Blogorium Review: Interstellar

 Christopher Nolan really does seem to be swinging for the fences with Interstellar, a very ambitious science fiction tale of human exploration beyond the reaches of our own galaxy. To push the baseball metaphor a little further, let's imagine that he's stepping to the plate with bases loaded, hoping to hit a grand slam and end the game in dramatic fashion. Instead of knocking it out of the park, Nolan ends up bouncing the ball off of the top row, resulting in a ground rule double. Two runners still score, and overall he's done a good job for everyone involved, but it's not the statement victory everybody was hoping for. Whether that's a bad thing or not is up to what expectations you bring when you sit down to watch Interstellar.

 This is going to be a review with SPOILERS because that can't be helped. Nolan's mostly cryptic trailers tell you very little about what transpires during Interstellar, and while I enjoyed the film overall, two of my biggest problems with the film happen during the third act, and neither of them are addressed at all in the advertising campaign. I would advise you to go in knowing as little as possible, so be aware that past this point I will be discussing Interstellar in its entirety.

 To quickly cover the basics, Interstellar is the story of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a test pilot who crashed or had some sort of incident at one point that prevented him from being an astronaut. Luckily for the engineer, he also had a farm he could work on, where he lives with his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow) and two children, Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and Murphy (MacKenzie Foy).

(For the record, Cooper goes by "Coop" and Murphy by "Murph," because I guess monosyllabic names work better in this family).

 Mom's out of the picture because we're in the near future, where dust storms have wiped out all but the most rudimentary technology and almost all plants are dead. Coop's farm is growing corn, one of the last holdouts from the new dustbowl (Okra goes early into the movie, which from where I'm sitting is no big problem). There's not a lot of discussion in the film about how this happens, and Interstellar is strictly middle-America and space, so don't ask about what densely populated cities are doing. Nolan and his brother Jonathan keep the script focused specifically on the Earth being unsustainable, but since we've abandoned wasting money on space exploration, what can we do?

 Nolan does a pretty good job of setting up the world of the future without showing too much: the beginning of the film is presented like a PBS documentary, with lots of "talking head" shots of old timers telling us what it was like when things changed. At least one of them was way more famous than I'd expected to appear at the beginning of the movie, but it turned out she was a sneaky third version of a character we'd be meeting later. They cover all sorts of things you wouldn't think of but would probably be doing if there was an inch of dust over everything all of the time, like put your dishes out on the table upside down (maybe there are no cabinets in the Midwest?). It gets the job done pretty well.

 It's a sparse world that Coop and company live in - other than lots and lots of corn, you don't really see anybody. There are no animals in the film at all, and the town he lives near seems pretty deserted early in the movie. I can't remember seeing any other students at Tom and Murph's school; only the principal and Murph's teacher, who asks Coop to tell her the Moon landing was a hoax (the Room 237'ers win in the future and textbooks are rewritten to talk us out of believing space exploration existed). The only crowd you ever really see is at a baseball game (see what I did there? hint: first paragraph), where John Lithgow complains that popcorn isn't something you should have at a baseball game. He wants hot dogs. Well guess what, corn farmer, you should be grateful people are buying your product - you know, the only available one. The players are wearing Yankees hats, but I don't know if they're supposed to be that Yankees or just some local guys. It doesn't matter, because the game is interrupted by a huge dust storm. There's not crying in baseball, and also no finishing the game because of dust delays.

 Coop brings down a drone because he's a mischievous sort, but a strange magnetic incident in the house (Murph calls it her "ghost") leads them to a secret NASA facility where his old mentor, Professor Brand (Michael Caine) is working on humanity's last chance: a ship capable of travelling through a wormhole near Saturn. How or why the wormhole got there is mentioned, but not speculated on, but NASA sent twelve astronauts into another galaxy in the hopes of finding a new home for humans. Three signals (Dr.'s Mann, Edmonds, and Miller) have come back indicating likely candidates, so Brand wants Coop to fly the ship into the wormhole and investigate. The crew of the Endurance also includes Romilly (David Gyasi), Doyle (Wes Bentley), Brand's daughter (Anne Hathaway), and TARS (Bill Irwin), a robot on loan from what's left of the military. One of the first things TARS does during takeoff it to make a joke about shooting Coop out of the airlock, just in case you didn't think Nolan was aware that Interstellar is often reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 That, it turns out, is not a bad thing, at least for the first half of Interstellar. Once we get into space, Nolan stretches out a little bit for some big time spectacle filmmaking, and if you thought you needed to see Gravity on a big screen, Interstellar demands the largest one you can find. Also, one with comfortable chairs, because with the trailers and ads and everything else, you're looking at a three hour minimum investment. But for a lot of the movie, it's worth it. We've seen the vastness of space before, but Nolan's choice to keep the camera attached to the ship most of the time (like we see it in actual NASA footage*) adds a verisimilitude to the proceedings that helps sell the science fiction elements. McConaughey's folksy twang and a more dialed-back than usual Anne Hathaway also help in that regard. They're scientists, but they aren't science types, if that makes sense. They understand the consequences of their actions and have to weigh the adverse effects of their decisions while soaking in the fact they're in another galaxy.

 If I'm being honest, I would have liked more of the exploring the other planets instead of the part of Interstellar that you don't necessarily get from the trailers: the back and forth between Coop in space and his family on Earth. Instead of focusing on relativity and black holes, we have to keep jumping back home to see that Murph stills hasn't forgiven her father and now she's grown up and is Jessica Chastain (Tom is now Casey Affleck disguised as Ben Affleck in Argo). Murph is working with Professor Brand on how to save everybody on Earth because they haven't heard from the ship in 23-ish years (2 years to Saturn plus another 21 thanks to a disastrous turn of events on the first world they land on). It's here that the Nolan brothers introduce the theme of Interstellar that isn't about exploration: that love may be a tangible concept that transcends dimensions and we just don't understand it yet. Oddly enough, the internet's least favorite person (Anne Hathaway) delivers the best monologue about it, but it leads Interstellar down a path I maybe could have done without. The space exploration was so much more interesting, and the Earth plot isn't.

 Since we've moved to the "gripe" stage, it would be nice, just once, for writers to drop the well worn science fiction trope of "scientist from the previous mission goes insane and nearly ruins the mission." It nearly derailed Sunshine, an otherwise sober, intelligent movie that drastically shifts into a slasher film near the very end, complete with its own Freddy Krueger. The Nolans don't do anything quite so drastic, but it's clear from the moment that Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) wakes up from cryo-sleep that he's not selling Coop, Brand, or Romilly an honest bill of goods about his planet or his agenda. Not only is it predictable what he's eventually going to do, but the "turn" is almost comical as he leads Coop out to the middle of nowhere for a fistfight. Instead of, oh, I don't know, appealing to the team that losing one of the four remaining scientists tasked with keeping the human race alive is detrimental to all of them.

 This works to a certain lack of logic that is, I must admit, typically when you think carefully about Christopher Nolan films, from the Batman series to Inception, or even back to Memento. After an impassioned speech by Brand about why they should fly to Edmonds' planet instead of Mann's (they only have enough fuel to pursue one of the remaining leads), Cooper and Romilly reasonably determine that Mann's reports are better than Edmonds'. If we were to approach the same reasoning to Cooper's decision to go back to Earth on the off chance that he can disprove the "Plan A can never work" argument that conveniently surfaces right after they've revived Mann, there's no way the other three would allow him to go back through the wormhole. Ignoring the convenient timing of Murph's message, we already know that there's no guarantee of when Cooper would be returning to Earth, or even if there's enough time to come up with a plan to save humanity.

 This brings us to the second part of Interstellar that I can't quite give a pass to: after Mann tries to steal the ship and blows up part of it when he tries to open the airlock without docking, Cooper pulls off a near impossible feat of docking while the wheel is spinning (think of a sped-up version of 2001) and decides to send Brand to Edmond's planet using the black hole's gravitation to slingshot her (remember, not enough fuel). This means that Cooper and TARS have to pilot the other two shuttles and sacrifice themselves by being sucked into the black hole, where we've been continually told is a singularity they really would love to know more about. Invariably, Coop is sucked into the singularity and finds himself outside of the ship, floating in a strange, multidimensional space. Upon further investigation, he realizes he's behind the shelf in Murph's bedroom, and that (wait for it) he can slightly effect physical space around her throughout her timeline. Yes, Coop is his daughter's "ghost," and if he can communicate with her, he'll be able to save humanity where Professor Brand failed.

 I wouldn't have so much of a problem with this part of Interstellar were it not for the point when TARS chimes in over the radio and Coop begins explaining what's happening and what he's going to do. Like, out loud, literally explaining to the audience exactly what they're seeing, it's implications, and how he can communicate with grown up Murph (through a watch he left behind, using Morse Code). Nolan takes all of the ambiguity out of the sequence, and flat out tells us (through Coop) that humans evolve to the point where we can see beyond all dimensions and create the wormhole to save ourselves. I'm not spoiling anything because that's what McConaughey says, almost verbatim. At the outset of the "ghost" section, I really thought "he's not going in this direction, is he?" but by the end, when even the cheap seats are being spoon fed the plot, it was almost too much.

 And had Interstellar not regained some of its footing at the very end, when Nolan successfully pulls at the heartstrings (at least for the Grinch-like Cap'n), there's a strong possibility I would have come out hating this movie. The emotional manipulation is transparent at the end, and I'm not going to pretend it isn't, but Nolan finds a way to make Cooper meeting the old version of Murphy (Ellen Burstyn, who I did not recognize at all**) poignant enough that I could overlook the Saturn space station that looked like Elysium, dumb baseball callback, and implausible ending where Coop steals a spaceship to go find Brand. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I'm okay with that, because when you apply logic to it, that's a really stupid way to end a movie that tries hard not to be dumb, scientifically. But that's how Christopher Nolan films are, I guess: they're fun to watch, offer astounding visual spectacle, and make about as much sense as Bazooka Joe gum in retrospect.

 The acting is solid all around, and if you're one of those people who inexplicably hate Anne Hathaway, this is not going to be on your "Exhibit A" YouTube videos. On the other hand, if you aren't down with the McConaughnissance, you'll find plenty of "all right, all right, all right" in his sometimes mumbled dialogue. I thought he was fine, but something about his drawl is always going to invite the "he's just stoned" reaction, and this won't change that. Jessica Chastain has a lot of screen time in the second half, but Murph is such a cipher of a character that she doesn't have anything to work with. Casey Affleck gets even less, and he registers about as much as Wes Bentley, who has half as much screen time and dies (hey, I said SPOILERS a long time ago). Nolan sneaks in a bunch of well known actors in small roles, well beyond the "oh, I forgot Matt Damon was in this!": David Oyelowo (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) is Murph's principal, William Devane (Payback) is a member of NASA, and for no discernible reason, Topher Grace (Predators) just appears as Murph's friend late in the film. I guess he's the doctor that she mentions can look at Tom's kids (dust clouds, as it turns out, are bad on the lungs), but he's just suddenly there, and you think, "wait, is that Topher Grace?" Yep, it is. He's in Interstellar. Who knew?

 This isn't really a negative review, but I guess it's not quite positive, either. In his filmography, I'm inclined to put Interstellar somewhere in the middle, above Insomnia but not quite near Memento. Visually, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, but if you have persistent issues with Nolan (as much of the internet and some of the critical community do), this isn't going to win you over. All of his highs and lows are on display, and it depends on how you weigh them whether that's enough to make Interstellar worth three hours of your time. It falls short of 2001, the film it's trying to come closest to, but I give Nolan a lot of credit for trying to make a movie about ideas, even if some of them are hoary or clumsily handled. This is mass audience entertainment that isn't just going to the lowest common denominator (*coughrobotdinosaurscough*), so that counts for something.

 At this point in his career, I imagine most of you know where you fall in the Christopher Nolan spectrum. Through no clear action of his own, he's become a very divisive filmmaker, in part because in a world of increasingly skimpy Hollywood output, he's afforded carte blanche as a filmmaker and every new movie he makes is treated like an event. This seems to magnify both the positives and negatives inherent in his style of filmmaking, and reactions are equal parts "that was great!" and "the emperor has no clothes!" which enter the echo chamber of the internet and are magnified. I don't know that I would have devoted this much time to a review that was this mixed if there wasn't something to Interstellar worth talking about, good or bad. Believe me, there are films I could have reviewed that you'd probably be very surprised to hear I wasn't crazy about (Boyhood, Gone Girl), but that I'm just not sure I have much to add to the discussion. With this film, at least Nolan gave me something to talk about.

 Interstellar isn't the best science fiction film I've seen this year, but 2014 has been a surprisingly fertile year for great science fiction. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you should probably see this over Ouija, but I haven't seen Ouija so I could be totally wrong. No, wait, I couldn't. For all of it's faults, there's no way that Interstellar is not way better than Ouija. Cheap shot at Ouija? Easy target? Probably, but I don't know if Interstellar holds its own against something like Snowpiercer, but it was made with a different size audience in mind***. It may not win the game in a grandiose fashion, but Christopher Nolan delivers another solid, mostly impressive film. For some people, that's not going to be enough, but for most it's better by a long shot than most of what passes for "crowd pleasing" movies.




 * Unless that is also faked - thanks, future textbook editors. You just gave conspiracy theorists years worth of material...
** All the more confusing, because you can totally tell it's Ellen Burstyn in the "documentary" footage at the beginning. You just don't know she's Murph at that point.
*** Or not, but I guess we'll never know since the Weinstein's sat on Snowpiercer after trying to cut it to pieces, and then half-heartedly dropped it in a few theatres.

Blogorium Review: The Adjustment Bureau

 It hasn't been the best movie year on record, gang: oh sure, there have been some bright spots (Bridesmaids, Super) with a few pretty good-but-not-great movies (Thor, Paul, Drive Angry) and a bunch of movies that looked promising and then weren't (Hobo with a Shotgun, The Mechanic). The Cap'n avoided loud clunkers like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Green Lantern, both of which seem to be not-that-well-regarded but still made plenty of money with their 3-D gimmickery. It's nice when you find a movie that had a reasonably large budget from a major studio that happens to actually be pretty damn good. It's even better when that film falls into the classification of Science Fiction, and if you're lucky enough to find one that's a Philip K. Dick adaptation that doesn't suck, you've hit the jackpot. Thankfully, George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau is well written, well acted, and almost not goofy. In fact, it's only goofy in one regard that I'm willing to overlook because it was so nice to see a film that takes its premise seriously.

 David Norris (Matt Damon) is a New York Congressman on the rise, and on the night his Senatorial run fails, he meets Elise (Emily Blunt), a dancer and generally free-spirit. Their chance encounter paves the way for another chance encounter on a bus several months later, which draws the attention of The Adjustment Bureau. You see, David was never supposed to see Elise again, and because Harry (Anthony Mackie), one of the members of the Bureau, failed to redirect Norris, the young political player is going off of his plan. The Bureau, under the leadership of the Chairman, has a plan for humanity and works behind the scenes to ensure that things stay according to plan. When David accidentally walks in on one of their "adjustments," Richardson (John Slattery) levels with Norris and lets him go on two conditions: he never tells anyone about the Bureau and he ceases to have any contact with Elise. When David ignores the second condition, Richardson is forced to turn over the case to Thompson (Terence Stamp), nicknamed "The Hammer" for his blunt approaches to disruptions.

 Typically, in a high concept movie like this, writers fall prey to one of two mistakes: they over-explain the machinations of the plot to the audience, or they feel the need for the "Everyman" protagonist to ridicule the concept of the film. Thankfully, Nolfi (who adapted the screenplay from Dick's short story "Adjustment Team") avoids both traps and treats the ambiguous nature of the Bureau with respect. Aside from a minor series of implications that link the Bureau to a religious understanding of fate (one of which is similar in nature to Wim Wender's Wings of Desire), Nolfi doesn't demean the mysterious nature of the group or undermine it by making jokes. While we never see the Chairman, there is a clear hierarchy within the Bureau and part of Richardson's failure to contain Norris comes from the fact that he doesn't have the answers that might stop the whole mess.

 Beyond the concept of the Bureau itself, the only other overtly "sci-fi" concept in the film (which could otherwise be classified as a thriller) is the agents' ability to use doorways to create shortcuts through New York (where the film takes place), and when the time comes for David to try this out, other than a brief explanation of how to do it (and that you need a Bureau member's hat), Nolfi (who wrote Ocean's Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum) resists the urge to tell. Instead, he shows. The audience needs only to keep up to understand the film, which is refreshing. If, for some reason, you're worried that The Adjustment Bureau is another multi-layered maze like Inception, John and Jane Q. Public, fear not - the film is smart, but not too demanding of your precious brain cells.

 Sorry. That was rude. I want to convey that The Adjustment Bureau is neither overly complicated nor needlessly simplified. It exists somewhere in that space between, where both sides of the spectrum can avoid being insulted or confused. You will be entertained, and hopefully feel relieved that a film about a mysterious organization who controls the destiny of mankind doesn't need to have a kung-fu fight every twenty minutes. Since I can count on one hand the number of Philip K. Dick adaptations that take his work seriously and don't become, oh, Impostor, or Total Recall*, it was nice to see something with a "based on" that didn't make me sad. To be fair, I haven't read "Adjustment Team," so Nolfi may have actually screwed the pooch, and the Cap'n may have to reassess the film down the line. In the meantime, I rather enjoyed it.

 As a final note, while I don't have anything particularly noteworthy to add about Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, or John Slattery's performances (they're all fine and do the story justice), it was nice to see Terence Stamp actually be an imposing presence again. Not since The Limey has Stamp really carried much authority in his characters, and Thompson provides him a character with which to be both menacing but also subtle. He doesn't have to do much to demonstrate to David that he's a serious threat, and that was refreshing since I've only been able to think of him in The Haunted Mansion lately for some reason.

 Oh, by the way, what does the "Q" stand for, Mr. and Mrs. (or is is Ms.?) Public? Inquiring me's want to know.


 * Not that I don't like Total Recall, but the movie and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" are two very different things.

Follow-up Part Two: True Grit, the Coen Brothers, and the Rhetoric of Racism

(repeat of preamble: Today I thought I'd follow up on some reaction I've been getting about recent reviews / articles. Two threads have been met consistently with strong reactions - one of which I'd hoped to have closed the book one, and the other that continues to bother people I mention it to, so much so that it stopped a conversation dead the other night. )

Okay, I have been getting some serious grief for the suggestion in my True Grit review that the film - and by proxy, the Coen brothers - is "racist" towards Native Americans. Explaining what I saw and the reaction it had with a packed auditorium stopped a conversation dead in its tracks the other night. Fans of the Coen brothers - of which I consider myself and most of the people I know - are bristling at the mere mention of "racism" and the Coens in the same zip code.

I understand why, and why people are oversimplifying and thereby misinterpreting what the actual point I'm making is. I am not accusing Joel and Ethan Coen of being racist by constructing two scenes where Native Americans are clearly the butt of the joke; my problem is that they've taken their fondness for ironic detachment too far in True Grit, and it was totally lost on the crowd I saw it with. I don't make my point blindly or out of ignorance - I spent the better part of 2010 studying their films in depth and writing about the themes and undertones within, so I do feel that I have a case here, just as I feel the point is being wildly misread because of how loaded the term "racism" is.

The Coen brothers have a long history of including instances of casual racism on the part of their characters, particularly in "period" films. They consistently point out cultural norms that are outdated, often while mocking them - the KKK in O Brother Where Art Thou, the casual homophobia in The Man Who Wasn't There and Miller's Crossing (not to mention the ethnic stereotyping of "wops" and "micks"), or the "Uncle Remus" of The Hudsucker Proxy. They don't always use the prevailing attitudes of the time for comic purposes; at times, like the anti-Semitic neighbor in A Serious Man who only stands up for Larry when a Korean appears to be threatening him, is used to highlight overlooked forms of outdated racism.

And yes, I'm going to continue to use the term racism, which is where the bulk of this harsh reaction comes from, because it is a wholly adequate descriptor for much of what the Coen brothers like to highlight in an ironic fashion. "Oh, look how backwards we were then, isn't that funny?" I'm sorry if the terminology makes you uncomfortable, but this is a consistent, if under-represented, thematic device used in their films. It doesn't always work for them - in fact, it fails miserably in The Ladykillers, which presents two extremes in the spectrum of "caricatures of Black America" without any clear purpose, and I truly feel that True Grit represents a massive disconnect between their devoted fans and the casual audiences that flock their films every few years.

There are casual Coen fans, the kind of audiences who appear when the brothers tap into the cultural zeitgeist (or, to be honest, tend to briefly create it) - Raising Arizona, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, and No Country for Old Men are examples of films that seem to inexplicably catch on with a wide audience, allowing the kind of success that permits films like A Serious Man, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, and The Man Who Wasn't There to fill in the gaps for devoted Coen fans. True Grit is the latest example, and it is being met with a fairly robust audience turnout, for whatever it is Joel and Ethan tapped into this time.

True Grit is also a film that takes place in post-Civil War Arkansas, where two of the three main protagonists served for the Confederacy. Rooster Cogburn has a heated discussion with LeBoeuf about whether Cogburn's service as one of Quantrill's Raiders counts as true service to the South, but the cultural framework the Coens are presenting (coming from Charles Portis' novel) is one where casual racism abounds. They choose to direct this racism towards Native Americans in the film, in what can only be read as another example of their pointed critique of outdated norms. And that would be fine, but I sincerely feel they overestimated their audience.

As I pointed out in my earlier review, both instances are structured for comedic effect. The first is a classic set-up of two long speeches followed by an abruptly shortened one from a character no one likes. The second is an over-compensation gag where the hero reacts to someone doing something bad by punishing them, allowing the punishee to reset, and then punishing them again. If there are technical terms for these, I'd be happy to hear them, but you can find both examples in most comedies, and the second example in nearly every Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton film. They are designed and executed on film for a laugh, period. Both scenes in True Grit are constructed for laughs, period.

My discomfort came from the audience I saw the film with that howled with laughter at both "gags," completely missing that the Coen brothers were commenting on racist attitudes towards Native Americans in the film's setting. The Coens have that track record, so I must take them at precedent rather than assume they thought this was funny at face value. The audience, on the other hand, people that honestly don't have the same exposure to this thematic trend, are laughing AT the joke, and not the commentary behind the joke. The commentary behind the joke isn't funny - it's sobering.

I can't bring myself to laugh at the audience that doesn't understand what they're seeing, and are becoming complicit in racial stereotyping for reasons contrary to its inclusion in the film. Instead, I became very uneasy. The fact that the actual "joke" is lost on audiences actually implies that there is a divide between the culturally backwards masses and the witty, erudite Coen brothers "cineaste," which made me feel more self conscious. I should have been laughing at the audience for playing out culturally scripted stereotypes, but I couldn't, and that troubles me on a number of levels.

For that, I must reiterate that while I enjoy True Grit as a film, I have difficulty reconciling the intention of the filmmakers with the experience of seeing it with an audience. The Coens were presenting yet another example of racism; the audience was responding to a joke set-up, and ne'er the twain shall meet, I fear.

Blogorium Review: True Grit

There are so many elements that come into play when considering Joel and Ethan Coen's True Grit, some of which I'm simply not certain how to address: the Cap'n has not, for instance, read Charles Portis' novel, on which the Coens claim they based their version exclusively. I have seen Henry Hathaway's 1969 adaptation of the same novel, which is the point of entry for most people who are familiar with the title and is the basis of comparison for most. It would be the basis of comparison on which I would draw, had I not written a piece about the debate surrounding "remake" and "re-adaptation" within the critical community.

As it is, I don't feel that it would be fair to simply explain the differences between Hathaway's version and the Coens' version without having the Portis novel as a point of reference in adapting. That being said, both cinematic versions of True Grit have so many overlapping similarities that I find it hard to mention parts of one without recalling its counterpart immediately. There are points of deviation, specifically dealing with the fates of certain characters, the end of the film, and most importantly, the tone, which I will address later in the review. What I can say is that I very much enjoyed 2010's True Grit, almost certainly more than 1969's. It's a very well made film, an entertaining story that mostly balances the humor with graphic violence and provides fine performances from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, and (most importantly) Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross.

Very briefly, the film is about Mattie Ross (Steinfeld), the daughter of Frank Ross, who was murdered by Tom Chaney (Brolin) in a drunken fit of rage. When Chaney fled, Mattie traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to seek justice for his murder. Instead, she finds indifference and hires U.S. Marshall Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Bridges) to track Chaney into Chocktaw territory. Accompanied by Texas Ranger LeBeouf (Damon), who is tracking Chaney in the hopes of claiming a reward for his capture, they set off to find Ned Pepper (Pepper) and his gang, where Tom is hiding out.

It seems that for every idiosyncratic film the Coen brothers make, they manage to tap into the cultural zeitgeist at least as often, typically without moving far from their own interests. Despite some critics suggestions otherwise - or their inability to remember - Raising Arizona, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, and No Country for Old Men all seeped into the "broader" audiences in varying degrees. True Grit certainly seems to be the next addition to the list, capturing the masses in a way that Burn After Reading or A Serious Man - as fascinating as both films are - did not in the mean time. I hesitate to attribute this to the presence of Steven Spielberg - whose "Executive Producer" credit caught me off-guard when it appeared at the end - because True Grit does not stray far from their fascination in playing around in someone else's genre. If No Country for Old Men is a neo-noir Western, then True Grit is their direct attempt at a Western, packed with their love of antiquated mores, attitudes, and ironic detachment.

That Joel and Ethan Coen side-step the "remake" question by claiming "re-adaptation" allows them to detach themselves further from direct comparisons. It's much easier to remake The Ladykillers - a film more people have heard of than seen - than to tread into the fandom of John Wayne, who remains a cultural icon for the generation most likely to recognize True Grit. That being said, either the Portis novel isn't terribly different from both adaptations, or Hathaway's True Grit casts such a long shadow that it's nearly impossible to see both without making mental comparisons.

The immediate change I noticed - and one of the only ones I want to mention - was that the goofy, slightly slapstick nature of the Hathaway version of True Grit is missing here. The jovial sense of camaraderie between Cogburn, LeBeouf, and Ross never develops in the Bridges / Damon / Steinfeld dynamic, partially because the precocious naivete of Mattie Ross is downplayed in favor of a determined young woman desperate to assert herself, one who refuses to admit she's in well over her head. It also helps that Steinfeld is actually 14 in True Grit, whereas Kim Darby was 22 when she played Mattie Ross, a tidbit that when coupled with her strange gender-neutral appearance kept Darby's Ross from connecting with audiences.

Jeff Bridges is less cartoonish as "Rooster" Cogburn, thanks to two major shifts: instead of being introduced bringing in prisoners as a heroic gesture (as Wayne is), Cogburn and Mattie's first conversation takes place while he's in the outhouse, in a demeaning position of strength. By never demonstrating it, Cogburn's prowess at catching criminals becomes another tall tale told by others, like the braggart LeBeouf's position on Texas Rangers. The drunken escapades of Cogburn, played for chuckles in Hathway's True Grit, are pathetic rather than clownish in the Coens' adaptation, generating uncomfortable laughter.

Speaking of uncomfortable laughter, it raises one of the serious points with which I struggle with Joel and Ethan Coen's True Grit: there are moments of what can only be described as flagrant racism that are designed and executed for laughs, and at least with the audience I saw True Grit with, they got them. (It's fair to point out that they audience was fairly diverse, a testament to the Coens' ability to draw people of every background into their films).

Both jokes that drew the biggest laughs involved Native Americans as the butt of the joke: during the "hanging" scene, two criminals finish their speeches about why they're being hung and whether they deserved it or not, but when the "Injun" begins to speak, they immediately place the bag over his head and hang drop the platform. Big laughs. Later, Cogburn and Ross ride up on a trading post where two Native American children are irritating a horse. Cogburn lets the horse got, then kicks the boy off of a high porch, then looks at the girl and kicks her off two. We cut to their faces, watching Mattie while Rooster is inside, and as he comes out, he kicks the boy off of the porch again. Huge laughs. You could argue that he's abusing them because of their abuse of the horse, but considering what Cogburn does to a horse later, and the fact that no white character is the subject of the same kind of casual cruelty, that there's a deliberate choice here.

I don't quite know what to make of it yet: is it simply the Coen brothers' ironic detachment commenting to the racist attitude of whites towards natives in the South? Does that extend to the way that the "Little Blackie" scene changes when instead of telling the horse dealer that's what Mattie is naming her pony, she instead tells a stable boy who "isn't allowed" to say her name because of the color of his skin? I'm genuinely uncertain of how audiences are meant to process these moments, but the general reaction in the theatre tonight was to laugh.

Laughter didn't necessarily continue into the film's periodically graphic violence, far beyond what I expected from a PG-13 rating. The scene in the Old Cabin alone would earn most movies an R - in the span of 45 seconds, a character's fingers are cut off, he's stabbed, and then the man who stabbed him is shot in the cheek, spraying blood against the wall and on Cogburn's face. While we don't see it, the description of what happens to LeBeouf's tongue after being dragged around by Pepper's gang is also pretty harsh, and that's not mentioning the deteriorated corpses that pop up sporadically during the film. Coupled with a less goofy tone, it's surprising that True Grit snuck away with a PG-13 - unless one considers that the Hathaway version originally had a "M" rating but is now considered a G film with little altered content.

I don't mean for the comedy and the rating to dissuade you from seeing True Grit: it's a fine film that is distinctly a Coen brothers production, from the casting of the smaller characters to Roger Deakins' fantastic cinematography to Carter Burwell's score (which, while repetitive, is reminiscent of Miller's Crossing). It may not (yet) demonstrate the same dense layering of themes as 2009's A Serious Man, but that by no means situates True Grit as a "lesser" or "watered down" Coen film, as some have suggested. It's different, hard to classify, and inextricably linked to a predecessor Joel and Ethan Coen desperately wish were not the case. Also, if you're deciding between the two Jeff Bridges films this holiday season - this is a no brainer: run, don't walk, to True Grit.

Blogorium Review: The Informant!

According to a recent comment, the Cap'n has been a bit of a Negative Nancy with the last two reviews. I find this a little odd since the Crazy Heart review was basically positive, focusing on Jeff Bridges and Colin Farrell, although I did need to qualify that a) I didn't think the movie was a "great" film and b) that I don't agree with the post-Oscar backlash that it was "beneath Jeff Bridges." I was pretty harsh on An Education, but that happens from time to time when a movie patently fails to rise above the bare minimum required for it to be watchable. It could have been a better film, but it wasn't, so I admit to being a little rough.

(I will note that reviews for Predators and Inception were largely positive, and having seen Predators a second time, I'm willing to concede that it was even more effective in being a direct sequel to Predator than I first admitted.)

Anyway, I thought I'd step aside from the perceived "scathing" nature of recent reviews and focus on a movie I genuinely like, Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, a movie that I think got a bum rap because of the assumed "one independent Soderbergh film / one major studio film to pay for the next independent film" pattern he's adhered to in recent years. I could get into a serious debate on that argument alone, considering that even when he's "slumming" and making Ocean's films (which I happen to enjoy) that it doesn't automatically make Che or The Girlfriend Experience superior films on principle (although I also enjoyed both of those films too), but instead I'll focus on The Informant!, which is a clever "true story" film that showcases Soderbergh's affinities for spy films, sitcoms, and has one of his more interesting "gimmicks."

The Informant! is also a fine showcase for everything that Matt Damon does well as an actor. Damon plays Mark Whitacre, a mid-level executive at Archer Daniels Midland, a company that makes lysine for most of the foods sold in the US. Whitacre is smart, successful, and has a loving wife (Melanie Lynskey) and two kids. He also happens to be at best bipolar, and at worst, a pathological liar.

Whitacre, for reasons unknown to the audience, decides that while FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) is over to tap his line for another corporate espionage case - involving a Japanese rival - now is the time to clue in the FBI about a price fixing scheme involving all of the major food additive companies world wide. This is but the beginning of a labyrinth of lies, half truths, and revelations tied directly to Whitacre, who insists that he's being the hero, and eventually the martyr, of a story of his making.

In case you're thinking "wow, that sounds ridiculous," now's the time to point out that screenwriter Scott Z. Burns adapted this from Kurt Eichenwald's book of the same name, which is the true story of Mark Whitacre and the first major criminal case centered around price fixing in the U.S. This American Life has a podcast involving the actual participants, available here, and it's every bit as fascinating*.

For the film, Soderbergh aims for a slightly heightened tone, a world where the sun is a little too bright and washes out most of the cast (appropriate in a film where most of the players have something to hide). The tone is a cross between l70s thrillers like All the President's Men or The Conversation, spy films, and sitcoms of the 70s and 80s (reflected in Marvin Hamlisch's score to a T). Despite the seeming disparity of these elements, the film works from beginning to end, in part because of Damon's Whitacre.

Mark Whitacre is constantly talking via narration throughout The Informant!, despite the fact that he appears to be saying nothing of consequence most of the time. The trick here is that Whitacre is filling us with semi-relevant information in order to keep the audience from figuring out what he's really up to; in essence, we're as behind the curve as Agents Shepard and Herndon (Joel McHale). It's a clever move, because when it becomes clear why Whitacre is constantly talking and how it differs from what he really means (played out in a crushing scene near the end), the audience realizes how duped we were from moment one.

The Informant! plays out like a spy film in that we're given the information in small doses but aren't sure what it is we're supposed to do with it until the master plan becomes clear. The cheery atmosphere compounds our sense of confusion and the highly technical nature of food additives and price fixing keep viewers off guard just long enough for The Informant! to entertain and engage. And then there's the other thing...

Steven Soderbergh usually has some kind of "gimmick" for each of his films: a particular film trick he's fascinated with and wants to use as the backdrop for latest project. For example, Ocean's Twelve is littered with traces of French New Wave editing and camera tricks. The Good German was made using only equipment available before 1946; Traffic separated its locations by color filters; Full Frontal involved actors who brought their own makeup and wardrobe; The Limey used footage from an earlier Terence Stamp film as "flashbacks." You get the idea.

The hook or "gimmick" for The Informant! for Soderbergh is to use comedians or recognizable comic actors in serious roles, and the film is jam packed with them. Joel McHale (Community, The Soup) is the tip of the iceberg, playing straight but hilarious in part because of his exasperation with Whitacre's smoke and mirrors. You can also see Patton Oswalt, Tony Hale, Allan Havey, Tom Papa, Andrew Daly, Bob Zany, Larry Clarke, Jimmy Brogan, Richard Horvitz (voice of ZIM!), Ann Cusack, Joshua Funk, Rick Overton, Paul F. Tompkins, and both Smothers brothers. This is not including the rest of the supporting cast, which includes Clancy Brown, Eddie Jemison, and Frank Welker. If the names don't sound familiar, I assure you the faces do. Everybody is playing it straight, and at times it is hard to figure out if you should expect a joke from anyone but Damon.

Despite knowing the history of ADM and the Federal investigation into price fixing, I was enormously entertained by The Informant!. I know that people like to beat up on Matt Damon for various reasons (Team America seems to pop up most frequently), but without Damon's innocuous subterfuge, the film doesn't work. Period. You have to buy that this guy is nothing to write home about, and Damon really works all of the facets of Whitacre simultaneously and does it so well that you don't notice him "acting." That's high praise from where the Cap'n is sitting, and Soderbergh is no slouch either. I've been down on him before for purely technical exercises (The Good German springs to mind), but the cheery presentation of such a dry story does The Informant! justice. Definitely worth checking out.

* I actually suggest you listen to the show after you've seen the movie, unless you want to know exactly what Whitacre is hiding during the film.