Month: January 2016

The Big Short: Dense yet fascinating

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The Big Short/Paramount

Adam McKay is well known for directing comedies, and he didn’t just depart into an easy going action film or fictional drama. He picked up a big stick and took a swing at the mighty banks who drained the economy in 2006 in the Economic crisis. A dollar bill monster that ate up 5 trillion dollars(pensions, 401K, savings, bonds), took away 6 million homes and 8 million jobs. The Big Short(adapted from Michael Lewis’ novel) details a group of outsiders in the world of finance who notice the impending doom that is setting and set out to take a shot at the banks, government and media who stood by, did nothing and got rich. That is the easiest way to explain this film. Unless you want to know what a CDO is.

It’s a dense adventure. Watching The Big Short is like watching a slow moving heavyweight boxing match. The two large men stalk each other for a few rounds in the ring, throw some jabs, and hug a lot. Suddenly, one throws a deafening left hook and knocks the other man out. That is the way McKay and fellow screenwriter Charles Randolph treat Lewis’ prose. They pepper the audience with hedge fund terminology, stock broker jargon and David Mamet like delivery to make your head spin. At times, you feel like Google search is your best friend while watching this movie. You wonder about a world where it was impossible to pause a film and look stuff up. The Big Short isn’t for everybody. For hundreds of thousands who watch this film, it will anger them and feel like a band aide getting ripped off. For the rest, it’s a day at finance school.

There were wolves and there were sheep in the spring/summer of 2006, and when numbers like the percentage of unemployed going up correlating with thousands of people ending up dead, your attention is perked. When you don’t know who to trust and can’t tell a snake from a shark, the film only picks up speed and gathers you in its storm. It’s not easy to keep up with a film that seems to have sprint on a treadmill as you gathers lost papers behind it.

McKay was smart and cast well liked and good looking actors like Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Steve Carell, John Magaro, and Christian Bale to portray a variety of roles that springs some against type(Carell) and settle others down in their comfort zone(Bale and Gosling). Carell fares the best, playing Mark Baum, one of the minds who saw this jenga stack crumbling from a mile away.

Adapting a different method of speaking and curling himself into a ball of morose rage, Carell really creates something here instead of high stepping through scenes.  Gosling’s mad hat ring leader has some nice moments while Bale gets to revert back to wackiness as Michael Burry, a hedge fund CEO who slowly saw everything around him fold up even though he was convinced he saw this happening years in advance. Difficult yet fascinating.

Some get rich, most felt guilty and the others sulk and brood their way through the film’s conclusion. I found it very hard to love The Big Short but it was well done and I tip my hat to McKay in NOT casting Will Ferrell for once and taking on a project that wasn’t easy to spin. I don’t see a ton of Oscar potential in this film and while it’s not brilliant, it will get you thinking and teach you a few things about the collapse you may not have saw on CNN.

Kudos to McKay for including my favorite Led Zeppelin song, When the Levees Breaks, in the end credits in its entirety. Jimmy Page’s lyrics fit inside the threads of this film perfectly.

Dave Matthews: A true musician

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Dave Matthews represents the gatekeeper for my love affair with music. I didn’t grow up with the Stones, Beatles or Creedence Clearwater Revival. I grew up with the Dave Matthews Band, who formed in 1991 and have been selling out arenas and stadiums ever since. Today, Matthews turns a weary and wise 49 years old. He’ll be heading out on tour again this year in support of another album that he has poured a fair share of his soul into this past year.

That’s what Matthews does. He’s a true musician. He writes, sings, plays and allows his tunes to sell themselves. No extra glaze, glitter or glitz are required. Matthews looks like a college student who just rolled out of bed and dressed himself blind when he gets to the stage. It’s all about the music. He is a man with a guitar telling stories supported by an unbelievable crew of musicians.

It was back in 1998 that my dad slipped in an album entitled “Crash” that didn’t get taken out of the CD player for the entire night. We listened to it over and over again, revisiting and devouring the versatile set of tracks. There was the legendary “Crash into Me” but also “Tripping Billies” and “Proudest Monkey” to balance out the sound and rhythm of the band’s third mainstream release. I didn’t think about where they’d been for the first 16 years of my life. I only wanted more. Matthews was the maestro behind it all. He played rhythm guitar, wrote most of the songs, and had a voice that was hard to forget. You could label DMB a jam band but they were so much more, especially when seen live.

Unlike most bands I’ve seen, DMB didn’t just play to satisfy a mere date on a tour guide. They play for two and a half hours or until buckets of sweat fling from the stage on a 100 degree night in Maryland Heights at Riverport, Verizon Wireless, or whatever they call that place now. Matthews and company make it an experience every time. I’ve seen them play at Busch Stadium and Wrigley Field. I’ve never been disappointed.

Matthews’ dark past and stories define the music that the band plays. A South African native who lost his dad before he was 10 and his sister before he was 30 has plenty of emotional baggage but Matthews always infuses timely matters into his music without drowning out people’s attention spans or preaching to them. He could sneak in a take on the war in Iraq or a gentle slam of a President without turning into Bruce Springsteen.

Matthews’ music marks a lot of events in my life with his music. His flawed yet experimental and risky album Everyday helped me through my first year of college at Mizzou. I proposed to my wife at a DMB concert back in 2002. I remember putting his music on my wife’s stomach when she was pregnant with our son in 2011. I remember being moved to tears by his stories during his live shows with Tim Reynolds.

Great musicians represent pit stops in our lives. Matthews is my driver. When done right, a musician can strike a chord and feel like someone you have known for years, whether it’s the way their music makes you feel or their lyrics show a resemblance. They are a kind friend, if only for 3-5 minutes at a time.

Happy Birthday Dave. Keep playing. Keep creating. The world of music is better with you in it.

DiCaprio is the beating heart of The Revenant

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The Revenant/20th Century Fox

Hey Hollywood, meet the new golden standard for survival flicks. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s The Revenant reshapes the expectations, entertainment and the overall brutality level of survival films. Leonardo DiCaprio finds yet another first class director that gives him a project to sink his cinematic chops into. This is a different kind of performance and one that anchors, elevates and sustains the film and its extended running time.

This isn’t just acting. This is full immersion into a role and a world that was known for its dead or alive status. Give DiCaprio a golden glove for the bear mauling scene that sets the film’s plot in motion and an Oscar for the go for broke all in performance he gives. You won’t see anything like this this year. DiCaprio barely speaks any English, grows a massive beard and allows the ugly to come out of his character, Fur trader turned death defying beast Justin Glass.

Glass is a good man haunted by the memory of his dead wife, who was killed in a raid. His son, half Indian, is all he has left in this world. The only thing for him to cling to while he makes a living hunting and killing bison and stripping their fur for cash. When a bear attacks him viciously and he is close to death, his crew abandons him, leaving him behind. They do so behind the propaganda jargon of the evil Fitzgerald(another dozy of a role for the fearless Tom Hardy). Left with nothing, Glass literally crawls across the earth, healing and gathering strength for the ultimate revenge mission.

Hardy is something else here. Fitzgerald isn’t just a bad man. He’s a twisted soul who is good at his job but not at much else, including compassion and respect for his fellow man. His fight with Glass during the film isn’t as fierce as the one raging in himself. Hardy doesn’t spare the audience one moment of pause, exposing himself to be something he has never played before. A true villain with purpose. Fitzgerald isn’t bad. He’s bent the wrong way.

Inarritu hangs the film, though, on DiCaprio’s shoulders. While the story springs away to follow Hardy’s Fitzgerald, there are extra long stretches of Glass withering, hobbling and doing anything to stay alive. Whether it’s crawling inside a dead horse for warmth, pigging out on raw Bison guts for dinner, or befriending an Indian(formerly his enemy) in order to stay breathing. While it’s slow moving, The Revenant is captivating in every moment. For a two hour and 36 minute movie, no scene or shot is wasted.

This film kicks your butt. It’s brutal, bare and asks all the powerful questions heavyweight dramas do this time of year. What are you in this world at your lowest level of function? When does the beast take over? Are their good and bad men, or just people with a certain philosophy that compels others to follow them? Also, when approached by a bear do not try to fight back unless you have a knife. A big knife.

That is the scene that will have everybody talking. The scene between a large brown bear and Glass that sets the tone for the rest of the film. You will leave yourself asking if that was a real bear or not, or half CGI or full CGI because it’s so horrifying and realistically done. DiCaprio is thrust into trees, stomped on, pierced by the bear’s claws and generally kicked around like a doll. If it wasn’t an actor, it was one heck of a beast inside that costume. Right when you think it’s over, the fight continues. It’s like a 12 round boxing match inside a movie and the actor’s commitment makes you buy all the way in.

That is how it works with the film. DiCaprio’s 100 % full throttle commitment to the story hold your attachment for the running time. A lesser actor would have been overpowered by it. Other capable actors may have done too much with it. DiCaprio does just enough to break your heart watching this emotionally and physically wounded soul find a way to live again.

When it does come time for the final battle between Fitzgerald and Glass, the actors and Inarritu don’t disappoint. An extended battle that starts in one snowy patch of land and escalates down a hill next to a river is wonderfully shot and intense. Fight scenes don’t get this messy and realistic in 95 percent of mainstream films. You may be rooting for Glass but you’ll understand why Fitzgerald is so mad. Nothing is spared and the end is sublimely optimistic yet bittersweet as well.

The Revenant/20th Century Fox

The Academy can go ahead and hand the cinematography award to Inarritu’s go to guy, Emmanuel Lubezki. They did Birdman together and elevate the craft even higher here, redefining beauty. There isn’t an endless tracking shot like the one in Birdman, but The Revenant presents many moments of sustained beauty and reward for the eyes. A getaway scene in particular involving DiCaprio on a horse trying to put distance between himself and about 30 other horses is taunt and aggressive enough to make you gasp when it suddenly ends. Lubezki knows exactly how to frame a shot and hold onto it, making it more realistic. He has worked on Oscar films before, such as Gravity, Children of Men, Tree of Life and the aforementioned Birdman. Combined with DiCaprio’s acting and Alejandro’s directing, the cinematography will make you feel cold even if you watch this film at a drive in movie theater in Florida.

If you think you have seen something like The Revenant, you are very wrong. It’s part Last of The Mohicans, part Castaway and a slice of Braveheart. It’s not just a great movie. It’s an experience.

Mocking Obama’s tears is extremely low

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Presidents are human beings. Remember this the next time you think about criticizing a politician when he shows emotion. I know, it’s easy to say the tears beneath President Barack Obama’s eyes when he spoke about gun laws and the Sandy Hook tragedy were bullshit because it may feed your political agenda. Or it may just sound good joining the party.

The truth is I am not a political enthusiast. I don’t watch CNN or Fox News. I find politicians to be robotic, hands tied and mouth edited, fixtures propped up in front of people most of the time. It doesn’t matter if he is Republican or Democrat. Their words are always bent by Congress or the House Legislature. All of them. However, the one thing I won’t do is slam or mock a President for showing emotion about a tragedy like Sandy Hook where first graders were mercilessly killed in a classroom.

This is where people will say, “Well, he didn’t cry about San Bernandino or Paris, so what the hell!?” I don’t care. I am not going to do a full spectrum judging on Obama for what he didn’t or did cry over. Everybody has their own way of showing emotion or crying. We all have our get factors. The thing that possesses us to break. I didn’t cry about Paris or several other terrorist attacks. I don’t pick and choose what I cry over. That’s all part of being human and unique.

At the end of the day, Obama is human. Love or hate his politics. Approve or disapprove of his Presidential terms. He is human. A father and husband. Sandy Hook happened on US soil. It stung more than other tragedies. Whenever I think about it, rage and emotion fill my chest, neck and head. I need a moment to recalculate what I was doing. This is why I don’t fault Obama or wonder if he was faking during this speech. It’s human emotion. He was just being human. Far away from being a politician.

So when some makeup packed woman on Fox News wondered if there was an onion peel on the podium, I felt like giving her a piece of my mind. I felt like asking her to wake up and look in the mirror tomorrow morning and wonder how this face gets the privilege of spending her time on earth being called a human. The people who question raw human emotion are the ones we need to worry about. They are the ones holding back our species. I hope she went home, saw that segment and wondered, “How fucking dumb am I?” It has nothing to do with amendments and bills and everything to do with right and wrong. Skip to the 7:15 mark on this video clip from Trevor Noah’s monologue to see the woman make this ridiculously insane comment.

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/videos/a41024/trevor-noah-obama-tears-guns/

She is what we need to worry about. There’s cynical and then there is insanity with a lack of sharpening. The lack of respect for human decency. I don’t think Obama deserves praise for showing emotion. I also don’t think he deserves criticism. If so, what is this world coming to?

Sometimes, we all need a good cry.

“Burnt”: Medium well Bradley Cooper

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Burnt/The Weinstein Company

Burnt isn’t an Oscar worthy film. Let’s dismiss that right away. That doesn’t mean the film isn’t worthwhile or will steal your time and money. John Wells’ savory dish is a crowd pleaser with a ultra confident Bradley Cooper in the driver seat operating a familiar engine.

The gifted yet troubled culinary genius who tries to revitalize his career by re-calibrating a Long restaurant ran by an old friend(Daniel Bruhl, who has an accent I wish I could adopt). He wants the three star Michelin rating. The Cy Young award. The World Series ring. The legacy that follows around every great chef the rest of his life. There’s zero, one, two or there’s the coveted three. Go big or go home is Adam Jones’ motto.

He had a chance in Paris and snorted, shot, or injected every last ounce of opportunity until most thought he was dead. That’s the way it is with high class chefs. They are their own worst enemies. Guilty by success and failure, and the cat walk that dangles between each plateau. Jones’ rival(Matthew Rhys, in between seasons of The Americans) needs him to stay sharp. Others need him for a job. Some want revenge. Some want money. Everybody wants a piece of Jones except himself. He wants the third star.

Wells populates this film with a talented cast. Sienna Miller(her second go around with Cooper after American Sniper), Omar Sy, Uma Thurman, and Emma Thompson are just a few that get to slice and dice up the dialogue from Steven Knight(Locke, Eastern Promises, upcoming World War Z 2). The story is just unpredictable enough to stay interesting. It’s all good work but the film hinges on the ability of Cooper to convince us to follow Jones along on this ride of redemption.

He isn’t a nice guy or a normal protagonist. He’s a pompous jerk who needs an extra kitchen for his ego but his brilliance at “the pass”(where the food makes its final stop before table distribution) is what separates him from the nice guys. Cooper is marvelous again in a role that needs confidence and swagger to work with a side of demons. Ten years ago, Cooper tried to play this character(on Fox’s short lived series Kitchen Confidential) and failed. A decade and a career revival later, he fits perfectly into this tormented skin. Cooper needed to take a few licks in Hollywood before he could properly set his feet and take a full swing. These days, he can’t miss.

It may not be Oscar worthy work but Burnt is easy on the mind and the eyes(the food is a fine supporting player). Cooper doesn’t deserve a spot next to Michael Fassbender or Leonardo DiCaprio in February, but he is very good here and carries the film like a seasoned pro(or a freshly minted 41 year old, happy birthday Coop).

Burnt may not be a perfect medium rare filet, but it’s a brilliantly cooked medium well strip. Perfect for a night of modest expectations.

Let’s put it this way. I had a choice to take my wife to see this or Spectre back in November. I wish I had chose Burnt.

The end.