The Cartography of Grief: Inside Llewyn Davis's quiet epiphany

Movie Review: Inside Llewyn Davis

Director: The Coen Brothers

Reviewed: 22 May 2014

jamesintexas rating-- ***1/2

The Coen Brothers never fail to make interesting films, but Inside Llewyn Davis challenges and demands much out of its audience with less of their trademark madcap hijinks and more introspection and melancholy. Llewyn is a haunted, less than successful musician in 1961 New York City, facing frigid temperatures and the increasing coldness of friends who has alienated. Living off of the kindness of others, Llewyn wakes up on strange couches, hustles for gigs to make money, and contemplates leaving his art all together to join the Merchant Marines. He carries the cat of friends with him, unable to return it after it ran out as he was closing the door. He bums a ride to Chicago to see a legendary producer and make his pitch. He considers his art and what it means and what it would mean to give it all up.

The structure of Inside Llewyn Davis is a riddle of sorts, playing with time, and showing the same scene more than once, revealing its protagonist to be in some sort of cosmic loop. Appropriately, the film essentially demanded that I watch it twice right away, and I was happy to oblige. Llewyn seems trapped in an impossibly cold winter, wandering and searching, moving around but never getting anywhere--an apt metaphor for the creative process and the artist hellbent on making his or her art. When a producer announces to Llewyn, "I don't see a lot of money here," I feel that heartbreaking analysis could be commenting on the Coen Brothers' films as well. I am thankful that Fargo and No Country For Old Men probably brought smaller, less commercial films like A Serious Man and Inside Llewyn Davis to light. To have a career in the arts means some sort of acknowledgement of that statement and balancing commercialism with artistic integrity. The furious balancing involves compromising or failing.

Oscar Isaac gives a mournful quality to his performance as the self-destructive Llewyn, and it is important to see him as big-hearted and simultaneously capable of cruelty to those around him. Llewyn never reveals everything going on under his surface, but things bubble out at inopportune times, and in many cases, Isaac has to play him as unlikable. He is at his most likable are when Llewyn finds himself onstage singing, often shot in golden yellow light, moments of incandescence. These moments of brilliant performance and a soulful voice contrast with the trudging of the artist through the wet snow, stepping into a frozen puddle, ill-equipped for the vicious weather. Haven't we all been ill-prepared for moments in our lives?

The supporting performances are all first-rate: Carey Mulligan stands out as a bitter fellow musician; Justin Timberlake is effective as a cheery, commercial comrade; and John Goodman steals scenes as a jazz playing conversationalist. The film makes traveling cross country seem mind-numbing with the very sounds of the tires on the road drumming an incessant thumping on the soundtrack. The songs of the soundtrack key in on the emotional moments of the character and stand alone themselves as great fun, something the Coen Brothers have been doing for a long time. In a way, the film touches back to O Brother, Where Art Thou? with its musical interludes and love of the recording studio and process. How "Please, Mr. Kennedy" did not get nominated for Best Song is beyond me; I have been humming variations of it for over a week.

Without a lot of flash, Inside Llewyn Davis offers a portrait of the artist having to break free of his own self-destructive tendencies. Perhaps instead of being at odds with the cosmos, Llewyn is simply accountable for his own words and actions, receiving comeuppance for them in order for him to change. To watch Llewyn's epiphany, my hopeful reading of the film's last line (with a wonderful song accompanying it, swelling in the background) is to celebrate the shot of Llewyn closing the door more carefully, deflecting a past conflict back, and keeping what must stay on the other side where it belongs. I really loved this film, and it has given me much to think about.

Grandly Lighter Than Air: Wes Anderson's Hotel Movie.

Movie Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Director: Wes Anderson

Reviewed: 12 May 2014

jamesintexas rating-- ***1/2

The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson's new film, most closely resembles its central chocolate delicacies, prepared by Agatha (Saoirse Ronan) lighter than air, exquisitely handcrafted, meticulously prepared in a striking pink box, and piled high in the air. However, the film's ethereal qualities are grounded quite frequently by wonderful cursing and intense violence. But, to get back to the desserts. These studied pieces of confectionary move the plot forward, connecting the machinations of lobby boy Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori) and the debonair Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes, shedding the skin of Voldemort with a refined glee), the head concierge at the eponymous hotel, an imposing castle of elevators, stairways, and cavernous dining rooms. Gustave H. runs the Budapest with an imperious precision; his marches through its hallways dictating impossibly precise orders at those around him suggest an older version of Max Fischer given the keys to a greater kingdom than the mere Grover Cleveland High School. In the republic of Zubrowka, a Madame D. (Tilda Swinton, aged extensively, hair piled high with a wig, and powdered like a cake) departs the embraces of the hotel and Gustave H. leading to a scandal involving a disputed will and an expensive painting, all set against the backdrop of a brewing war.

In a way, the film is more expansive than those of Anderson's past which have confined themselves to a single family in a single city or a series of groups on an island. Here, the trains crisscross Zubrowka, as well as gondolas, motorcycles, and sleds. He reveals an elaborate underground society of hotel concierges who will stop at nothing to help a person in need in addition to menacing groups of fascists awaiting you at the border, ready to check that your papers are in order. A triple-frame story opens us into this world, contrasting the hotel's rundown 1985 days with its 1932 glory. There is a slow-chase through a museum with a marvelously violent payoff, the severe mistreatment of a feline, a malevolent monster named Jopling (Willem Dafoe) who seems to grow fangs, and a glorious jailbreak and rescue of epic proportions. The canvas here is so wonderfully large that one is left pining for more time with even very minor characters.

I think Ralph Fiennes is a revelation here, not just because he does not have to play a heavy villain as he so often does (though as the new M in the Bond films, I guess we will be entering a new phase) but instead a flawed man with impeccable charm. With his "darlings" softly inserted at the end of conversations, Fiennes wonderfully plays up Gustave's theatricality as part of a bygone era, a desire to satisfy his guests and preach to his staff during their meals. Fiennes adapts his performance to each scene, holding the core of Gustave H. despite radical changes in station. The film struggles to fully show Gustave H.'s hold over young Zero, and their relationship while obviously the core of the story faltered a bit for me. I was left a bit cold by later developments, but perhaps I need another viewing of the film. The ending has an abrupt air to it, but it may be in keeping with the world that he's portraying. The checking of papers and harsh treatment of Zero foreshadows the atrocities of fascism in World War 2, making Gustave H.'s decision late in the film even more grand and noble.

I am adding this to the middle pile of Wes Anderson films, the ones that I am happy to return to viewing again and again. Although I cannot yet anoint The Grand Budapest Hotel as worthy to stand amongst Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and last year's wonderful Moonrise Kingdom, it stands closer to those films than his misfires. Anderson creates worlds that are fun to watch actors and actresses play around inside, worlds of intricately designed boxes of impossibly fine desserts that seem both familiar and completely unique at the same time, and I bet they enjoy the anarchic, highly structured fun. The sense of joy permeates his film, but as he harshly shows, all good things must end.

Dallas Buyers Club: An Actors' Showcase.

Movie Review: Dallas Buyers Club

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee

Reviewed: 26 April 2014

jamesintexas rating-- ***

It is 1985, and electrician-rodeo rider Ron Woodson finds himself with the AIDS virus and given a short time to live. Angry and confused, Woodson fights back, circumvents the normal health care system, and his work leads to his unexpected survival. He works with sympathetic doctor Eve (Jennifer Garnder) and makes an unlikely alliance with a transgender woman named Rayon (Jared Leto) who also has AIDS to sell drugs that work to the people that need them the most. A homophobe himself, Ron struggles with his place in the world as his friends abandon him and he turns activist, traveling to Mexico for experimental drugs, studying the law and figuring out ways to work around it. Ron's quick thinking saved lives and gave hope to a population reeling from the virus and governmental inertia. Rayon's struggle, though not as front and center, proves even more compelling, struggling with family rejection and working with Ron, which is not always the easiest.

I guess I felt underwhelmed because there is not much interiority to Ron Woodson. He reads about the idea of a buyers club to share pharmaceuticals in the New York Times and makes some pretty adroit choices that save countless lives. Besides his traveling to different countries to meet with distributors and funny outfits to fool Customs, he seems very alone. There are some obvious, easy to hate villains here, one complete with Patch Adams nose, and another from the FDA who could not be more unlikable if he tried. But the weaknesses of the film do not undermine its overall power; the two performances by McConaughey and Leto are strong and deserving of accolades. I just do not know if the script gives either enough to do. Having not seen Leto act in many years, his work as Rayon is a revelation. McConaughey has Ron's swagger and physicality down as he out-thinks those around him. I'm all for a movie where the lead character out-thinks his opponents instead of using a gun. It is appalling to think about the intersection of profit and potentially life-saving drugs, but Dallas Buyers Club works best when it focuses on its people.

Wolfishly Devilish: Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

Movie Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Director: Martin Scorsese

Reviewed: 26 April 2014

jamesintexas rating-- ***1/2

An aerial shot from a camera that must be mounted on a helicopter swoops over the ocean about ninety minutes into the film flying towards a glorious yacht with about one hundred people dancing and swaying in unison like a choreographed musical number. The camera zooms in closer, and we see Leonardo DiCaprio as our protagonist, leading this improbable circus parade of mayhem over the strains of "Insane in the Membrane."  It is one of several breathtaking moments that occurs when Martin Scorsese returns to form, tying back the world of Goodfellas, Casino, and even The Departed as he chronicles the rise and fall of stock broker Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, an ambitious and dazzling film that features top acting, incredible editing, and a relevance to modern day headlines.  Jordan at one point helpfully tells us that what occurs at his firm is nothing comparatively. I reference Goodfellas and Casino because Scorsese focuses on the underbelly of the American Dream by examining outsiders who want in, people willing to gain money and power through the most outrageous of ways: the Lufthansa heist; building a golden city out of the desert; and manipulating stock prices to gain huge dividends. Those films along with Wolf feature the rise and fall of an American empire, a family of criminals devoted to each other until . . . well . . . things fall apart.

However, The Departed, a more recent Scorsese film, came to mind even more strongly as I watched this film. Jack Nicholson's famous monologue from the opening of the film comes to mind: "They told us we could be cops or we could be criminals.  But when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?" And besides being a post-9-11 treatise on betrayal, The Departed examines a pairing of men (one a criminal, one a cop; both posing as the other) and how remarkably similar they are. What truly does separate good from evil? Scorsese poses this question again in The Wolf of Wall Street after stock broker-messianic leader Jordan Belfort, a man who when spit out by Wall Street returns with a vengeance by building his own firm of miscreants and ne'er-do-wells pushing penny stocks on the unsuspecting, and gullible, realizes that his wedding video has been subpoenaed by the F.B.I. Realizing that he is under investigation, Belfort invites his adversary Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) to his yacht docked in Manhattan. What happens next is perhaps the quietest and finest scene in a movie filled with look-at-me moments. Decked out in regal clothing, sipping champagne on the deck, Belfort lets Denham know that he could be of use to him both professionally and personally. He lets Denham know that he knows of his past desires to be stock broker. He tempts Denham. And the work between Chandler and DiCaprio is topnotch in the scene, as each actor plays the reversal and revelation quite well, and it does not hurt that there is a physical resemblance between them. Denham could be Belfort. The description of his sweaty Subway ride home could not be farther removed from Belfort's yacht or helicopter or private limo. The scene ends wonderfully, a harbinger of things to come, with fun coupons and thrown lobster. Things fall apart.

Rounding out this weird and depraved jungle of wild-eyed capitalists are great performances from Matthew McConaughey as an early mentor, a schlubby Spike Jonze as the Long Island broker who plants a seed in Jordan's mind, and Jonah Hill as an intensely loyal underboss with a love for excess and a connection to Steve Madden shoes. Jonah Hill is impossible to take your eyes off here as Donnie Azoff with his shiny teeth, thick glasses, and hilarious line readings. I think it might be Hill's best performance, an equal achievement to his work in Moneyball. And DiCaprio is at his finest here: physically committing to the ridiculousness of the role, pounding his chest and hitting his forehead with a microphone, bullying customers over the phone, and showing the depths of Belfort's corruption by the end. Is there any actor who could play Calvin Candie, Jay Gatsby, and Jordan Belfort all in about 18 months? Leo remains one of the most exciting actors of our time, making choices that are always interesting, even if it is trying to open a car door with his foot.

I loved the supporting cast with many familiar faces all delivering strong work. At times, the film seems to look at us and marvel at itself: See how shocking I am trying to be? But much of it works quite well, and the film may be the funniest of the year as well. At nearly three hours, the film flies by, and though simultaneously sickening and exhilarating, Scorsese's film points the camera at the audience by the end, making us implicit in our enjoyment of Jordan's excess while also very aware that getting rich quick is always on our minds. In The Departed, Leonardo DiCaprio's character quotes Nathaniel Hawthorne with "Families are always rising or falling in America," and Belfort proves adroit at both actions as well as the art of survival. And a closing shot of bedraggled Agent Denham on the subway set to a Lemonheads cover version of "Mrs. Robinson" has us looking victory in the face, in all of its shabbiness with a version of a great song that isn't nearly as good as the original: "Every way you look at it you lose."

Hang It Up: The Hangover Part III

Movie Review: The Hangover Part III

Director: Todd Phillips

Reviewed: 5 April 2014

jamesintexas rating-- Zero Stars

Sequels can have diminishing returns and in the case of The Hangover Part III, it completely destroys any fondness for these characters and their anarchic energy. Although not as intellectually sloppy as its predecessor which merely copied the first film's premise in Bangkok, The Hangover Part III is worse than the sequel because it commits the worst sin a comedy can commit.  It is simply not funny.

Everyone is back from Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Ken Jeong to Heather Graham and Baby Carlos, but the film feels inert and stagnant. The plot involves an attempt to take Alan to rehab after an unfortunate incident with a giraffe and a highway overpass, but then it detours to connect us with John Goodman's scheming criminal enemy of Chow who recruits the Wolf Pack to do his biding. No one shines here, and the set pieces are not memorable. Every laugh rings hollow, and even the great Melissa McCarthy, a national treasure, delivers a flat performance.

I'm sure this film made quite a bit of money, and I'm sure that it was fun to make, but it just seems loveless and stale. The first film rang with laughs and absurdity, perhaps never improving upon the moment they all wake up in the hotel room after the debauched night. This film is not worthy to share its name.

Cop Land: Star Cast with Nonsensical Plotting

Movie Review: Cop Land

Director: James Mangold

Reviewed: 4 April 2014

jamesintexas rating-- **

An achievement in casting, James Mangold's Cop Land assembles a marvelous assemblage of actors, places them in the impossibly brilliant scenery overlooking Manhattan from across the river in New Jersey, and then saddles them to a moribund plot that results in sloppiness. In the film, Cop Land refers to a New Jersey town bought by NYC police officers through a special dispensation, and it serves as a sort of haven for them away from the job. The city sheriff is Freddy (Sylvester Stallone), a lovable loser type who is walked all over by everyone and is half-deaf as a result of a heroic act in his youth. When a police incident on the bridge separating New York from Cop Land results in headline-grabbing attention, Freddy begins to slowly wake up from his slumber, investigating suspicious activity, and conference with Internal Affairs officer (Robert DeNiro).

The film uses Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel, Robert Patrick, and a cast of recognizable faces in the execution of an unwieldy story with too many strands and a terrible ending. I thought the last fifteen minutes defied so much logic that it was stunning. The idea of Cop Land is a good one; the reality is that it is a film that is really a mess.

Swagger and Bombast: Winding Refn's Bronson

Movie Review: Bronson

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Reviewed: 4 April 2014

jamesintexas rating-- ***

Thomas Hardy is an unqualified star, and as Great Britain's most notorious prisoner, the eponymous self-titled Bronson, he shines in muscular glory, sheer bravado, and complete fearlessness. For whatever faults the film may have as a whole, the lead performance cannot be faulted: Hardy stalks the screen like a tiger, ferocious and anarchic. With obvious debts to A Clockwork Orange, Winding Refn structures the film unusually with its lead character as circus ringleader, complete with strongman mustache too impeccable to be believed, addressing the audience directly as well as an imagined theater full of tuxedoed personages. I found myself swept up in its kinetic storytelling early on, and its spell did not break until Bronson finds himself trapped in a mental institution about 45 minutes into the film. Bronson's stints in prison, the result of a minor offence, result in a sort of institutional madness and pugnaciousness that result in a frothing, naked, bloody Bronson taking on all of his captors battle royale style as much as possible (resulting in eventual and excessive solitary confinement).

I enjoyed the disjointed structure of the film, the color palette used by Winding Refn, and the sneering lead performance. Where I found myself wanting more insight into the lead character's psychology as well as a greater social context. Without it, the film seems incomplete and demands further study of this real-life character. There is enough here to recommend it, but I think its ambition and losing of its way prevent it from greatness.