The Wire, Season 1 Episode 5: The Pager

The Wire, Season 1 Episode 5: The Pager. For all of its complexity, the Wire deals mostly with primal motivations -- greed, lust, envy, sloth, etc. And for a series that has assembled such a rich assortment of characters, the writers offer precious little in backstory for them. We know practically nothing about the characters' childhoods or previously lives. It seems that all that matters is who these profoundly damaged (and damaging) people are and what they do today.

This episode, The Pager, ends chillingly with the off-camera abduction of the stickup boy Brandon by Stringer Bell and his murderous lieutenants. The viewer has no idea what will become of the boy, who is also the lover of rogue Robin Hood Omar Little, but Clark Johnson, a brilliant director who delivers a wonderful performance in Season 5, creates an atmosphere of nearly unbearable dread that will inevitably to lead to another primal motivation -- revenge.

The Wire Season 1, Episode 4: Old Case

The Wire Season 1, Episode 4: Old Cases. Earlier HBO series had set standards for violence, nudity and profanity (The Sopranos, Oz) but none was as artful in the use of the F-bomb as The Wire. At times it was, as Detective Carver said so beautifully in Episode 3, "unbe-fucking-lievable." In this episode, Detectives McNulty and Moreland re-examine the scene of the late-night shooting of a young woman who'd been a sexual consort of Avon Barksdale. The scene lasts about 5 minutes and the only words uttered by the two detectives are some variation of the F-bomb. It's brilliant in a brash, post-modernist way.

The Wire, Season 1 Episode 3: The Buys

The Wire, Season 1 Episode 3: The Buys. The Wire might just as well have been called The Unit because of the complex interconnectedness the writers of the series created between the detectives working to bring down the Barksdale empire. Still, the importance (and limitations) of electronic surveillance in building the case against the oily Avon and his merciless henchman Stringer Bell is preached most consistently and fervently by Det. Lester Freamon. In this episode, Lester emerges from behind his handcarved miniatures to show he's real Bal'more Poh-leese. He'd been shuttled off to the pawn shop division for being a conscientious lawman but "the unit" reignites his passion for catching the bad guy with determination and intelligence, day by day, piece by piece. His caring, fatherly mentoring of the young detective Roland Pryzbylewski is one of the more interesting evolving relationships in the series. Cool Lester Smooth is an extraordinary character in an extraordinary show.

Tabloid

I've often wondered how documentarians settle on their subjects. The subject has to be of personal and, at least to some degree, public interest and there must be enough "story" to capture an audience's imagination. In the case of Errol Morris's Tabloid -- the fantastic (in the sense of mind-boggling) story of Joyce McKinney, a former beauty queen who was accused in the late '70s of kidnapping her Mormon boyfriend and forcing him into a weekend of sexual slavery -- the subject matter is riveting, like a Barnum and Bailey carnival attraction. It's so outlandish, in fact, that this tale of sexual exploitation, religious zealotry, and international intrigues simply MUST be true. Or, as my friend said as the credits rolled, "You can't make this shit up." McKinney, who provides most of the narration of her sad tale, is quite possibly mad, which of course is sad, but at the same time she is absolutely captivating. A guilty pleasure but a pleasure nonetheless.

The Wire, Season 1, Episode 2: The Detail

The Wire, Season 1, Episode 2: The Detail. The series had an enormous cast of characters and the second episode continued the introductions. Who could be sure which of the many characters would become peripheral and which would be central? One thing was made more certain in this episode, however: Larry Gilliard Jr.'s neophyte drug overseer D'Angelo Barksdale would be a pivotal figure as his naivete is played by his drug lord uncle, Avon Barksdale, and the unit detectives trying to bring down the Barksdale empire.

The extended scene with Detectives Moreland, McNulty and Greggs in the interrogation box with D'Angelo is wonderfully written and seems especially foreboding for the young man.

The Wire, Season 1, Episode 1: The Target

The Wire, Season 1, Episode 1: The Target. The series opens with a young street tough and a Baltimore homicide detective conversing over the body of a boy who'd been killed for grabbing the kitty in a dice game -- something he'd done on several occasions before. This time, however, "Snot-boogie" would be gunned down "over some bullshit," as the street tough says. Thus the tone of this series is set -- talk is coarse and reductive, life is tenuous, the rules of the game are unfair when they're not nonsensical and yet everybody plays because "this is America."

(No, the series was not perfect. Some seasons were decidedly stronger than others, some of the acting was noticeably weaker and the writing, on more than one occasion, was far too pointedly polemical for my taste, and yet, despite all of that, the stories of "this American life" were as addictive as the heroin they were slinging in the project towers.)

The Wire

The Wire, the greatest television show in human history, debuted on June 2, 2002. This phenomenal program went leagues beyond routine police procedurals and courtroom shenanigans to explore the intricate intersections of life and law (and lawlessness). As a countdown to the 10th anniversary, I will be viewing all 60 episodes over the coming months and posting thoughts about each. Come along.

Fright Night (2011)

Craig Gillespie's Fright Night is a good time with gore galore. A remake of the 1985 film of the same name (seems like just last week when I saw that movie), this version stars Anton Yelchin as a young biter-fighter who takes on his hungry neighbor, Jerry, played by Colin Farrell. Like the original, which starred William Ragsdale and Chris Sarandon in those roles, this Fright Night is refreshing in that it dives right into the feeding -- there's nothing coy about the vampy Jerry. He's a biter with balls who won't be denied. A car chase through the Nevada desert is a high point of the movie in which the special effects are modest compared to other films featuring the supernatural. Gillesipie gets winning performances from the entire cast but standouts are Farrell, David Tennant (of Dr. Who fame) as Las Vegas showman / vampire killer Peter Vincent and the ever-entertaining Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad), as Ed, an early believer in Jerry's evilness. Good show!

The Help

Two of my three moms worked in some capacity as "the help," so I've not looked forward to seeing Tate Taylor's movie. Films about privileged tyrants -- the suburban variety -- infuriate me, and I too frequently imagine the cruelties on the screen being visited upon those dear women, and their sisters. I wonder what might they have endured so that they could feed their own families, keep a home and, perhaps, put away enough money for the future. A lot of what Taylor has put on the screen -- particularly the maids' coddling of their employers' children -- made me terribly uncomfortable. While presenting these women's genuine affection for their charges and the grace with which they lived their lives, these scenes also showed how insidious was the world in which they were trapped, as one character described it, where they reared their own tormentors. A major plot element, the maid Minny's revenge, though wonderfully cathartic for the audience, seemed ultimately more demeaning of Minny than her victimizer. Still, I was deeply moved by many, many scenes in the film, and thought individual performances -- principally Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard -- were truly outstanding.

Cowboys and Aliens

In Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens, all goes wrong in a dusty Wild West town just so that resident humans will set aside their differences (prejudice, extortion, genocide and imperial oppression) and pull together to kick some evil alien butt.
The movie opens when an amnesiac saddle tramp wearing a strange bracelet (Daniel Craig) wanders into the desert town owned by a heartless cattleman (Harrison Ford) and home to a mysterious beauty with a pretty huge secret (Olivia Wilde). The saddle tramp remembers nothing, not even his own name, but is lethal in hand-to-hand combat (think Jason Bourne circa 1868). Soon it's revealed that the weird bracelet is an alien weapon and the only thing that seems to stop these greedy alien gold marauders.
The film is populated with stock characters most of whom have some really important life lesson to learn while riding to the rescue of their kinfolk who were roped like steer and pulled heavenward, presumably to be poked and probed. (Ouch.) Favreau has staged some cool action sequences, including the aforementioned rustling, but Favreau's famous wit is MIA.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

It doesn't matter which sociopolitical problem you feel is being addressed in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (or any of the earlier entries in this timeless franchise). The film works for all (or none) of them. It's a wonderfully crafted, visually arresting motion picture.
Rise is directed by Rupert Wyatt and stars (ostensibly) James Franco (good but not great) as a misguided but charitable scientist who is artificially boosting the brain cells of chimps in his quest for a cure for Alzheimer's, which his father (played by John Lithgow) suffers. Alzheimer's seems to have replaced consumption and cancer as Hollywood's fatal disease du jour.
Despite some tinny acting in places, Rise is a rollicking, full-bore "F-U" to The Man (however he's defined) and a rousing "Got Yo' Back" to all of oppressed Apedom (ditto). Notice the way "monkey" is used to demean the apes in the film; an epithet by any other name.
The film, which features an amazing tracking sequence early on that follows a chimp at play and sets the bar really high for later sequences, is enormously entertaining and not a little bit cathartic, at least for me, after the recent congressional budget debacle.
It is another remarkable achievement in the melding of live action and computer-generated animation, which, IMO, makes the actual "star" star of this movie Andy Sirkis (known by most as the creature Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and the crew that created his character, the rebel leader / warlord chimpanzee Caesar (no subtlety in the naming there). The film's final tree top shot is, as the kids say, awesome.

A Better Life

A poor undocumented Mexican immigrant in L.A., intent on giving his 14-year-old son A Better Life, borrows money from his sister and buys his boss's truck and lawn care equipment. On the first day of his new life, the vehicle and tools are stolen by a fellow immigrant he's befriended. That's the wind up. The pitch is father and son (Demian Bechir and Jose Julian, respectively) set out to find the thief and the truck and salvage the father's dream and the son's future.

Chris Weitz has directed a warm film about illegal immigration that has so many moments of genuine, unadorned humanity that I couldn't help but pull for the disconnected pair. At one point during the search, father and son find themselves in the barrio, surrounded by faceless, struggling masses. The boy turns to his father and asks, his face a study in indignation, "Why did you have me? Why do poor people have children?" The father, dumbstruck, sets his eyes in the middle distance so as not to betray the pain he feels and says to his son. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that."

See this film before it gets away.

Friends with Benefits

I thoroughly enjoyed Will Gluck's 2010 film Easy A with the entirely too charming Emma Stone. Gluck's Friends with Benefits has a lot of the same breezy insouciance and snappy sophistication but it also has two enormously catalytic stars at the center -- Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. They snap, crackle and pop from the first frame. The film -- which really is more about the journey to true love than the arrival -- has tons of sex talk and skin, but it's not dirty ... well, it is kinda dirty, but it's all good.

Horrible Bosses

The stars of Horrible Bosses are not the three gentlemen pictured here but the writers. Well, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis and Jason Bateman (left to right) ARE the stars but go with it. Writers Michael Markowitz and John Francis Daley really know their way around intricate, comedic plotting and masculine vulgarity. The script for this gem of a movie about three schmucks who work for bosses they REALLY would like to kill is dynamite ... a 21st century bawdy fest where everything goes wrong and then right and then .... It's culturally sharp and observant. Howlingly funny.

Captain America

Joe Johnston's Captain America has a swashbuckling verve to it that enhances what is basically a Dirty-Dozen-On-Steroids treatment of the origin of the Marvel comics hero, a 90-pound weakling who gets a makeover courtesy of 1940s-era Stark Enterprises (see Iron Man). Chris Evans' face, biceps and pecs are pretty formidable team as they take on the maniacal Nazi fiend Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving (who else?). The ever-reliable Tommy Lee Jones brings fairly substantial weight to his role as Col. Phillips, who begins the film as a C.A. skeptic but eventually turns into a believer, especially after he sees the kind of attention the Captain gets from Special Agent Peggy Carter (I LOVE women named Peggy). The movie is a fun time though I am sure the good Captain (ironically, a classic example of an Aryan ubermensch) will be soundly pummeled this summer by a bespectacled British kid named Harry.

The Beaver

Jodie Foster’s The Beaver is a fairly successful and affecting film about a middle-aged man (Mel Gibson) who, unaccountably, has drifted into a deep depression that has dismantled his business and his family. He is rescued (sort of) by a beaver puppet he finds in a dumpster. (It actually plays better than my summary suggests.)

His wife (Foster) and teenage son (Anton Yelchin) have had it with Downer Dad (and, yes, that plays as harshly as it sounds) and when he begins channeling his ego through a puppet that talks like the macho-version of the gecko from Geico it delights his younger son (Riley Thomas Stewart) but is not a sign of positive healing to other folks – at first. The puppetry – which I thought for a minute was a sign that the film was to be read as a parable – is surreal at times, played for broad laughs at others, but Gibson pulls it off with brio.

The movie comprises parallel stories that track Dad’s ups and downs with that of older son, Porter, who writes cribbed essays and term papers for classmates for pay so that he can take a pre-college trek across the country to visit sites that altered the course of history. (Now that’s an interesting idea for a movie.) Yelchin is a fine actor but his character was an annoyance to me because, again unaccountably, he despises his father and fears becoming like him, which, of course, all but seals his fate.

Much of what Foster puts on the screen is entertaining, and Gibson (as difficult as he might be for some folks to stomach) is pretty terrific. The story, written by Kyle Killen, has some puzzling elements – primarily the reason for Dad’s gloominess and why No. 1 son is such a gigantic pill. I suppose when you’re working on 90 minutes and change, some exposition has to be sacrificed.

Blue Valentine

Derek Cianfrance is best known as a documentarian and his beautifully crafted "hate story" Blue Valentine has the rawness of real life, which is what makes it nearly impossible to watch. Cianfrance directs Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, both riveting in their roles as a young couple who should be neither married nor parents but they are and are in torments. Told with a fluid, time-shifting narrative line, Blue Valentine delineates with documentary clarity where the innocent romance between these two damaged people began to unravel -- and it was almost immediately after they met. Williams is indeed spectacular, and Oscar-worthy, as the conflicted enabler Cindy, who has nothing left to give to a man she thought she loved but now loathes beyond speech. One particularly sickening moment comes late in the film when Gosling's Dean -- an irredeemable, self-serving narcissist who has been dipped in charm -- tries to embrace Cindy in her father's kitchen as hollow gesture of reconciliation. She whimpers and cringes during the embrace and her revulsion oozes off the screen. It's a devastating moment in a truly powerful film.

The Eagle

Kevin Macdonald's sword and sandal epic "The Eagle" has a cruisy Abercrombie & Fitch style that is not incidental considering the film stars Channing Tatum who epitomizes A&F's homoerotic narcissism. Tatum is strikingly handsome and cameras love him but he seems to be most comfortable in front of one when he's dancing (see Step Up). And yet, Tatum isn't half bad as the Roman cohort centurion Marcus Aquila on the hunt in the British Highlands for the ninth legion's lost golden eagle emblem. He doesn't show nearly as much skin as he customarily does in his movies, which might be a sign that he wants to be taken seriously from now on. The film still has a sticky masculinity, most of it provided by Tatum's buffed-up co-star Jamie Bell, who plays Aquila's bitterly aggrieved slave Esca. Bell, who I've always thought is a fine actor with a distinctively jug-eared handsomeness, doesn't seem to mind playing second fiddle to hunkier leading men, many of whom he ends up outshining (see Defiant & Jumper). That's true of The Eagle, too, though the circle Bell acts around Tatum is not nearly as wide as I expected it would be. In the end, Tatum carries the flick nobly (as the poster suggests) though his accent is spotty and he has no acting range to speak of. The Eagle is entertaining enough though not groundbreaking in any sense and, oddly, there is not a single female speaking part.

The Green Hornet

Reposting to correct error. Kato was not John Cho (of Harold and Kumar) but Jay Chou (of ....) .

The problem with Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet is not Seth Rogen's now familiar schlubby self-centeredness (which pretty much is the extent of his character portfolio). The problem with the movie is its length, loudness and loutishness. I thought Rogen's Pineapple Express (which he also scripted with Evan Goldberg) had the same problems, even though that film was crafted by a different director. That's not to say The Green Hornet has no entertainment value. It has piles and piles of it, if you enjoy visually arresting martial arts battles (courtesy of Jay Chou's Kato), high-speed vehicular crack ups and the destruction of urban architecture. It also features Christoph Waltz, the menacing Nazi interrogator from Inglourious Basterds, as a sartorially challenge criminal mastermind. For a former newshound like myself, the picture packs some clever insights into contemporary journalism, and the final (endless) shoot-out actually takes place in a newspaper press room. (The first time that's been done, I bet.) In the end, if you like Rogen's schtick (and not everyone does) and you enjoy your jokes evenly divided between smart and snark (ditto) and your gun-play deafening, then The Green Hornet is the ticket. P.S., I saw it in 2D and don't think I missed much.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam is an auteur with a singular vision so you know what you're going to get before the first reel starts rolling: fish-eyed lenses, dream(y) sequences, enormous puppety heads, slapsticky pratfalls and a bit of moralizing and vanquishing of evildoers. In other words, you get Monty Python on steroids but that...'s a really good thing. I enjoy Gilliam's films, mostly, but often they leave me feeling like that enormous diner from The Meaning of Life ... just one more clever cinematic device and I'll explode.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a Gilliam picture through and through with the mixed blessing of also being Heath Ledger's last film, the one during the filming of which he died. Ledger is wonderful as a mysterious conman who is taken in by Doctor Parnassus's traveling troupe of fantasy merchants who are on the run from a thousand-year-old deal with the devil. (Yes, Dr. Faustus.) The recasting of Ledger's unfinished scenes didn't feel as gimmicky as I had feared and considering the story is about getting lost in the fertile imagination of the title character, played sportingly by Christopher Plummer, having Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell step in wasn't at all jarring.
I was also delighted to see Andrew Garfield, who delivered a sparkling performance in this year's Social Network, as the film's lovelorn protagonist and Lily Cole, a striking young British actress with whom I was unfamiliar, as the good / bad doctor's daughter. Rounding out the principals in this entertaining picture was Verne Troyer (Austin Powers' Mini-Me) as Parnassus' trusted company foreman.

Tron: Legacy

Some films get a pass for sheer audacity, even if their weaknesses are tough to overlook. I think Tron: Legacy fits that category. It's an audaciously visual and aural (thanks to Daft Punk) experience that is much more captivating and mind-bending than the over-praised Inception, IMO. The weaknesses of the Tron sequel, however, are the story and the mystic logic of the universe that computer ubermensch Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) created back in the day (read Tron [1982]). His son, Sam, played with brio by Garrett Hedlund, enters his "dearly departed" dad's digital world and reunites with his father, now a zen master of sorts, to battle the elder Flynn's digital clone, Clu (played by a digitally younger Bridges). Both Sam and the picture are aided immeasurably by the presence of the winsome Olivia Wilde (Dr. House's 13) as Quorra (pronounced Cora), the last surviving member of a race of "beings" that miraculously appeared one day and was nearly exterminated in short-order by the maniacal Clu. The movie's fight scenes are beyond spectacular but they all culminate, more or less, with Kevin Flynn admitting that maybe he'd made a mistake in reaching for perfection. Yes, it's all nonsense but it's a beautiful ride.

Valhalla Rising

Mads Mikkelsen (the bleeding-eyed Le Chiffre from Casino Royale) plays One-Eye, a mute and half-blind escaped Viking slave from some unidentified Nordic outpost who, along with his towheaded child interpreter, hops a ship bound for the Holy Land to rescue Jerusalem from the infidels but doesn't quite make it. This is t...he premise of Nicolas Winding Refn's Valhalla Rising, a curious episodic film that's more a collection of striking tableaux than an actual motion picture, IMO. The script contains little actual dialogue, mostly burly unwashed men (they're Vikings but they sound like they're from the Scottish Highlands) sitting in a longboat or on a boggy shore essentially waiting to die. That is to say, the film is beautifully shot (despite the bloodletting) and even though it makes motions toward heavier philosophical questions about the divine and the sacred it doesn't offer much to think about.

The King's Speech

The King's Speech has many delightful moments but not a sufficient number to justify this eye-rolling poster that suggests it's a comedy. It most certainly is not. At the heart of this story of England's King George VI (the father of the current monarch) is his struggle not only with his speech impediment (a stammer)... but more importantly with the trauma that created it. This element gives the film such resonance and emotional gravitas that I didn't mind its predictable structure. The speech of the title (if you read it as "oration" and not "elocution") is a crowning achievement of movie storytelling and is enormously satisfying. Colin Firth as the king, Geoffrey Rush as his speech tutor and Helena Bonham Carter as George VI's Queen Elizabeth are individually and collectively wonderful.

127 Hours

Danny Boyle's 127 Hours devotes so little time establishing the main character of this riveting and, yes, briefly repulsive film that it got me wondering: Was Boyle using the harrowing experience of climber / cayoneer Aron Ralston as a device to put us all on notice that, to misquote the bumper sticker, "Life is too short to be a dick."

Of course, other readings are just as plausible, including that it is simply a cinematic rendering of Ralston's tale of his misadventure, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place." But Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, Sunshine) is such an intelligent and insightful filmmaker that I can't resist thinking more is going on here. No matter. It's a splendid movie whatever the case.

The supremely egoless James Franco carries this picture in a tour de force performance as Ralston, who was pinned by a bolder against the wall of a narrow canyon in Utah. Franco's Ralston is a rambling and self-centered man-child but not stupid or careless -- just unlucky. Through flashbacks and hallucinations we get a sense of who Ralston is, but it is never clear if these dreams are reliable memories, wishes or premonitions or a mix of all three.

Despite his quirkiness, Ralston's resourcefulness (and spiritedness) saved his life as he eventually snipped and sawed and hacked his way through the tissue, veins and nerves of his right arm to free himself from the rock. The amputation scene, which lasts about 3 minutes, is craftily staged by Boyle but it is, unquestionably, not for weak stomachs. Even so, it must be seen to get the full effect of this terrific film.

The Tourist

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Tourist is as beautiful and anemic as its star Angelina Jolie. The film, which also stars Johnny Depp, does not provide enough fiber in terms of story or red meat in terms of action to be a full cinematic meal. (Stop that metaphor!)

This tale of mistaken identity fails to put the wrong guy (Depp) in real peril, and unlike her earlier performance in the star vehicle Salt, Jolie does not work up a sweat here. I actually got the feeling she's was indifferent to the outcome of all of the cat-and-mousing as I was.

Von Donnersmarck stages two uninvolving chases and an interminable last act that would have been much more satisfying -- oddly enough -- if either Jolie or Depp (or both) had not survived the last reel. Tedioso!