated for "Dead Poets Society," "The Fisher King," and won for "Good Will Hunting"); being as equally funny to children as to adults in "Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest" and Disney's "Aladdin," in which he improvised 16 hours of material, so much that apparently the Academy turned down a request to be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay because so much of it was ad-libbed; and of course, his role as a divorced father so desperate to spend time with his children that he disguises himself as a British nanny in "Mrs. Doubtfire." I cannot think of a funnier performance on film, and it was a shame that he was not nominated for Best Actor.

I'm very skeptical of alternative medicine, and yet I can't not be intrigued by laugh therapy. Here's how the Cancer Center's page of the remedy opens: "We were born with the gift of laughter. Laughter is a natural medicine. It lifts our spirits and makes us feel happy. Laughter is a contagious emotion. It can bring people together. It can help us feel more alive and empowered."

Empowered. We are at our lowest when we are not. There are three obvious examples of how Williams utilized laughter therapy to empower others. The first regards his dear friend and roommate from Julliard. Lauren Lapalater at Buzzfeed has written a great article titled "The Lifelong Friendship of Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve." Read it, and you will come across a passage from Reeve's memoirs describing his fear heading into a risky surgery after his accident left him paralyzed: He describes a man walking in dressed as a doctor and speaking in a Russian accent, announcing that he was to perform a rectal exam on Reeve. Reeve wrote: "For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay."

The second story involves another friend, Steven Spielberg, who directed Williams in "Hook," in which Williams plays a grown-up Peter Pan who has forgotten Neverland and now is a stern lawyer who doesn't spend time with his kids. Spielberg was filming "Schindler's List," an immensely taxing project that left him drained and depressed. It was Williams who called Spielberg, filming in Poland, to crack jokes and cheer him up. Spielberg called these "comic care packages over the telephone." The third example is not a real-life one, but a film: "Patch Adams." It's not a particularly good film, but it celebrates his unique gift of helping others through humor. Sometimes, that humor could be a bit too potent, as was the time he appeared on "Inside the Actor's Studio" (in what was probably the show's best episode). Apparently, an audience member was rushed to the hospital for a hernia--she was laughing so hard during Williams' appearance.

I haven't even mentioned his charity work: He was involved in about 50 charities, including the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. With Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, he hosted "Comic Relief," raising funds to help the homeless. Crystal responded to the news on Twitter with simply "No words." Goldberg seconded: "BillyCrytal is right. There are NO words."

While death might be a cure, so too is laughter. Steve Allen told us that our world would be intolerable without laughter; John Cleese called laughter a force for democracy; Stephen Colbert noted that one cannot be laughing and be afraid at the same time. "If you're laughing," he said, "I defy you to be angry." And I defy you to find someone who has made us laugh as much as Robin Williams did. What great comfort laughing is, and what a great comfort Robin Williams has been to us all.

Noah

In his exhaustive anthology of the history of violence called "The Better Angels of Our Nature," Steven Pinker starts with the Bible, which "depicts a world that, seen through our modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery." He cites Matthew White, who estimates that through 600 passages that discuss violence, the number of deaths is around 1.2 million--genocidal numbers. The victims of the flood would increase the number to 20 million.

Incidentally, Pinker's thesis is that humans are, contrary to the "if-it-bleeds-it-leads" philosophy of the media, actually becoming more peaceful, not more violent. He humorously opens his work by reminding us of the Cain killing Abel story: "With a world population of exactly four, that works out to a homicide rate of 25 percent, which is about a thousand times higher than the equivalent rates in Western countries today."

Director Darren Aronofksy embraces this violence. His "Noah" is heavy on it. At one point, the title character, played by Russell Crowe, throws a spear at an adversary. I can't wait for the action figure; it will make Paramount Pictures a fortune. Is this really a Darren Aronofky film? It is, and "Noah" is the great disappointment of the year. It feels like an amateurish undertaking filled with fairy tale dialogue. There are scenes with the Watchers (?), sort of fallen angels who are punished by being rocks. They are conflicted about helping Noah build the ark. Some of them are voiced perfectly (like by Frank Langella); others, not so much (like by Nick Nolte). (You could complain about how these rock things are not in the Bible, but as Aronofsky points out, neither is an E.T. finger-to-finger touch between God and Adam.) There are some positives--the scenery (filmed in Iceland) is otherworldly, and Aronofsky and his team have colored the world with blue, orange and green. It's completely surreal. ILM's imagery of the Watchers and the ark sometimes look realistic and innovative, and sometimes it does not. It has a certain quality reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen's work, but it fits. There is a massive battle in rain just as the maelstrom begins. It's exciting, but it doesn't fit.

Typically, movie reviews are required to include a paragraph or several explaining the plot. Is it necessary here? Probably not. You likely know the plot. The fourth story in the Bible, God has become angry with humans and has decided to kill them. But a very select few (Noah and his family) will be saved by building an ark and putting two of every animal on it. Martin Scorsese has talked about how the movies that have stayed with him the longest were the ones that didn't focus on plot so much as character, mood, and style. But with "Noah," despite our familiarity with the story, the plot is more interesting than everything (and everyone) else.

Crowe is reunited with his co-star from "A Beautiful Mind," Jennifer Connelly. She's not particularly good here, but most of it's not her fault--she's given such poor dialogue and not much else to do other than try and decide if she wants to speak in an American or British accent. The same goes for Emma Watson, who can't seem to not raise an eyebrow in each of her scenes. Her co-star from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," though, Logan Lerman, does a fine job. He plays Ham, Noah's middle son (the one who is eventually cursed by Noah), jealous and sexually frustrated. The reason for the curse has divided scholars for generations, and yet one is indirectly provided here (and actually, there's not much of a cursing so much as an inability to "fix something that is broken"). Anthony Hopkins plays Methuselah, Noah's grandfather. The saying "as old as Methuselah" comes from the idea that this Biblical character apparently lived the longest, dying at a ripe old age of 969 (which is surely possible). It's easy to see why this saying is accurate. In virtually every scene he's in, Methuselah just wants someone to bring him berries. He finally gets them, and how happy he becomes. Hopkins has never, to my knowledge, given us a bad performance, but he has made a handful of bad films, and this is one of them. Finally, Ray Winstone is an effective villain. He plays Tubal-cain, a descendant of Cain. Winstone does the expected hissing and such, but he reveals that this is a somewhat interesting character, for his (and Noah's) confusion and frustration have plagued humans for eternity. In essence, these two men must be saying to themselves, "I pray, and yet I hear nothing."

As for Crowe, he has always had an impressive presence on screen in a wide variety of films: "L.A. Confidential," "The Insider," "Gladiator," "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the Universe," "American Gangster," "Man of Steel." His presence is here as well in his characterization of Noah. Aronofsky has said that his depiction of Noah embraces a balance between justice and mercy. Noah, however, through much of this film, leans toward the former, succeeding in getting everyone to hate him. His son pleads with him as their fellow human beings drown. "They are just people," he says. Noah's reply is terse: "There is no room for them." When it is revealed that on board the ark, Ila (Watson) has miraculously become pregnant (she is barren), he is sure that this will infuriate the Creator and he promises to destroy the child if it is a girl. The accident of birth.

My expectations of this film were so high not because it's a Russell Crowe movie or because it's a movie about the ark or anything else other than the fact that it's directed by Darren Aronofsky. Think of his previous films--"Requiem for a Dream," "The Fountain," "The Wrestler," "Black Swan." I opened by asking if "Noah" really is an Aronofsky film. I'm still not sure. His theme of obsession, so prevalent in other movies--drugs in "Requiem for a Dream," lost love in "The Fountain," a comeback in "The Wrestler," and perfection in "Black Swan"--is somewhat noticeable here in that Noah is obsessed with obeying the Creator and not with helping his fellow humans. But everything else is so distracting that one couldn't possibly contemplate much on this theme. This is indeed an Aronofsky film, but unfortunately it's a bad one. Still, he's arguably the most exciting director around; certainly the most exciting younger director. I'm confident his next film will be better.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy

I don't think I ever anticipated nodding my head along to "I Want You Back" while watching a Marvel Comics film set in space. But there I was, doing such a thing. In what is one of the most joyous scenes in the film, the audience seemed to be filled with happiness as...well, it's best left unexplained for now. Just watch it, and I hope you will smile.

The movie opens with the unearthly "I'm Not in Love." Then, we see a man in an "Iron Giant"-like mask, walking around a barren, rainy planet. When he reaches his destination, he removes the helmet--it's Chris Pratt, in our first scene with him. He puts on some headphones and starts dancing to "Come and Get Your Love." Pratt, who explained that "acting is already embarrassing," not only has pretty good moves but really seems to be enjoying himself.

This is a Marvel movie, right?

It is. I have disliked many of the other Marvel films (especially "Iron Man" and "The Avengers") so much that I had low expectations for "Guardians of the Galaxy." But it's a great summer film, and a great soundtrack certainly helps it. Director James Gunn has described his approach to the music of the film as "holistic," and he played them on set during film. But a great soundtrack only takes you so far--comedy can help tremendously, as well. At another point in the movie, our stars Pratt and Zoe Saldana are (about to) dance to Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love." In that scene, Gamora (Saldana) mentions that she is an assassin and therefore doesn't dance. "Really?" is his response. "Well, on my planet, we have a legend for people like you. It's called 'Footloose.' And in it, a great hero, named Kevin Bacon, teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is." (Bacon was amused.) Dave Batista plays Drax the Destroyer, a chiseled prisoner who seeks revenge for the death of his family. Drax is of an alien species that, we are told, is a literal one--one that has no understanding of metaphors. But Drax disagrees. "Nothing goes over my head...My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it."

But the film's best comedy team is Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. Cooper has shown that he can do comedy just as easily as he can do drama (and sometimes, as is the case with "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle," he does both simultaneously). Here, he provides the majority of the film's laughs. He plays Rocket, the Han Solo character, but he's also a genetically altered, walking/talking/hissing raccoon. When we first meet him, he and his partner Groot are after a bounty for Peter Quill (Pratt), who incidentally prefers to be called Star-Lord (which is a corny name, but of course, so is Luke Skywalker). They try to catch Quill, who is being pursued by Gamora, and the four of them engage in a fairly exciting chase. Groot is voiced by Vin Diesel. What I was frequently reminding myself of while watching "Guardians of the Galaxy" was the famous story of how Bela Lugosi didn't want the title role of Frankenstein in 1931 because of the character's lack of dialogue. So the role went to Boris Karloff, who was then an unknown. So why would Diesel, who is a major star and has appeared in films as varied as "Saving Private Ryan" and the "Fast" series, want a role in which his only line is saying "I am Groot"? Well, think about it: Diesel has had quite the challenge before him. He has had to create arguably the most complex character in the film while only getting out three words consecutively. Diesel has also offered a much more interesting reason: his life since the death of his friend and co-star Paul Walker. Diesel appreciated how "Guardians of the Galaxy" allowed him to play a character who celebrates life in such a manner. Indeed, he is the spark of many of the most heartfelt moments in the movie. He's the only pure, innocent character. In one scene, he sacrifices, and in another, he gives a young girl a flower while smiling gently (and doesn't react in a similar fashion as Karloff did in a similar situation in "Frankenstein"), all while uttering in a simple fashion "I am Groot." So there's emotional weight here in the film. This is a story about friendship, camaraderie and reconciliation.

There's plenty to not like about "Guardians of the Galaxy." I'm not sure why some of the modern high-budget movies like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and the new "Planet of the Apes" movies look so fantastic but it's always the Marvel Studios movies that look like a mess. As Todd VanDerWerff pointed out in Vox, this movie is at its best when it's not a Marvel movie, calling it fun but frustratingly typical. But otherwise, it's quite a worthwhile movie-watching experience, especially to see such performances. Pratt really is a joy here. Rob Lowe was likely on to something when he called Pratt the "future of movie stars." Pratt will also appear in the new "Jurassic Park" film next year. Saldana now is the queen of franchises after also appearing in the "Star Trek" films and "Avatar." (She also appeared in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film but apparently had a miserable experience.) It's not simply our main cast who are exceptional in their roles. While Glenn Close and John C. Reilly, as a politician and police officer respectively, are disappointingly underused, Lee Pace (whom you might recognize--though he looks completely different--from "The Hobbit" films) and Karen Gill are quite good as the villains. For another entertaining scene, there's Benecio Del Toro in one of his best performances in years. Nearly stealing the show is Michael Rooker as Yondu, a blue-skinned bandit good-guy/bad-guy who can easily take out a host of adversaries while whistling.

I really don't think I've had so much fun at the movies in a long time. The audience applauded at the end. It's moments like those when I am reminded of what an experience the cinema is. And I got to watch space scoundrels dancing to the Jackson 5. Can't beat that.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Boyhood

The joys of a young child can be ruined by the yelling of adults. This is how "Boyhood" starts. There's a young child (Ellar Coltrane) lying in the grass, unobtrusively staring at the sky. His mother (Patricia Arquette) picks him up and asks him how his day was, gently prodding him about negative progress reports she's receiving from his teacher. His mother mentions that the teacher claims Mason, the young boy, deliberately inserted rocks into the classroom's pencil sharpener. She keeps asking why he would do such a thing. His eventual response is he assumed that because the machines make pencils sharp, it would do the same of rocks. He is quite the curious young boy, as most children often are.

"Boyhood" is an epic story. A film like this--one that takes place over twelve years--would typically feature a young actor as Mason at age six, then another one in his early teen years, then perhaps a twenty-something actor as a college-bound young man. His parents would be played by Arquette and Ethan Hawke, but they would have makeup applied to them throughout the filming to at times make them look younger and other times to make them look older. Not so with "Boyhood."

"Boyhood," directed by Richard Linklater (who, with "Dazed and Confused," "Waking Life," "School of Rock" and the "Before" trilogy, has show that he is one of America's most versatile directors) is a most unusual movie-making experiment, one unlike just about any other American film before it. Unlike the traditional approach, it has literally been filmed over twelve years. Starting in 2002, Mason grows up before our eyes. "It's time for you to grow up!" could be the mantra of his story. His inquisitiveness shifts to cynicism but ultimately bends towards optimism. He's a "yeah, I guess" kind of kid who doesn't appear to excel as much as his sister (Lorelei Linklater); his eyebrows seem permanently arched, particularly in his preteen years. By the time he's an adult, he looks a bit like Peter Dinklage. But in every one of these twelve years, it seems to be that he is the brunt of every sort of lecture. Have you ever seen a more relaxed youth on the screen? I can't recall any scenes of tantrums or even fighting back. The film (and trailer) make excellent use of an exceptional song called "Hero" by Family of the Year. The lyrics "let me go; I don't want to be your hero" seem to exemplify Mason's persona.  

But ultimately, this movie is good, but not great. Hawke (Linklater's collaborator on the "Before" trilogy) overdoes it in a scene or two. The film goes on for about 40 minutes too long, and Linklater's dialogue is painful at many times in the film--virtually every line from a young person sounds incredibly artificial.

But what I do like most about "Boyhood" is the complexities, because such is life. You can find such complexities in the role of Mason's parents. Sarah Boxer in the Atlantic recently asked why all the mothers in Disney films die, arguing that the beneficiary of a dead mother in children's films is a good father. In "Boyhood," it's not so simple. Early on, the father certainly does, in the eyes of the two children, come across as "the nice one," giving away gifts liberally and taking his children out for bowling and French fries while their mother scolds them for not doing their homework. Hawke's character, we are told, has just returned from Alaska, where he worked. At various times in the story, he is unemployed. The mother, on the other hand, moves the kids around for better economic opportunities. Mason and his sister get to see their dad on the weekends, but their father is replaced by one alcoholic after the other. One of them is possibly suffering through post-traumatic stress disorder and the other has a frightening malicious disposition in his eyes. The latter is played by Marco Perella, and he's absolutely terrifying, even in his "normal" scenes. There haven't been scenes of childhood abuse this disturbing since "This Boy's Life" more than twenty years ago. Fortunately, Mason still has his two loving parents. This ultimately might be a story not necessarily of a young boy but of his relationship to his two loving parents; the parents might not love each other anymore, but they certainly love their children.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Et tu, Koba?

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is the movie that has brought "Apes" to war. Oddly enough, this is one of the most anti-war films in years, with unmistakable allegories and warnings against unguarded militantism and vengeance. This has been observed by several others. Ari Siletz notes that audiences will surrender to the film's fatalism, that "when the forecast is war, peacemaking is as futile as raindancing in a drought." Here's what Rob Ryan has to say: "The central thesis of the second movie seems to be that despite the best intentions of good leaders, people (and apes) are innately paranoid, hateful creatures that are almost entirely incapable of getting along with each other." Three years ago, in my review of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," the better than expected reboot of the series, I wrote that the horror of the film was that the "descent with modification" that is evolution is flipped and the hegemony of humans over their distant cousins is reversed. The horror of "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is that now both species have guns and will do anything to destroy each other. There exists here an embrace of the "killer ape theory," the idea that "war and interpersonal aggression was the driving force behind human evolution." War has found a way.

This is really evident in the fascinating performance that is Toby Kebbell as Koba. Koba (if I recall correctly) was the ape who was particularly mistreated in the previous film. Here, he is one of Caesar's (Andy Serkis) top lieutenants. In the opening hunt, it is Koba who saves Caesar's life. Koba recognizes that it was Caesar who saved his first, and so he is willing to follow him wherever Caesar takes the apes as their leader. But it's not so simple. The majority of Koba's scenes show him as a character of haunting mercilessness--an angry warrior charging into battle, willing to figuratively and literally jump through fire if he has to. I don't think I've ever seen something as uniquely frightening as an ape shooting assault rifles while charging on horseback into battle. Scars make you stronger, he believes--but they also make you more bitter. He has learned hate from humans, and that appears to be all he has learned, and so he grows impatient with Caesar's cautious pragmatism and pacifism. Koba is clever as he is vicious, making his humorous scenes, like how he "plays monkey" to distract his enemy humans, all the more unnerving. It isn't too surprising that he hates humans so much. His reflection, to some extent, is in Gary Oldman's character, Dreyfus. It's not fully explained, but we can assume that while it's unlikely the apes killed Dreyfus's family, he blames them. He's a man of war by necessity, he might argue, not by choice.

Caesar, our main protagonist, isn't nearly as interesting as Koba. But Andy Serkis is doing remarkable work with this trilogy. After watching the first film, I couldn't help but wonder if Serkis was getting tired playing these characters that require motion-capture technology. After all, he has done this for Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" trilogies, "The Adventures of Tintin," and "King Kong." He is a part of the main cast of the upcoming "Star Wars" film, and while there are interesting, to say the least, theories as to what kind of character he will play (ranging from a Wookie to Yoda to Jar Jar Binks' son), I side with the argument that his character should not be one that requires computer generation. He has proven his ability and imagination with such acting, but now, I say, let him have an opportunity to prove he can do more traditional acting. Serkis knows this; here is what he told the Telegraph: "Caesar and all the other characters I have ever played are driven by one thing and that is acting. Audiences want to be moved by acting, not by visual effect." I still think that audiences don't quite understand the physicality of his work. Here's an great quote from an interesting article in Wired about his performance as Gollum: "He conceived Gollum as an addict whose inner struggle translated into an out-of-control, convulsive physicality. In his audition, he climbed up on a chair, his face contorted, and delivered his lines in a thin voice interspersed with a gurgling cough."

Serkis doesn't necessarily gurgle a cough and contort his face, but his Method acting approach and laborious study of ape movement is obvious. Remind yourself that the actors portraying humans are not seeing the actors portraying apes as we the audience see them, so the pressure is twofold on Serkis and others. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the digital rendering of Caesar seems to look less realistic than that of Koba or Maurice (Karin Konoval), an orangutan who serves as an important adviser to Caesar and a school teacher. Most of the other characters aren't particularly interesting, though. Jason Clarke as Malcolm, the main human, is more of a man of peace (in stark contrast to Clarke's characters in "Lawless" and "Zero Dark Thirty") than Dreyfus. It's not a bad performance or character per se, just a rather flat one. Like Frida Pinto before her, Keri Russell isn't given much to do other than hand out antibiotics to dying apes. But while the movie doesn't have much to offer in terms of character development, the other elements are terrific. The music by the great Michael Giacchino manages to aid the film while seemingly paying homage to the original 1968 film and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (which was released the same year and also famously has apes). Its dialogue isn't exactly that of Shakespeare, but its impressive visuals, powerful imagines and obvious metaphors make it a movie you should see.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Life Itself

File:Roger Ebert crop (retouched).jpgI've made no secret of my admiration of Roger Ebert over the years. But allow me to keep on showing my adoration for the finest film critic we ever had: If there ever was an American treasure in film criticism, it was Ebert. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a recipient of a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star (the first in both categories for a film critic), and a prolific writer on a variety of subjects, he was the film critic. But I assure you--you don't have to know who Ebert was to enjoy this movie. Whether you know who he is or not, you really should see "Life Itself," the new documentary about his life and career. It's one of the year's best.

The country first came to know Roger Ebert through his incredibly influential partnership with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. They were Siskel and Ebert. But as we all know, it was a complicated relationship. An example of just how much they could truly hate each other is told by Marlene Iglitzen, wife of Gene Siskel. Siskel and Ebert were on a plane out of Chicago, and Siskel grew tired of Ebert (who is described as a raconteur by several individuals in the documentary) telling a story to another passenger. Siskel, annoyed as ever, gave a note to the flight attendant and asked if she would give it to Ebert. She did. The note said something along the lines of: "Mr. Ebert, we in the cockpit almost always agree with you over your reviewing partner. We would be delighted if you would join us in the cockpit." Ebert was ecstatic, sprang from his seat, and marched toward the cockpit (and keep in mind that because of his weight, it was rather awkward for him to move about the cabin). The flight attendants were shocked as he was about to knock on the door, before Siskel shouted up toward him and revealed himself as the true author of the note, much to Ebert's profound irritation and humiliation.

Ebert was an exceptional storyteller. If you don't believe me, listen to his story he told on Letterman's show involving Siskel and a Korean film about a lady and her dog. According to Ebert, the two of them were viewing the film with other Chicago film critics and were quite bored by it. Siskel decided to leave the cinema to make a phone call. In the time that he was gone, the movie (which featured nothing of any significance) suddenly took a bizarre turn by having the main protagonist have sex with her dog. Siskel returned, and the other critics broke out into laughter. Siskel demanded an explanation, Ebert told him, and Siskel refused to believe it. Trust me, it's much funnier listening to Ebert explain the situation.

The narrative over the years, especially after Siskel died in 1998 from brain cancer, has been that even though Siskel and Ebert seemed to frequently shout at each other, they really did like each other. But the documentary makes great use of the awesome--yet frightening--YouTube clip of repeated outtakes from their show. "Sound a little excited, Gene," Ebert lectures. "Sound less excited," is the terse response. Ebert continues to correct him--"It's called 'And the Moves,' not 'At the Movies,'" is the next interruption. Siskel keeps it together, then finishes: "That's this week on 'Siskel...and Ebert...and the Movies...and the asshole, and that's Roger!"

Don't worry: They really were a great partnership and seemed to do other outtakes simply roasting each other. "Do you know that for Gene, speech is a second language?" Ebert keeps winning, poking fun of Siskel's inability to not trip over his words. Then for another outtake, they team up, poking fun at Protestants, which, according to Ebert is a group of people who sort of want a religion. What a team. I mean, these two guys couldn't have been further apart in personality. One was tall and thin, the other was small and large. One studied Philosophy at Yale, the other journalism at Urbana. One wrote for the bourgeois Chicago Tribune, the other for the more working class Chicago Sun-Times. But they were quite the team. They came full-circle in the aftermath of Siskel's death. Consider Chris Jones' exceptional 2010 article, where Ebert describes how he and Gene were born to be Siskel and Ebert. In the following paragraph, we see just how much Ebert protected Siskel after his death:

Ebert keeps scrolling down. Below his journal he had embedded video of his first show alone, the balcony seat empty across the isle. It was a tribute, in three parts. He wants to watch them now, because he wants to remember, but at the bottom of the page are only three black squares. In the middle of the squares, white type reads: "Content deleted. This video is no longer available because it has been deleted." Ebert leans to the screen, trying to figure out what's happened. He looks across at Chaz. The top half of his face turns red, and his eyes well up again, but this time, it's not sadness surfacing. He's shaking. It's anger. 

But the heart of the movie--the team the film most wants to focus on--is Roger and Chaz. Those two additionally seemed different, the most obvious difference being their skin color. But the love they clearly had for each other, especially as Chaz cared for him during his battles and pushed him to keep going, makes this one of the great love stories of any documentary. She herself also has a talent for storytelling, but many of the stories involve pain. She tells us how at one point, the pain became so bad that he slipped her a note saying "kill me." She angrily refused--"That is not an option," she insisted. Ebert is terribly in pain throughout the filming. An obvious hole exists where his jaw used to. We see him struggle deeply as a nurse inserts a suction tube into his throat, and as a physical therapist coaches him to produce even a few steps at the hospital after he's broken his hip. Nobody deserves such suffering, especially Ebert. But he endured, as long as he could.

Ebert is described by a friend as being "nice--but not that nice." Indeed, his not-niceness shows, whether it's in heated conversations with Siskel or arrogant reminders of his Pulitzer Prize--he doesn't always come across in the best light. But as a champion of motion pictures, he was extraordinary. Errol Morris tells us of how a strike during the premiere of his documentary "Pet Cemetery" meant that it wouldn't be reviewed in New York, which essentially equated to doom for his film. But Siskel and Ebert, based in Chicago, were to review it, and they reviewed it not once but three times during the course of the show. Ava DuVernay describes her meeting with Ebert at the Oscars and his inspiring her. (He wrote about the encounter on his blog.) Ramin Bahrani explains how Ebert promised to attend a showing of his film "Man Push Cart" at the Sundance Film Festival. For the first two showings, Ebert was a no-show, but the third and final showing (at eight in the morning during the final day), Ebert was happily at the front of the line. Ebert would later give Bahraini a gift that had been given to him by Laura Dern, who was given it by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Bahraini's responsibility, Ebert told him, to give it to someone else. Martin Scorsese, who Ebert predicted in 1967 would be one of America's most important film directors, tells us how at one point in his career, his marriage had fallen apart and he became addicted to cocaine. He truly was at a low point, and begins to break down as he describes what kept him going: he was told that Siskel and Ebert were to pay tribute to him at a film event. When they gave a bad review to his "The Color of Money," Scorsese mentions that it felt more like a paternalistic warning, not a malicious bucket of venom.

Film critics are meant to be the unsung heroes of movie-watching. That is, we not only are long passed the days of Pauline Kael and Siskel and Ebert but we are also passed the point where people take film critics' opinions seriously. But if Ebert could have had some kind of totally objective viewing of such a documentary, I believe he would adore this movie. He would certainly be proud of director Steve James, one of Ebert's favorite directors. Ebert famously said that no good movie is too long but no bad movie is short enough. I've never found that particularly accurate, but it surely is here. I didn't want the film to end. But all good things must end; such is life itself.


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The Fault in Our Stars

"I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death."
-Anne Frank

The only thing worse than cancer is kids with cancer. This is a fairly bold topic for a novel and film about young people in love to tackle. But tackle it does. This isn't a movie about sick kids but kids who are sick, and there is a subtle yet important difference between the two. It doesn't need to be elaborated but you'll understand as you watch.

"The Fault in Our Stars" is the story of a girl with cancer, not cancer itself. The girl is named Hazel, a sixteen-year-old, and is played by Shailene Woodley. Hazel has suffered from thyroid cancer for years, and, despite limited relief, surviving has helped convince her doctors that she is a miracle. No one in the audience would doubt her melancholy, however, as her doctors casually proscribe anti-depressants and pressure her to attend youth peer groups for those suffering from cancer. She reluctantly agrees. Here, she literally bumps into a young man named Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), whose own cancer cost him his leg but not his spirit. At one of the youth meetings, he proudly describes to the group that his only fear is oblivion. He intends to be around for a long time, and will reach legendary status. This understandably strikes Hazel the wrong way, and she tersely challenges him in front of the others.

Despite this defiance and rejection, Augustus develops quite a crush on Hazel, whom he flirtatiously keeps referring to as Hazel Grace. They swap books--she gives him "An Imperial Affliction," by a reclusive author who, despite his powerful writing, fled to the Netherlands never to return. Augustus gives Hazel Grace his copy of a graphic novel based on his favorite video game. They read the books and appear to enjoy the experience. The flirting continues and crescendos until they fall in love and battle their cancers together.

I liked this movie, and I was surprised by how much. It has a peculiar trajectory--it starts intriguing (though that's probably not an appropriate adjective to use), becomes annoying, then really annoying, then tolerable, then enjoyable, before becoming really enjoyable. And yet I couldn't help but feel much too manipulated. While it's strongest element is that it's a movie about kids who are sick and not sick kids, its weakest quality is that this is a movie that seems to objectify human beings just so I, the viewer (and one who is fortunate enough to not have cancer), can feel happier about my life. I wasn't sure how to react to that. There's a scene that takes place in the Anne Frank House, and there are obvious similarities between the two individuals, mainly being that they are both intellectual, brave young women. The problem is that when our two protagonists reach the top, where Frank and her family hid, it inspires them to kiss. Call me mature or realistic or cynical or whatever, but while it is a powerful and hopeful image, it still struck me as behavior more from Justin Bieber than those who are struggling and kept persevering. The scene might make you cry, but it also might make you internally debate the ethics of such actions.

Aside from being objectifying, it also at times feels clichéd. However, I can't say it's completely clichéd, because the characters' European fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare in the film's most unpredictable moments. What starts with the pounding adrenaline of Charli XCX's music as their plane lifts off (and a lame attempt at humor as we discover that Mr. Confident Augustus is afraid of flying), the young ones finally get to meet this beloved author of theirs. I won't reveal who plays him, only that you'll likely agree with me that he's one of America's most talented actors. The scenes with him are uniquely but pleasantly absurd.

Woodley is exceptional. Fortunately, she's chosen a better project than last year's atrociously awful "The Spectacular Now." Even in the weaker moments of "The Fault in Our Stars," she still shines, and motivates us to stay interested. She should be considered for an Oscar nomination. Laura Dern and Sam Trammell are also terrific as Hazel's parents, Dern especially so, providing some of the movie's most touching moments. But I think the person who stands the most to gain from this movie is Nat Wolff, who is brilliant in just about all of his scenes (that don't involve trophies). Wolff plays Isaac. When we first meet Isaac, he tells us that his cancer caused him to lose one eye and another surgery could cause him to lose the other. Still, he's on top of the world, madly in love with his girlfriend. As the film progresses and changes, so too do his standing and perception of life. His unusual character and the notes he hits are the exact representation of the movie's dual nature. An issue I had, however, with the acting was about Elgort, who, while not terrible, could have used better direction. He simply overdoes many of his scenes.

You ought to see this film. It's a celebration of life, an acceptance of the banality yet grit of those who persevere. The best movies are coming-of-age stories. This is one, but uniquely different. We rarely see such characters in such extraordinary pain. Rarely do movies like this inspire such thought (and yes, hope and appreciation).


And finally, here's an important message by "The Fault in Our Stars" author and vlogger John Green:



Thursday, July 3, 2014

Edge of Tomorrow

Did you see the science fiction movie where the guy needs to solve a mystery and yet he keeps dying? But every time he dies, he suddenly wakes up again--you've seen it right? It's a neat little film with a clever concept: what if a movie was like a video game, where every time the character died, he got to try over again and win? The film is called "Edge of Tomorrow," and it's the hit new mov--wait a minute! That wasn't "Edge of Tomorrow"! That was "Source Code," with Jake Gyllenhaal, from several years ago. Alright, well both films share strikingly similar plots, although "Edge of Tomorrow" is a louder (and more stupid) movie with more action and big, creepy aliens (that happen to kind of look like a hybrid of those in "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds"--again, not so creative).

"Edge of Tomorrow," the hit new movie with Tom Cru--wait a minute! Those helmets...that gear...those grotesque aliens...I know I've seen those somewhere. Was it "Source Code"? No, there were no aliens in that movie. Methinks it was circa 1997. I know--it was..."Starship Troopers"? I remember that one! That's the guilty pleasure Paul Verhoeven movie; "the only good bug is a dead bug!" Okay, so one must concede that this "new" movie called "Edge of Tomorrow" borrows from "Source Code" and "Starship Trooper" (and "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds"), but that's it!

Although...those aliens...they move so darn fast, rolling around and everything. Wait just a friggan minute. Those things move just like the aliens (or robots or monsters or whatever the hell they were) in "The Matrix." Is there anything original in this supposedly new movie? Not really. "Edge of Tomorrow" is frankly, not very original. But directors as varied as Quentin Tarantino, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese have all used previous works from other directors as inspiration. There is (usually) nothing wrong with this. But when it becomes so prevalent as it is in "Edge of Tomorrow," it becomes distracting, to say the least.

But wait, wait, wait! "Edge of Tomorrow" is based on a 2004 book called "All You Need Is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. So in actuality, "Source Code" (but not 1997's "Starship Troopers") is guilty of unoriginality, no? What a particular position this reviewer finds himself in: criticizing a movie for being unoriginal when it in fact is...original. Shouldn't this make me rescind my initial appraisal of "Source Code" and assess "Edge of Tomorrow" differently? Ah, to hell with it! Complaining about a movie because it's unoriginal does not justify disliking the film. But alas, that is not the only problem with "Edge of Tomorrow." For one, it's a pretty stupid title. But again, not sufficient evidence to bash it. Is the acting bad? No--for the most part. Cruise does a fine job. Of course, he hardly ever submits a bad performance. He can almost always lead an action blockbuster, as is the case with "Mission: Impossible" or "Top Gun," and he often puts in exceptional acting, like he did in "Magnolia" and "Collateral." He's one of the rare actors who can lead a loud, dumb movie, and actually act. But he's not given too much to do here, and neither is his co-star, Emily Blunt.

Cruise plays Major William Cage (what a pristinely original name) who sort of goes on TV and "sells" the war as a propagandist. The war happens to be the entire world (or so we should hope) against an alien species. But when he shows up to the war zone, his general (Brendan Gleeson) orders him to the battlefront, even though he has never served and has no intention to. He wakes up in handcuffs and is joyfully humiliated by his commanding officer, played by Bill Paxton (whose acting is a bit over the top, but whimsical and enjoyable nonetheless). Cage is put into terribly heavy and potent gear (similar to the ones in "Aliens" and "Pacific Rim"--oh, for the love of God). "Saving Private Ryan"-style (ugh), he storms the beach with his other soldiers...and dies quickly. But then he wakes up.

"Oh, no," the audience must think. "Not one of those stupid 'it was all a dream' types of story." No, not quite. Here's where the fun begins. Cage seems a bit nauseous as he relives essentially the exact previous moments before his "death." His commanding officer, Paxton again, goes through the same routine. The other soldiers taunt him in the same manner. Something surely is amiss. He dies again and then wakes, yet again in the fetal position, kicked up. He tries to convince the others of his prophetic ability to foresee the upcoming slaughter by the aliens; it's as if the aliens know they're coming. He goes into the same battle, at times trying to save his comrades, often with success, but it's for naught. He continues to die, he continues to wake. It's as if this is the sci-fi version of "Groundhog Day" (dammit!). But he does find one peculiar difference: there appears to be someone just like him.

This is where Blunt comes in. She plays Rita Vrataski, a soldier fiercely nicknamed "the Angel of Verdun" due to her reputation as a fighter. She, too, suffers from this bizarre condition, and once she realizes it, she instructs him to find her again once he dies. Again, this is quite fun. Over and over, we see him replaying this game, finding Rita again and again, dying again and again, becoming stronger, yet discovering not only his own flaws and inabilities, but his growing (and predictable) affection for her.

But the filmmakers cannot sustain this for long. Eventually, it just becomes loud and uninteresting. A missed opportunity, as they say, and an unoriginal one.

Did I mention the music sounds a lot like the theme from "Inception"?

Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Legacy of Barack Obama (Pssst--He's Not the Worst!)

By now you've probably heard about the poll that says Obama is the worst president since the end of World War II. We've still got several years to go, but it seems voters have made up their minds about the man who was to bring us hope, change, and a post-racial America.

The worst president ever?

You can debate whether or not you agree with President Obama's policies, but you can't argue that he hasn't achieved a majority of them. According to Politifact, Obama has basically achieved 69 percent of what he said he would do. Among some of the most significant "promises kept" include bringing troops out of Iraq, seeking verifiable reductions in nuclear warhead stockpiles, and creating new financial regulations, which include the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (created by now-Senator Elizabeth Warren), a financial stability oversight council, an audit of the Federal Reserve, credit card rules, and regulation of over-the-counter derivatives.

Admittedly, there are many "promises broken," and it seems that just about all his policies are controversial. But I'd like to focus on several and argue that now only has President Obama been one of our most consequential presidents ever, but he has also been one of the best.

Is it too really early to talk about Obama's place in history? I don't think so, and neither do a variety of opinions, found here, here, here, here, here, and here, with some authors suggesting that (despite this recent decline in his approval rating) his place could be anywhere from seventeenth best to fourth best. So what is the Obama legacy? We don't have time to go over everything--every accomplishment, every failure, every debate--but I'd at least like to make a few points on the following:  

Health Care and the Economy. President Obama has transformed the U.S. healthcare system profoundly. The Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") alone makes him the single most consequential president in a generation or more.

To understand its significance, one must first understand the state of American healthcare. As John McDonough of the Harvard School of Medicine explains, the U.S. has "far and away" the costliest healthcare in the world. As he has put it, if we're spending so much money relative to other countries, "one might expect we would be doing significantly better." Since 1980, however, costs have skyrocketed.

How are we doing compared to other nations? Not so good. Compared to other higher-income nations, the U.S. usually ranks the lowest (with the U.K. and the Netherlands ranking as the highest). Among care effectiveness and safety, efficiency, and equity, we are usually among the worst. Even though spending is so high (for a variety of reasons), healthcare here isn't performed as well as other developed nations.

The ACA helps fix that. Among its ten titles, the first title alone would be the most aggressive reforms ever. Consider the reforms in Title I (based on Romneycare): Young adults can stay on their parents' plans until 26. Now there is a Medical Loss Ratio, in which insurance companies have to write a rebate check if premium dollars spent were not related to medical costs. (Billions of dollars have been referred back to patients.) Subsidies are now rewarded for people above the Medicaid threshold, and (despite a terribly pathetic start), there are at least 27 federally facilitated marketplaces. All of these allow consumers to better compare which health plan is right for them. All of those are simply in Title I.

Title II was the Medicaid expansion. Contrary to what most people think, for the most part if you're a non-disabled adult with no children, in most states, poor people didn't have access to insurance through Medicaid. Not so anymore. Unfortunately, while the Supreme Court validated Congress' utilization of the individual mandate under its taxing power, it simultaneously declared that states do not have to be forced to be involved in the expansion. 26 states are expanding, while 21 are not (and four are debating). Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich invoked Christianity in his argument to join the expansion: his belief is that when he dies and goes to St. Peter, he's not going to be asked what he did to keep government small, but what he did to help the poor.

But the intransigence of the other Republican governors is puzzling at best and inhumane at worst. Despite the federal government paying 100% of the funds for the first three years, changing the typical 50-80% cost of coverage (so typically, for every dollar a state spends on Medicaid, the feds write a check for 56 cents), many states with conservative governors have refused the funding and instead allow their poorer citizens to continue to suffer. Still, one can be hopeful. Medicaid was crated in 1965 and was optional for states; it took about 5-6 years for a majority of states to join. The last was Arizona--in 1982.

The remaining titles involve changes to Medicare to improve benefits for enrollees to get free annual wellness exams with no cost sharing. Calorie labeling is required on chain restaurant menus for every item. Helping patients quit tobacco is now covered. The cost of the law--about $950 billion (mostly from Titles I and II) are completely self-financed, often through taxes, such as those on tanning beds. And it is expected to lower the federal deficit (although only by a bit).

Beyond the ACA, there was the American Recovery Act, or the "stimulus." There have been few laws as consequential as this one. While most American presidents barely get half of a major bill signed in one term, Obama essentially had five in one within his first month in office: the largest investments in healthcare and science since LBJ, the largest tax cut since Reagan, the largest infrastructure spending since Eisenhower, and the largest investment in education ever. This law has fundamentally changed the country for the better. As Michael Grunwald has written in "The New New Deal," the Recovery Act injected an emergency shot of fiscal stimulus into an economy hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month. Moody's, IHS Global Insight, and the CBO have all agreed that it helped enormously.

We have recently had five straight months of job gain above 200,000, the highest since the 1990s tech boom. But have we heard much about it? No. Instead, we hear a lot about this particular poll about how terrible Obama is. President Clinton likes to cite statistics that in the roughly equal amount of years that Democrats and Republicans have controlled the White House since World War II, Democrats have created more jobs. Jordan Weissmann of the Atlantic (of all places) says this is more complex, that it's more due to luck and that there hasn't been consistency among the parties' presidents and their ideologies within their own parties. True to some extent: Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton, who wasn't Jimmy Carter, who wasn't Lyndon Johnson. Ronald Reagan is far different from Dwight Eisenhower. But the point I'd like to make is that Obama has been liberal but also pragmatic on the economy and on other issues, willing to be advantageous (the GM rescue, the Bin Laden raid) and willing to fail (as is the case with gun control, but this is more due to an ignorant Congress and an even dumber--yet tiny--part of the public). Second, Obama has indeed been liberal, and yet liberals have grown cynical of him. And so I ask this of liberals: Is the fervor and excitement you have for Senator Warren any different than what you had for then-Senator Obama? Would a President Warren really be so much more progressive than President Obama? Has there ever been a president who has accomplished as many liberal goals as this one? Even before the regulations of healthcare, the financial institutions, and polluters, the Left, under Obama, got tobacco regulation, massive forest protection, and the Matthew Shepard Act, things they were trying to achieve for years.

Incidentally, "fiscally responsible" House Republicans--who created a several trillion dollar hole in eight years--offered their own version of stimulus in 2009 in the form of a $715 billion, and yet that gets to be defined as fiscal responsibility. And, according to Grunwald, there is a bit of hypocrisy involved: Paul Ryan requested money for green-job training in Wisconsin, Michelle Bachmann and Joe "You Lie!" Wilson also requested funds, as did Mitch McConnell, who wrote five letters for electric car factories in Kentucky. Governors Rick Perry and Jan Brewer both accepted the funds.

These very Republicans like to tell us that the stimulus failed. It did not, at least not according to the 80% of University of Chicago survey of economists who said it lowered unemployment and increased GDP to 3.8% at its peak.

Foreign Policy
When I voted for Obama in 2008, I never, in a million years, figured Osama bin Laden would be killed. I assumed he was long, long gone (dead or alive). But now he's dead, and Obama's the one who got him. As William Dobson said, Obama "exorcised" the demons of the foreign policy mistakes during the Carter and Clinton era.

But what about the crisis in Iraq with ISIS? That's all Obama's fault, right? Well, first of all, it was the Bush administration that not only invaded the country on false pretenses (and recall that it was Obama who rightfully called it a "dumb war"), and it was the Bush administration which negotiated the end date, and it was the al-Maliki regime that insisted (under pressure from the Iranians--oh, the irony) that the Americans leave. This crisis is not Obama's fault, and leaving the country remains one of his greatest accomplishments.

Dylan Matthews at Vox reminds us of six numbers that no one should ever forget: over 126,000 civilian deaths; 4,486 dead American service members; 2 million refugees; $817 billion lost in direct costs and trillions more in indirect costs; Freedom House's rating Iraq's "democracy" as a 6, or "not free," (with the worst possible number being 7), meaning it is essentially as democratic as Iran; and finally, perhaps the most important--0, which is the amount of weapons of mass destruction found. A war based on false pretenses that has completely destroyed a nation. Is it the fault of the current occupant of the Oval Office, or his predecessor?

President Obama's foreign policy has, simply put, been a success.

The Environment
Global warming is the ultimate tragedy of the commons. Coined by Garret Hardin in the 1960s, the idea of the tragedy of the commons is that people share a finite resource but are motivated by their own self-interest. Hardin used the idea of a pasture with competing farmers and their cows; one farmer might notice that another farmer has more cows, so he tries to compete. The obvious solution is that the resource is destroyed. "The population problem," he wrote, "has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension of morality." Hardin quoted William Foster Llyod, who wrote, "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things." In other words, the problem is not fixable--the resource (the planet, our only home)--is doomed.

President Obama hasn't taken that attitude. He has acted, many times alone without the help of Congress. The fuel efficiency standards he set are estimated to eliminate 1/6 of U.S. aid on imports by 2025. There are also now tightened efficiency standards for light bulbs, furnaces, refrigerators, dishwashers, and air conditioners. Cold-drink vending machines now will reduce enough energy demand to power over a million homes. At least 680,000 low-income homes have been weatherized. Solar power now is the fast-growing industry.

The President should be applauded for his efforts. His administration's record includes pumping tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy and making it immensely difficult for any new coal plant to open unless it can effectively capture its carbon and store it (which at this point is fairly impossible). On June 2, in what Matt Yglesis called the single most important day in Obama's second term, Obama's EPA announced their intent to regulate the CO2 emissions from the nation's coal plants. The New York Times reports that this could result in a 20 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.

One more thing. If somebody has the gall to say that because we had a bad winter, global warming is not man-made, please remind them that not only does the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change strongly state that global warming is happening and humans are behind most of it, but also that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences found that 98 percent of scientists agreed with the theory that mankind was exacerbating global warming. Incidentally, it's called global warming, not Northeast Ohio warming. To paraphrase Justin Gillis, a snowstorm in Cleveland does not extinguish a severe drought in California or devastating forest fires in Russia.

LGBT Issues
Andrew Sullivan and Newsweek were right to call Obama our first gay president. While initially appearing unwilling to fight for these causes, Obama is officially the first sitting president to support same-sex marriage; his Justice Department stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act (which the Supreme Court eventually partly nullified); he signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Act to classify crimes against LGBT individuals as hate crimes. (The law had been blocked for more than a decade.) He proudly repealed a discriminatory and waste-of-money law that never should have been written in the first place: Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Now, LGBT soldiers can serve openly. Regarding transgender equality, he has been the best (and there is no second place among his fellow presidents).

Obama seems to be a communitarian who deeply values human rights and dignity. E pluribus unum is frequently mentioned by him. But would he have been committed to these actions and policies if he were president in 2001? Probably not. In 1996, he claimed to support same-sex marriage (and if this is accurate then he was way ahead of the country) but then he became a senator and ran for president in 2008, the year of California's infamous (and now gone) ban on marriage equality. He changed his mind on marriage equality, before changing it again famously before the 2012 election. It has been asked if Obama is leading the fight or riding its waves. It's probably the latter. His actions regarding equality and rights have been phenomenal, though it does seem that his cautiousness has guided him more than a belief that he is marching the country down the moral arc of the universe.

Which brings me to my next point: President Obama certainly has his failings, as all presidents do. He has unfortunately sometimes surrounded himself with bad advisers, especially on education issues. Here's what former under-Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch has to say about the President's record on education:

"The most unexpected supporter of corporate reform was President Barack Obama. Educators enthusiastically supported Obama, expecting that he would eliminate the noxious policies of President Bush's No Child Left Behind. They assumed, given his history as a community organizer and his sympathy for society's least fortunate, that his administration would adopt policies that responded to the needs of children, rather than concentrating on testing and accountability.

The first big surprise for educators occurred when President Obama abandoned Linda Darlin-Hammond and selected Arne Duncan, who had run the low-performing schools of Chicago, as secretary of education. The second big surprise--shock, actually--happened when the Obama administration released the details of Race to the Top, its major initiative, which was designed in Secretary Duncan's office with the help of consultants from the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and other advocates of high-stakes testing and charter schools.

There was very little difference between Race to the Top and NCLB. The Obama program preserved testing, accountability, and choice at the center of the federal agenda. Race to the Top was even more punitive than NCLB."

Obama is also partly to blame for the death of immigration reform, and his lethal and criminal use of drone strikes could have fundamentally destructive effects in the future. Battles he has fought could likely define him as a war criminal. Ryan Cooper at The Week fiercely declares that Obama could have helped create over a million more jobs had he not become so invested in deficit reduction. He should be held accountable for all these actions.

But still, I am not looking for perfection, for surely there never has been, nor will there ever be, a perfect president. All the presidents, regardless of party or ideology or era, seem to be guilty of at least one terrible thing or another. It seems criminal behavior is simply a job requirement. I am not a single-issue voter, and I avoid litmus tests. As the Vice President likes to say, "Don't compare me to the Almighty--compare me to the alternative."

Mark my words: warts and all, Barack Obama will be remembered as one of America's greatest presidents.