Moneyball (2011)

Director: Bennett Miller                                Writers: Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin
Film Score: Brian Transeau                          Cinematography: Steve Bernstein
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright and Philip Seymour Hoffman

A lot of times true stories can be a bit tedious, but this is one that really works. Moneyball is the story of baseball general manager Billy Beane and his dramatic turnaround of the Oakland A’s franchise in 2002. There are a couple of things that the film has going for it. The first is, obviously, Brad Pitt. I understand that there are a lot of people who don’t like him. Fine. But there’s also no denying that what he does do, he's very good at. If you can’t get past that, well . . . The second thing is the writing. It’s an interesting combination of Steven Zaillian, who is best known for his more serious dramas and Aaron Sorkin who is a master of contemporary dialogue. All of it goes to making a very entertaining film.

The story consists of two parallel narratives. One is the baseball career of Pitt as Beane, which he began as a prodigy. As the years went on, however, he failed to live up to that promise. He never became the star that the scouts predicted, and that fact came into play later on in his decision to hire Jonah Hill, who has a completely different conception of putting together a team. Rather than looking at players who are stars, or who can do a bunch of things, Hill informs Pitt that all they need to be interested in is if players can get on base. Rather than buying players, the A’s need to be buying runs. Runs win games. Of course, his scouts and coaches suddenly hate him for going in a different direction and don’t want to give him the chance to prove that it can work.

The film is really a character study more than anything else. In the current story line Pitt is also dealing with a divorce and parenting his daughter. There’s a kind of unconscious parallel between his being a parent and the managing of the ball club. His employees, including the manager, become petulant and disobedient, just like teenagers. In fact, his daughter displays a lot more maturity that the “boys” on her father’s team. What is so inspiring is Pitt’s determination to see the thing through to the end. In spite of how his coaches attempt to subvert his system, and the losses keep piling up, he refuses to give in to them. He is in charge, and ultimately he is responsible, and if he’s going to go down in flames he’s going to do it by embracing his beliefs.

It’s difficult to convey exactly what makes this film so great. Primarily it’s an allegory for life, for the ability to come up with something new, go against conventional thinking, and above all stick to your belief no matter what the consequences. In fact, some would say that negative consequences teach us more than our success--and this comes into play at the end of the film in a way that might cause some to think the ending is something of a disappointment. In fact, the challenge that Pitt faces at the end of the film is no doubt more satisfying in the long run than the path he could have chosen. Moneyball is satisfying on so many levels, but probably not in a way that most people consciously understand. Watch it again, however, and think about Billy Beane’s determination. From where I sit, THIS is the most inspirational baseball film ever.

Monster (2003)

Director: Patty Jenkins                                Writer: Patty Jenkins
Film Score: Brian Transeau                          Cinematography: Steve Bernstein
Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern and Annie Corley

I really had no expectations going into Monster, as I had no knowledge about the film other than references to the great performance by Charlize Theron. I was a fan, of course, from her breakout role in Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do, and other great performances in The Italian Job and The Devil’s Advocate. But even the acknowledgement at the beginning of the film saying it was based on a true story, didn’t prepare me for the powerful but peculiar performance she delivers. It wasn’t until afterward when I watched the documentary on the film that I understood she was emulating a real person, one of the few female serial killers in history: Aileen “Lee” Wuornos.

It’s a heartbreaking story, and the label of serial killer really seems unfair. Patty Jenkins’ screenplay was based on interviews with Lee’s friends, but primarily on the numerous letters that she wrote to her friends from prison. It’s here where the film really hits home, because a lot of the narration and dialog is based on Lee’s actual words. Though she was repeatedly sexually abused as a child and became pregnant at thirteen, the audience doesn’t learn of this until much later in the film, when she’s telling it to another character. Until then, we can only be stunned by the blasé manner in which she talks about turning tricks as a street prostitute. At the same time, while she talks as if it’s nothing, we can see in Theron’s performance an undercurrent of bitterness and shame.

The plot is incredibly odd, primarily because it’s a true story. No one would write a story like this because it would be too unbelievable. Leave it to real life to provide the bizarre. While sitting under a freeway overpass in the rain, Theron decides to kill herself with a gun she has, but can’t do it until she spends the last five dollars she has. At a bar she meets Christina Ricci, who is obviously extremely lonely and she manages to ease Theron’s homophobia long enough to spent time with her at the bar and then offer her a place to sleep. Ricci, we learn, is from an extremely strict religious family and because she is a lesbian has sought refuge in her aunt and uncle’s house. The aunt and the uncle, however, are of a similar religious bent and little better. The two fall in love and, while Theron is out turning tricks she is nearly killed, beginning a long descent into darkness.

Theron’s appearance is dramatically altered and is, at times, eerie. She evidentally gained a good deal of weight for the role and the makeup, a set of false teeth and textured skin, completely transform her. In literary terms, the film is certainly a tragedy. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which Wuornos would have had any chance at all for a normal life. And in an Academy Award winning performance, Charlize Theron allows us to see that in Wuornos’s own words. It’s a disturbing film, moving but with a deep undercurrent of futility at the same time. We see her try, ala Erin Brockovich, to get a job, but we know it’s never going to happen. And what eventually transpires, while we can’t condone it, we can certainly better understand it thanks to Patty Jenkins. Monster is a powerful film and one that confronts us to wonder who the real monster is, the killer or the society that created her.

Deception (1946)

Director: Irving Rapper                                 Writers: John Collier & Joseph Than
Film Score: Erich Wolfgang Korngold            Cinematography: Ernest Haller
Starring: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and John Abbott

Deception is an interesting post-war film that, at least on the surface, seems to have a lot going for it. First of all a great cast; second, a solid director, and finally a first-class score by the great Erich Wolfgang Korngold. For all that, however, the film itself is rather dull. The story was originally a French, post World War One play called Monsieur Lamberthier, originally purchased by Warner Brothers for Barbara Stanwyck. It centered on a kept woman who believes the man she loved before the war is dead. When he returns she doesn’t know how to tell him of her situation and so she begins a barrage of lies in order to keep him from leaving her.

Bette Davis is a pianist/composter who has been a kept woman in a New York apartment by a famous composer played by Claude Rains. But when cellist Paul Henreid comes to the States on a small concert tour, Davis realizes it’s her long lost love from before the war. They reunite instantly, but Henreid becomes suspicious when he sees her expensive furnishings and clothing. Davis, of course, lies about everything. Rains shows up in time for their wedding and just about comes unglued with jealousy. But then he devises a plan to destroy the new couple, by offering Henreid the opportunity to play his cello concerto. How Rains is going to use the concert to get into both their heads is the real suspense of the film, and he has Davis in a panic throughout most of it.

This is definitely one of Davis’s lesser performances, not as convincing as some of her earlier films. Paul Henreid’s character is just as oblivious here about his leading lady as he was in Casablanca and, as such, is the perfect choice. The star of the show, and the villain, is Claude Rains who does everything but chew the scenery and twirl his moustache. It’s a great role and you can see onscreen how much he relishes it. Not as restrained, perhaps, as it could have been, but it’s still quite entertaining. Irving Rapper, who had worked with all of the principles on Now, Voyager does a good job, but nothing really noteworthy.

The real star of the show is Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Not only did he write a lush, romantic score for the film, but a cello concerto and a bunch of orchestral incidental music. Not coincidentally, some of the best camera angles are during the concert scene at the end of the film. It’s certainly an interesting story, and some of the acting is really good, but it’s not necessarily a great film. In the end it seems a bit stilted, designed as a set-piece for Korngold, and given something of a perfunctory performance from Davis. Still, Korngold wrote a mere seventeen film scores and all of those films are worth seeing just for his music. Deception is no exception.

Sea of Love (1989)

Director: Harold Becker                                Writer: Richard Price
Film Score: Trevor Jones                             Cinematography: Ronnie Taylor
Starring: Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman and John Spencer

This is one of those great films that just seems to happen and, for no reason, exceeds all expectations. In the first place you have Harold Becker, a minor director who had done a couple of interesting films in the early eighties. You also have Ellen Barkin who was still at the beginning of her career, though definitely on an upward trajectory. And finally, Al Pacino, who was at quite a low point, not having made a film in five years. Producer Martin Bregman, who had worked with Pacino as far back as 1973 with Serpico, brought him in to star in Sea of Love and hoped for a miracle. And it happened.

The film is a combination murder mystery and police procedural. When several men are found shot in their beds, the only link is that they were dating women through the personal ads. Pacino is a detective who gets the first case, and winds up teaming with John Goodman, a detective from another borough with a similar case. Pacino comes up with the idea to put their own ad in the personals, get the woman’s fingerprints on a glass, and then they’ll have their killer. When Ellen Barkin shows up, however, she has no interest in Pacino and bolts without leaving prints. But they meet later at a neighborhood grocery story and suddenly things click between them. The only problem: she could be the killer.

Above all, Pacino’s performance is stellar, probably because the down-and-out cop role rings so true for where he was in his career at the time. His emotional performance, on so many levels, fear, anger, passion, is a clinic on great film acting. Barkin definitely holds her own, however, and is a powerful presence on the screen as well. Their fiery romance is one for the cinematic ages. The rest of the cast is equally good in supporting roles. John Goodman, before he became a cliché, has a nice turn as Pacino’s partner, bringing equal parts humor and seriousness to his role. John Spencer is Pacino’s lieutenant and has a couple of good one-liners. Also onboard is the great Richard Jenkins, William Hickey, Paul Calderon, and Jacqueline Brooks as Barkin’s mother.

The directing is okay, but what really stands out are the performances of the actors. There is a lot of great tension and suspense in the script and it definitely keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The music is also an important part of film. The title song, blaring from the soundtrack, is incredibly eerie and unsettling. There is also a great period score by Trevor Jones that utilizes the wailing tenor saxophone of Branford Marsalis. Additionally, there is a lot of humor to go along with the suspense that really works well, and as a result Sea of Love is satisfying on a number of levels. Ultimately it was the comeback that Pacino needed and still remains a classic thriller.

Public Enemies (2009)

Director: Michael Mann                                Writers: Ronan Bennett & Michael Mann
Film Score: Elliot Goldenthal                        Cinematography: Dante Spinotti
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard and Stephen Lang

Yet another telling of the John Dillinger story, which began in 1945 with Lawrence Tierney in the title role of Dillinger, continued with Robert Conrad’s The Lady in Red from 1979, and has now reached Public Enemies with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. In a way, this is a more detailed telling of the last years of Dillinger’s life, and there’s a greater sense of trying to get those details right. For example, unlike the 1979 film, which has Dillinger’s girlfriend going to the movies with him and signaling the FBI agents, in reality she was sitting in a jail cell when he was gunned down. But the new film also gives equal time to Melvin Purvis, who headed up the investigation in Chicago.

The film opens with Johnny Depp as Dillinger, being processed into the Indiana State Prison, where his friends inside have engineered a successful escape. The scene next shifts to Christian Bale as Purvis, gunning down Pretty Boy Floyd in Ohio, thus introducing the two characters who will be playing a deadly game of cat and mouse the rest of the film. Dillinger has great success robbing banks because, as he says, the police can’t be everywhere at once. On the flip side, J. Edgar Hoover has become embarrassed by the success of the bank robbers and sets Purvis up as the point man to take them down. One of the interesting things about historical films like this, where the audience knows the outcome, is what the writers and director do to build suspense. In this case it’s rather easy, as so many myths have been proliferated in older films that by telling the real story it becomes fresh and new.

The most curious thing about this film, however, and simultaneously its biggest downfall, is that there’s very little character development. Most of the blame for that I would probably place at the feet of director Michael Mann as there is a definite vacuous quality to his films, an absence of emotional center. The only time that he has really been able to avoid that is with Collateral. Here, however, it’s a detriment. Much of the action, for all its excitement, seems superficial and doesn’t allow us any type of audience empathy with the characters the way there is in films like The Godfather or The Untouchables.

That’s too bad, because otherwise the film has a lot going for it. The production design is excellent and the period comes alive in the hands of Nathan Crowley. In addition, the acting is very good. I’m not a fan of Johnny Depp, but he does a nice job here. Christian Bale, who was riveting in 3:10 to Yuma, makes a valiant effort but is unable to lift the proceedings either. The real center of the film turns out to be Marion Cotillard as Dillinger’s girlfriend. An Oscar award-winning actress, she’s captivating on screen and is able to elicit the most audience identification. Public Enemies is by no means a bad film. It’s great as a period piece, and the historical accuracy is impressive; it just fails to connect with audiences in an emotional way and therefore doesn’t live up to its tremendous promise.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Director: J.J. Abrams                                  Writers: Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Film Score: Michael Giacchino                    Cinematography: Daniel Mindel
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bruce Greenwood

As someone who owns the entire original Star Trek television series and all of the feature films, I've had absolutely no interest in the modern spin-offs. I’ve never seen a single episode of Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine or Enterprise and so it's no surprise that I was delighted with the first Star Trek prequel. Finally, Kirk, Spock, Scottie, Bones and the gang--the reason I loved the original series in the first place--were back on the big screen. Star Trek Into Darkness is the latest entry in the franchise, reprising all of the old characters and letting us see them as they develop into the tight-knit crew they would become in the series and films.

This one begins on the planet Nibiru which, of course, is the name of the fictional doomsday planet that conspiracy theorists say is on the other side of the sun paralleling the earth. In the new film it is simply a planet with a primitive population that Kirk and McCoy are attempting to escape from while Spock neutralizes the volcano that threatens to kill all life on the planet. Due to certain “irregularities” during the mission, Kirk is called into Pike’s office and demoted to first officer under Pike himself and Spock reassigned. But events intervene when a rogue Federation officer John Harrison bombs a London archive as a ploy to get the top Starfleet officers together in one place. Eventually Kirk is sent out to track down Harrison and kill him . . . with utterly unexpected consequences.

Chris Pike is just terrific again as the new Kirk and I’m finally beginning to warm to Zachary Quinto as Spock. The fact that Quinto's looks and behavior approximate Nimoy’s slightly more than the other actors resemble the originals has kind of worked against him for me. Zoe Saldana as Uhura is also great casting. In fact, the entire crew does a terrific job of emulating their TV show counterparts, which is not necessarily a fun job for an actor, but is admirable just the same, especially for fans of the original series. And that is the real joy of this film. To see the young James T. Kirk risking life and limb, making gut decisions, the taunting of Spock by Bones McCoy, and the frantic energy of Scottie and Chekov is just so great to see again. One of the added treats in the film is a cameo by Leonard Nemoy. Benedict Cumberbatch is the guest star and plays a great villain that will put a smile on the faces of Trek fans.

Of course there is a lot of action, plenty of great special effects, and a great script that references plenty of the classic phrases from the original series. As a film in its own right, it’s perhaps not a great piece of work. For someone like me, however, who loves the characters, it’s nearly impossible to be objective. And so other Trekkies should be thoroughly pleased by the results. Star Trek Into Darkness is another worthy entry to the series preceding the TV show. We can only hope that the new series will live long and prosper.

Psycho (1960)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock                            Writer: Joseph Sefano
Film Score: Bernard Herrmann                     Cinematography: John L. Russell
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles & John Gavin

Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest period of commercial success was certainly in the fifties. He made a string of hits that are all masterpieces, including Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and North by Northwest. But I would argue that he reached his zenith with Psycho in 1960. Certainly it’s difficult to make comparisons of that film with the big budget Technicolor blockbusters that preceded it, but I still think it’s a cut above. There is an extreme confidence at work in the film, bourn out of the previous decade, that would not survive into the sixties. Psycho, however, is like the Citizen Kane of horror films and yet, unlike Welles’ masterpiece, Hitchcock’s film continues to influence to the present day.

The story is so familiar that it hardly needs reprising here. Based on the original case of serial murderer Ed Gein, author Robert Bloch turned the raw material into a popular novel that was published in 1959. Hitch loved it and thought it would be perfect for his next film, but unfortunately the studio disagreed. One of the myths of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is that his decision to film in black and white was solely to make a brilliant version of the exploitation drive-in films that were so popular at the time. The truth is he owed Paramount one more film and they didn’t want to pay for Psycho. So Hitch decided to finance the film himself, which necessitated the low budget. The production of the film is also the subject matter for the recent biopic on the director, Hitchcock.

Everything about the film is perfect. Janet Leigh was a brilliant human red herring, the apparent star of the film who dies a mere forty five minutes in. Anthony Perkins is so good in the role of Norman Bates that he is thoroughly believable. Vera Miles, who was tragically unable to appear in Vertigo, is really underrated here, taking up the baton from Leigh in the film and carrying the heroine role to the conclusion. Hitchcock’s conception of the story is also spot on, with a wonderful script by Joseph Stefano that emphasizes the psychological aspects of the character of Norman Bates without obsessing on the murders. The shower scene is, of course, a masterpiece of montage, and when you add in Bernard Herrmann’s iconic score it’s obvious why the film has become an all time classics.

Charles Taylor’s essay on Psycho for The A List does a nice job of identifying what makes the film so great, though he doesn’t really present a coherent thesis for hanging his ideas on. The thrust of his argument, and it's a good one, is that this is a film of distances, between the audience and the characters and the characters with each other. The audience identifies with Janet Leigh from the start, as she is in every scene until she dies. When she meets Perkins the two seem light years apart, that is, until their scene in the parlor. Then it becomes clear to her how similar they are, trapped by circumstances that they have allowed to control their lives. But immediately Leigh separates from Perkins and decides to take control and go back home. After her death it’s relatively easy for the audience to switch their allegiance to Perkins because of the circumstances with his mother. Taylor makes a nice observation here. The audience is on Norman’s side as he attempts to erase the evidence of his “mother’s” crime and especially, though not mentioned by Taylor, when he is being grilled by Arbogast.

When it is finally revealed that Norman is responsible for the deaths the audience obviously pulls back their identification with him and, in Taylor’s words, “the distance between him and ‘mother’ has collapsed just as the distance between Norman and ourselves has suddenly become too wide to traverse.” Another point he makes is with Hitch’s subversion of audience expectations and the way in which a slasher film that is almost sanitary by today’s standards still packs more of an emotional wallop than almost anything that has been filmed since. And that is almost exclusively due to Hitchcock and his writer, Joe Stefano. Psycho is a masterpiece of storytelling, one of Hitchcock’s best films, and still one of the most influential movies in film history.