Tag: assassination

EQUALIZER 2 – STARFISH ON A BEACH

SHORT TAKE:

Death Wish – style movie with a more sophisticated philosophy and more intelligent presentation than most.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Adults only. Little sexuality but a lot of harsh language and extreme amounts of violence.

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LONG TAKE:

w friendOne of the rules of good scriptwriting is SHOW DON'T TELL and I think Equalizer 2 did a (excuse the pun) bang up good job on this point.

I've gotten rather fond of Jeremy Scott's eviscerative observations on Cinema Sins. Although replete with profanity and spiced with the occasionally mildly raunchy comment, his analysis of movies, and disclosure of poorly written, clichéd weaknesses and foibles are not only usually very funny but spot on. When writing screen and stage plays, I now pointedly try to avoid the fallback easy positions like: heavy handed exposition, predictable setups, and stereotype characters, with a small voice in the back of my head optimistically warning that if ever this is produced, you don't want to hear that bell count out ill-advised boiler plate tropes.

And while watching movies, I find myself predicting what Jeremy will catch. Citing "Narration" as the self-explanatory critique and reason for the "sin," one of his pet peeves is excessive expositing. In the beginning of even blockbuster or well respected movies, such as Black Panther or Lord of the Rings, a chronicler will spout a long garrulous anecdote, covering decades or centuries worth of background.

That does not happen in Equalizer 2.

SPOILERS BUT ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE TRAILER

The premise, building upon the original, is that an ex-CIA operative, Robert McCall, now thought dead, lives a quiet life as a Lyft (read Uber) driver, doing good deeds where he can. w beared guyThe main storyline of Equalizer 2 follows McCall when, about a half hour into the movie, his friend is brutally murdered. standing by picturesMcCall announces, is expected to, and eventually does, take violent retribution against the perpetrators.  But I found the subplots, and the way the narrative is handled, far more interesting.

muslimFor example, the movie starts, (and not properly a spoiler as it is in the trailer) with a Muslim-costumed Denzel Washington confronting Turkish thugs on a train. Only later, as he goes about his normal routine back in Chicago do we OBSERVE how he knew of a problem and what it would take to fix it. The set up and solution were very quietly and subtly handled. And this small subplot did not even directly relate to the main action, but only served to establish McCall's abilities and personality.

imagesVNIP61L9The most compelling part of the screenplay was how McCall exercises that platitude of doing random acts of kindness using the gifts we have. For us ordinary mortals, it might be holding someone's door open or even paying for the coffee of the stranger in line behind you. fight in trainFor McCall it's beating the tar out of dangerous, abusive men then making them call the cops on themselves afterwards. When asked why he would take on the job of cleaning spray paint graffiti off of a wall when anyone else could do it, he responds that, although anyone else COULD, no one else DOES, so he does. This is the mantra from which he lives and a motto which raises the bar on what could otherwise have been just another Death Wish vigilante violence porn clone. While I'm not advocating vigilantism, often the mentality is a "kill them all and let God sort them out" philosophy.

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It's refreshing to see this hero, in this genre, genuinely attempt to mete out justice, even often allowing the bad guys an opportunity to "do the right thing" on their own first.

Another of McCall's "projects" is a neighborhood kid who shows some promise as an artist, but is tempted by the quick money and allure of drug running. When asked by the boy, "Why me?" as in: why would you care or why risk your safety for me or do this for me, McCall answers simply, "Why NOT you?"

I was reminded of the parable of the Starfish. Traditionally attributed to an inspiration from the St. Augustine philosophy of doing what you can for those whom God puts in your path, the short tale is of an adult coming upon a child throwing starfish into the ocean. When asked what the child thinks he will accomplish, the child responds that the tide is going out and those left on shore will die. Surveying the thousands of starfish which littered the shore, the adult cautioned the child that he would make little difference given the overwhelming job facing him. The child responded with a smile as he threw another starfish into the ocean: "But I made a BIG difference to this one."

So go see Equalizer 2, not for the overused, familiar vengeance fueled chaos, or even for the nicely handled "show don't tell" exposition. Go to watch Washington's McCall use his singular gifts to save what starfish he can.

NOTE: As I was out of town for the writing of this one I was limited in the pictures I could add but will be updating, God willing, upon my return.

WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR – THE STORY OF FRED ROGERS AND HIS NEIGHBORHOOD

SHORT TAKE:

Lovely, delightful and moving documentary covering the life of both Fred Rogers and his Neighborhood.

WHO SHOULD SEE IT:

Absolutely everyone. No really – unequivocally, no holds barred, universally, unabashedly, and without even the smallest reservation – EVERYONE!!!!

AND IF YOU LIKE THESE REVIEWS PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! THEN YOU'LL GET     EVERY NEW REVIEW SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR E-MAIL!!

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LONG TAKE:

When I was a kid, I had a brother and sister who were 9 and 10 years older, respectively, than I. Come to think of it, they STILL are 9 and 10 years older. Also, my Dad and I were buddies. I’d go to the hardware store with him, and I would hang around and “help” him with construction projects around our house. He was 40 when I was born. My point is that when we turned on the TV it was “Fractured Fairy Tales” on Rocky and Bullwinkle, Star Trek, Hogan’s Heroes, Abbot and Costello, The Great Escape, Wagon Train and The Magnificent Seven. The quiet and gentle wisdom of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and his cardigan sweaters was just not on my radar. So later, when I had kids, while I respected the show, and thought he was doing something nice for kids, I just wasn’t that interested.

So I was surprised by my own emotional reaction to Won’t You Be My Neighbor. I realized then that Fred Rogers had seeped, ever so slowly, into my consciousness with his gentle, joyful manner over the last 50 years. He was simply a kind and decent man who both advocated as a motto of his show and lived by the personal  ethic: “I like you just the way you are.” Fred Rogers spent his life wisely, as the personification of Jesus' answer to the question which preambled the parable of The Good Samaritan: "Who is my neighbor?" There is no doubt in my mind that the name of his show was intended as an incarnation of that answer – that, to Mr. Rogers, everyone was his neighbor. And Fred Rogers' personal Inspired ministry was to bring God's Love to all people in a very practical, first hand way – by demonstration.

St. Francis famously advocated to: “Preach always, sometimes even with words.” Fred Rogers, through his actions, showed himself to be an avid disciple. Though the subject of Fred Rogers’ specific spiritual beliefs came up sparingly in the documentary, aside from the fact of his ordination as a minister, his adherence to the foundational Christian belief that all men are brothers, beloved of and equal in God’s eyes, comes out boldly and profoundly in everything Fred Rogers did, or said.

The documentary dips into the very deep well of video on which he appears. Not just the copies of almost 1,000 shows, but his personal appearances on interview programs, at schools, and even before Congress! There is no lack of documentation of Fred Rogers’ progress from his early philosophical musings before a piano on teaching children about serious issues, probably filmed by his wife, in 1962, all the way through the blooper video clips from his very last show in 2001 and his PSA in 2002 on 9/11.

The documentary interviews his wife, his sons, John and Jim, his co-workers, friends, associates, and other interviewers. They come from many walks of life, and life styles. But all people were equal in Fred Rogers’ eyes. Rogers maintained a tight ship, monitoring every aspect of the show, and required understandably scrupulous behavior, watching over the reputation of the show with care and affection for everyone involved in the production. Mr. Rogers, for example, forbade one actor from frequenting a particular bar and Betty Aberlin (Lady Aberlin) from appearing in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. However, Rogers’ fatherly supervision of his cast and crew did not discourage a certain level of good-natured juvenile behavior amongst those Mrs. Rogers remembered he called his “playmates”, such as practical jokes on set or a poster made from a tasteless but amusing photo clandestinely left on Rogers’ camera by a mischievous member of the crew.

SPOILERS

Back in the 1960's, there were topics, it was understood, that children’s programming just would not explore. Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood’s stock in trade was the places where angels would fear to tread. He tackled issues head on that many adults avoided: death, divorce, lost children, serious illness, and disabilities. He had guest stars, wrote books, made appearances, did interviews, and performed puppet plays intended to translate these complex topics in ways which children could understand, talk about, and express their confusions and concerns.

The cast and crew were close and the show was very personal to everyone involved. Daniel the Tiger, the avatar most close to Fred Roger's heart and personality, according to those who knew him best, often spoke of insecurity and self doubt. King Friday XIII and his Queen dealt frequently with parental concerns. Everyone on the cast was known by a real name. Lady Aberlin's name was Betty Aberlin, Officer Clemmons was, in real life, the powerhouse singer, Francois Scarborough Clemmons, and the name Mr. McFeely, though played by David Newell, was Fred Rogers' middle name.

In the ‘60's, when black people were forced out of public pools, Fred Rogers pointedly invited Francois Clemmons, a black man portraying Mr. Rogers’ local police officer, to come join him on a hot day as he soaked his feet in a child’s plastic pool and to share his towel. Fred Rogers went out of his way to rinse Officer Clemmons' feet with his hose and offer him his towel. There is no mistaking the reference to Jesus' washing of his disciples feet nor of the point Mr. Rogers made. I couldn’t help but laugh as Mr. Rogers looked up at the camera from contemplating their cooling feet. There was an expression I'd never seen on the face of this usually sweet, impeturbable man –  just a glimpse of his righteousness anger at the injustices which inspired this demonstration, as though, for a moment, he was staring down anyone who would dare question his actions. I hoped those at the time, he was silently addressing, had seen and squirmed in shame. Mr. Roger and Mr. Clemmons re-enacted the event some years later.

When Bobby Kennedy was murdered, Fred Rogers’ show had Lady Aberlin and Daniel the Tiger discuss what the word “assassination” meant. When the Challenger blew up in front of millions of kids, Fred Rogers was there to confront the topic with his beloved puppets in ways small children could understand. When the horrific attack on our country was made by Islamic terrorists on 9/11, Fred Rogers came out of retirement, ill with only months left before he would pass away, to offer comfort to 33 years of children who had grown up watching him.

Mr. Rogers was the personification of kindness and the exemplification of Jesus’ instruction to his apostles as he sent them to preach, to be: “…wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Rogers  loved and put at ease everyone he met, but was uncompromising in his beliefs and could talk anybody into anything he believed was right.

Rogers’ powers of persuasion were legendary. Mr. Clemmons, during the documentary, explained that just portraying a police officer as a black man at the time was initially out of his comfort zone, because he had grown up afraid of police. But Clemmons put on the uniform and gave good example, portraying this character for decades. Mr. Rogers could reason anyone into doing the right thing, including convincing an extremely prejudiced and skeptical Congressman Pastore out of the 20 MILLION dollars needed in 1969 to keep a fledgling Public Broadcast System afloat, by simply being reasonable. See the Youtube of Rogers' appearance before the subcommittee here.

Mr. Rogers recognized what a force for good the power of the television medium could be and how its worth was being wasted on frivolous, violent and brainless assaults on children’s senses. His mind set was to minister to children of all ages by taking their feelings and thoughts seriously, and help them cope with the normal struggles of life. He featured everyone from the profoundly physically challenged Jeffrey Erlanger to a young Wynton Marsalis to the famous Julia Child to Koko the Gorilla. Yo Yo Ma, the famous cellist, not only appeared several times on the show, but was a friend, was interviewed for the documentary, and is credited by the director, Morgan Neville, as being the inspiration for the documentary. While interviewing Mr. Ma for a different project, Mr. Neville asked Mr. Ma how he dealt with fame. Ma's response surprised him – that he learned it from Mr. Rogers who, it turned out, assured Mr. Ma that fame was not an inherently bad thing, and mentored him on the appropriate ways to use this gift.

Like Colonel Pickering, who treated even a flower girl like Elisa Doolittle as though she were a lady, Mr. Rogers treated everyone alike, to be valued as a child of God. His love for every man was carried out in his prison ministry, and his outreach to adults, Old Friends, New Friends which aired during the hiatus of his Neighborhood during 1967-8.

He was a missionary of fraternal love to mankind and The Good Samaritan to the world. I am so glad his ministry lives on in his shows, in the memories of his friends, family, co-workers and those children, now adults, who watched him and were positively influenced.  The picture of humility, his wife remembered how on his death bed he wondered if he would be accepted into Jesus' sheepfold. Known world wide, recognized and admired by celebrities, all he thought of himself was God's unworthy servant.

In this, the 50th anniversary year of his show’s debut, not only will a commemorative U.S. postage stamp featuring Fred Rogers be released, but work has begun on a biopic of the legendary minister, starring Tom Hanks, planned for release in 2019.

Jesus said the second half of the greatest law is to: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Rogers was an ordained minister, so it was obviously not a coincidence that in the world of his “Neighborhood,” Fred Rogers' declared, by word and action, daily, that he liked his fellow man, with a Christian love, just the way they were. St. Francis should be proud.

RED SPARROW – A GOOD MOVIE MOST PEOPLE SHOULD NOT SEE

SHORT TAKE:

Well written, well acted espionage movie which is unwatchable for most audience members because of the extreme nudity and violence.

WHO COULD WATCH IT:

Were this movie edited to remove some of the most graphic moments I might have a cautionary recommendation for young adults and up. As it is, I would advise only mature married couples who have a strong stomach and fairly tough sensibilities.

LONG TAKE:

Back in the day when movies would come on TV after a thorough scrubbing of content inappropriate for family viewing I might have been able to recommend you wait to see Red Sparrow when it comes on your local viewing station. Now that that is no longer a viable option I am hard pressed to advise what demographic this movie might be suitable for. It’s a shame too because it is well done. A fast paced, cohesive spy thriller with a flaw-free plot, worthy of a Mission Impossible scenario with excellent acting, good believable character and relationship developments and a pacing and editing that keep you guessing to the very end.

The problem is they show too much. I don’t mean that pedantically they talk down to the audience. I mean they SHOW — TOO — MUCH!!

The premise is that a young Russian woman, Dominika, (Jennifer Lawrence – Hunger Games and Passengers), just at the end of the Cold War is extorted, by her highly placed uncle, (Matthias Schoenaerts) into selling herself to a wealthy Russian businessman in exchange for medical assistance for her desperately ill mother (Joely Richardson – Return to Me and Liam Neeson's sister-in-law). But the job is far more than she was led to believe and at its conclusion is told she can either be considered a loose thread to cut or "volunteer" to be a "Sparrow" – a spy who learns how to elicit, through seduction, any target – as Dominika, herself, later describes it "whore school". This is where the movie begins its elevator-like descent into scenes which made me glad my husband and I went to this movie without friends or family.

Upon her "graduation" she is sent on assignment by her superiors (Jeremy Irons – Scar from Lion King, the new Batman Alfred, and Ciarán Hinds – Aberforth Dumbledore from Harry Potter and Claudius in Benedict Cumberbatch' Hamlet) to become "acquainted" with an American agent (Joel Edgerton – Bright, The Great Gatsby and The Thing). Given the nature of espionage movies one can guess that the motives of each of the many characters involved is not always what you expect and the plot will take some precipitous twists and turns – which this movie artfully does.

Red Sparrow is Kingsman without the humor or any comicbook filter, Black Widow's origin story without the PG rating, Mission Impossible with the violence ratcheted up several notches, James Bond without the gentility or leaving anything to the imagination.

There are scenes of complete frontal nudity of men and women. There is sexual, emotional, psychological and physical torture, shocking and bloody graphic violence. Not that any of it is, really, gratuitous. This, I suspect, is the nature of espionage at its basest level, especially the brutality, dehumanization and and the stripping away of individuality that defines Communist Russia. It is even likely that what the filmmakers here have shown IS filtered compared to what really goes on in the liberals' dangerously ill-informed idea of Utopia. But we, the audience, don't really need to see every — single — detail. The viewing audience does have an imagination, which, arguably could have been put to better use.

Sharks eat people. We know that. But Spielberg didn't even SHOW Bruce the shark in Jaws until way late in the movie knowing that what you do not see is often far worse than what you do. (That and the fact the mechanical shark didn't work but hey – chicken feathers into chicken salad…) The audience in Jaws did not need to see ever single bite, chew, and serrated incision the shark made on every one of its victims – though the scene with Robert Shaw was pretty grotesque and possibly the least effective because of it.

The story itself is intriguing but the episodes of violence, nudity and sexuality are enough to disturb the suspension of disbelief — and I've seen A Clockwork Orange and am a Monty Python fan!!! Screenit.com the review website which provides a detailed analysis of movies allowing parents to determine whether this movie is appropriate for their children REDLINED on every category that counts.

It doesn't happen often but this is a good movie which I just can not recommend.

THE POST – SELF-AGGRANDIZING TREASON

SHORT TAKE:

 The Post is a lionization of the treasonous leaking of government secrets by members of the media in 1971.

LONG TAKE:

There are two ways to review this movie. One to just view it AS a movie – an entertainment and consider its conveyance of a story. The other is to examine the purpose behind its creation.

You judge a comedy by how much it makes you laugh. A drama by, perhaps, how much it makes you think. You see Mel Brooks, you don’t expect a serious analysis but broadly painted parody. And Star Wars is Star Wars. BUT when a movie holds itself out as HISTORY, then it is fair to assess its authenticity, consistency, and credibility. The Post has …. NONE.

As a movie, The Post is – OK. It’s an interesting view of life during the 1970's as seen through the eyes of wealthy aristocrats and their journalist syncophants who spend their days socializing with men of power, finding ways to insult conservatives under the guise of news, and holding exorbitantly expensive parties to pat themselves on the back for being protectors of the "little people."

Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks who play Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee respectively, are accomplished actors and make their characters convincing and "nuanced," as they like to say.

But the going is very very slow in the beginning, pedantic even, as Streep's Graham stands around and does a lot of hand wringing and the writers try to set the mood and hammer the audience with 1970's references – from clothing to posters to hairstyles, "sit-ins," and street protests – dating themselves with hippies and posters of The Blob. BUT much is left out that is salient both historically and morally. The film makers positively assail us with reminders of the era. BUT for all that they do not include "inconvenient truths".

A minor example – smoking is ubiquitous but only shown to represent hard industrious work by "brave" dedicated people. For a movie promoting itself as a slice of history there is no realistic or accurate portrayal of the coughing, burn marks on furniture, the stink, the dirty ashtrays, the obnoxious breath. It’s a small detail but exemplifies the kind of disingenuousness of the entire movie.

In a VERY poor writing ploy we were are bludgeoned again and again and again with how "courageous" Katherine Graham is for planning to publish these confidential papers. If I were writing a romance and repeated over and over in the voice of no less than 4 or 5 different characters at no less than 10 times throughout the movie blatantly stating how much the protagonist was "in love," wouldn’t you not only tire of the assertion but begin to wonder if the "lady" doth protest too much? I suspect the writers knew d*** well that what Graham and Bradlee did was not courageous but perfidious, sleazy and traitorous. I wondered by the end of the movie if they were trying to convince me of the lie or themselves.

The entire film is shown as an idealistic portrayal of newspaper people bucking up against a "repressive" government. In fact, they revealed confidential information about an ongoing firefight against a hostile country in a way which ultimately encouraged the ENEMY to persevere against what was advertised globally as the weak will of the United States to win the battle.

There are many complaints about the tenacity of the Vietcong. Why SHOULDN’T they have carried on – KNOWING, thanks to our witless gutless Communist sympathizing press, that our government had concerns about America’s ability to win against them?

During World War TWO there were GRAVE doubts about either our or England’s ability to stand up to the Nazis. Does ANYONE think it would have been a good idea to ADVERTISE THAT??!!

In addition there is a disgusting pile of hypocrises and a blanket wrongness of plot and characters that are, in a quote from Hamlet – "rank…and smells to Heaven".

Just a few examples:

1. DID YOU KNOW (because it certainly wasn’t brought out in the movie) Bradlee committed perjury in 1964 to hide a document because it had "TRUTH" in it about Bradlee’s bosom buddy JFK? 

In one scene Bradlee and his then wife, Antoinette, wax nostalgic over a photo of them with Jacqueline and John Kennedy. What does not come up in the course of this movie, however, is that Bradlee was instrumental in the hiding of a diary belonging to his sister-in-law, Mary Pinchot Meyer. Her murder took place 10 days after the Warren Commission released its findings on the assassination of JFK. Meyer was murdered in a "random" act of street violence which has gone unsolved to this day. Bradlee found the diary soon after her murder, which implicated his buddy JFK in a prolonged affair with Meyer. The existence of and information in this diary was revealed years later. The prosecuting attorney, Alfred Hantman, for the only suspect they ever had – Ray Crump, a black man who had been fishing nearby – was horrified and stated that knowledge of this diary would "have changed everything". Bradlee committed perjury, LIED UNDER OATH, during the trial of the man accused of murdering his wife’s sister, about a diary which had material evidence to the case JUST TO PROTECT HIS GOVERNMENT FRIEND. He eventually admitted as much in a tell all biography years later in order to net himself more money and notoriety at the expense of our country. But he hid this relevant information during the investigation of his wife's sister's brutal murder.

So the people’s "right to know" about government scandals apparently stops at the door of anyone who is a Friend of Bradlee.

2. Bradlee and Graham committed treason during a time of hostilities with a foreign government.

He admits to his boss, Katherine Graham, that he can not be sure that revelations from the Pentagon Papers will not jeopardize the lives of soldiers in the field or our country’s safety.

Well I can guarantee you that it did. What Bradlee and Graham did was commit treason of the most heinous nature. They gave aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of open armed and hot confrontation. They assured the North Vietnamese – and BY EXTENSION the Russian Communist superpower with which we were a red button away from moving our cold war to a nuclear one – that our government was dispirited and convinced it could not win. Bradlee and Graham, as well as people of their ilk who carry on today with liberal journalism, single-handedly helped to assure our defeat at the cost of not only our soldiers lives but the lives of the citizens of Vietnam. Had Bradlee and Graham and others of their elitist inclinations sought to support our fight against Communism, Vietnam might be a democracy today and the war might have ended years before it did. Instead these high rolling socialites cozied up to the propaganda hype of the utopian society they think can be accomplished if only THEY were holding the reins of Communist power. In short, they helped Communist Russia’s puppet subjugate Vietnam under the crushing weight of Communism.

Instead of plaudits Graham and Bradlee should have been tried for treason and spent the rest of their lives in jail.

3. The movie is blatantly prejudiced against the Republican party.

The Pentagon Papers spell out that Truman covertly funded opposition to the Vietnam Communists. Eisenhower continued the support. Johnson committed troops to fight actively despite declaring he would never do this to the American public and expanded the war’s fronts. Nixon was the one who ended the war – which was what Bradlee and Graham were trumpeting needed to be done. But who gets the vast majority of opprobrium, distaste, comments and hate from these high minded "fair" journalists constantly and often gratuitously every 15 minutes of the movie? Nixon. The man who actually did what they said needed to be done.

Unless you like to be hammered with slanted inaccurate propaganda, give The Post a miss.