DGA Nominations

Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Clint Eastwood, American Sniper
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood 
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Trouble With the Curve

The opening sequence of Trouble With the Curve is of Clint Eastwood pleading with his penis, which may incite the church giggles from anyone who saw his jarring speech at the RNC this year.  This film stretches as much of the same, Clint is a crank, an old man at odds with everyone and everything.  He also reminds us, unlike at the convention, why he is an American treasure in every nook and cranny-- it's his no-nonsense demeanor that has made him such a formidable filmmaker and raise-all-hell as a performer that sparks.  Herein Robert Lorenz (an assistant director to Clint for many a moon) directs a pleasingly connect-the-dots formula film about baseball and family and casts him in a role that he can surely play in his sleep, but charms, seemingly without any effort at all.  Clint has little trouble with the curve, but the film has a bit of trouble with the familiar.  Part father\daughter melodrama, part man of a certain age yarn, part romantic comedy, and part anti-Moneyball baseball ode, Trouble With the Curve charts genre after genre and, while soft and smooth, can't quite manage to carry the weight of either, despite spirited performances and gently manufactured bits of emotional strife.

Eastwood plays Gus, a scout for the Atlanta Braves, and once a dominant force before computers and numbers, along with the pressures of his age started taking over his job.  He can hear a good swing, a good thing since his sight is going, and connect to the heart of player before he reaches first base.  He's also kind of a louse as a father; he's long suffering daughter Mickey (Amy Adams), a prominent attorney, can attest, long ago feeling abandoned when all she wanted was a front row baseball game seat with her pop.  With Gus' health a more concerning factor, Mickey reluctantly travels along with dad to scout a new, seemingly ace player, and demons from the past start to come to surface.  Adams is radiant in, again, a role that likely came fairly easy to her.  She charms and banters and bitters with Eastwood with ease, and the two of them create a nicely calibrated pitter-patter, back and forth of dig, resentment and need for acceptance that feels as organic as the dialogue does arch.  What stands in the way is both of their characters stubbornness and the scripts incessant need to keep things running past its course.  Fellow baseball connoisseur Johnny (Justin Timberlake) complicates things only in his desire to romance Mickey.

What fits like a glove is the brittle rapport between Eastwood and Adams.  What separates the film from being a bona-fide crowd-pleaser, from the middling loft down the middle piece of cheese it is is the earnest, familiar tracks from director Lorenz and first time screenwriter Randy Brown, that hone down everything in such a succinct way, that it may well have been a Lifetime movie of the week.  B-

J. Edgar

As glossy awards bait, J. Edgar seems merely impeccable what with the actorly demands of a role like it's infamous titular character.  He's a historical icon, one with a sketchy, hard-to-pin-down set of modus operandi, one with a distinctive, authoritative voice who, for better or worse (and the film offers no set conclusions on either side) was one of the most influential Americans ever.  Coyly directed by Clint Eastwood, with his typical no-frills approach and dark lighting and exhaustively scripted by Dustin Lance Black (Milk), as a feature this significant creature of history is given a dreary and dry biopic.  While Leonardo DiCaprio hems and haws his way, and fairly gracefully more often than not, through the meaty difficulties of J. Edgar Hoover, he alone can hardly save the film from the doldrums it inevitably succumbs to.  In the end of this very long, not so accomplished film, one may walk away knowing even less about the enigmatic man, the father of the FBI, than before, and the shy stance it takes on tackling one of the most cutthroat men of American politics.  Perhaps this may have been the one case where Eastwood's famous directing needed more focus, more takes, more impulse, more something...

The dithering biography begins with Hoover writing his memoirs, giving dictation and telling his stories to a cute young ghost writers (all male) all the while espousing the hype and grandeur of not only his celebrity, but of his brain child within the Bureau of Investigation, which would become the FBI.  While notions and credits are giving his way, like the very nature of criminal investigation that Hoover spear-headed, and while accomplished as it is, there's an unlikable aura and sting of social awkwardness and confusion that overcomes Hoover.  This is naturally and wonderfully projected by DiCaprio's performance, but stymied by the bullish and at-arms-length approach given by director and screenwriter.  DiCaprio is game for the ugliness, pettiness, and megalomania associated with the icon, a man who kept everyone's secrets, and was hated by many, while keeping a stern fragility all to himself.  The actor game fully goes for the awkward rumored homosexuality that battled the core of J. Edgar (Armie Hammer plays his male companion, his right arm name at the FBI, a sly and gentile man named Clyde Tolson.)  The actor, however foolishly handled, runs with the silly mother-issued subplot (Judi Dench plays his proud mum), and the even-flimsier awkward romancer at the (Naomi Watts plays Helen Gandy, his future secretary and comrade; the two first meet on an awkward date.)  The actor handles the roles with an aplomb that elevates the dreary picture, but also alienates from it as well...he's never judgmental of his J. Edgar, and seems to relish the challenge, all the while Eastwood and Black snooze on the pedigree, hoping that that is enough.

There's no passion, no fire, just an endless blithering of facts.  Some should be quite compelling...J. Edgar proved a diverting pleasure in small doses in Michael Mann's recent John Dillinger film Public Enemies, however Eastwood seems to have little finesse or control over the film, nor the audience's waning attention spans.  The distance, and non-committal approach, the lack of judgement, or simply letting the man off the hook grows tired and is frankly offensive.  If not a complete white-washing of history, there's at least a grudge to be held that Eastwood's J. Edgar is only doomed with loneliness, never once a fight of consciousness, no matter how much DiCaprio tries to texture him.  D+  

J. Edgar artwork

Can't help but be a tad nervous about this one...

J. Edgar Trailer

Changeling Trailer

The debut trailer of Clint Eastwood's latest-- looks very Oscary, and like a possible good role for Angelina Jolie. The tired music in the background distracts me however.

The Changeling a Hit at Cannes

Clint Eastwood's latest film, The Changeling is getting good notices at Cannes, which prompts buzz that finally Eastwood may get a top award this year after taking five other films to Cannes before. Also there is talk that the title may be getting changed to "The Exchange."

Todd McCarthy of Variety states,

"A thematic companion piece to Mystic River but more complex and far-reaching, The Changeling impressively continues Clint Eastwood's great run of ambitious late-career pictures. Emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed, this true story-inspired drama begins small with the disappearance of a young boy, only to gradually fan out to become a comprehensive critique of the entire power structure of Los Angeles, circa 1928. Graced by a top-notch performance from Angelina Jolie the Univesal looks poised to do some serious business upon tentatively scheduled opening late in the year."


Cinematical says:

"Clint Eastwood's The Changeling (which may or may not be now known as The Exchange), is a riveting drama about a missing boy and the undying constancy of a mother's love. Angelina Jolie excels in a powerful performance as Christine Collins, whose nine-year-old son, Walter, disappeared in 1928. Five months later, police returned to her a boy they said was Walter; Christine alleged that the boy was not her son."

And also from Time.

Will all the good notice take note next Feburary at the Kodak Theater.