Truth and Memory

My friend Todd and I were talking about knowledge and opinion the other night, and he brought up a line from a song by an artist we both admire, Paul McCartney. It was “Early Days” from his latest album “New,” an autobiographical sentiment which seems to harken back to McCartney’s days with The Beatles. He sings:

Now everybody seems to have their own opinion
Of Who did this and who did that
But as for me I don't see how they can remember
When they weren't where it was at

I like this, but I disagree with it in part.

We’ve probably all reminisced about something with the people who were there, only to hear them tell completely different stories of the same event. I know I’ve experienced this many times. I’ll recount a childhood memory with my mother and she’ll remember something else, different facts, different bits of information.

Who’s right?

All of us.

Journalists and writers know that the subjects of their biographies are not the most reliable witnesses.

The way we see the world, what shapes our memories of ourselves, is often viewed through rose-colored glasses. Even when not flattering, our memories of ourselves are often imprecise.

Why?

I think our emotional memories are stronger than our factual memories. We have vivid and precise memories of how we felt and reacted, but we often get the facts wrong.

Who are we if not our emotional realities?

Biographers can research and improve upon facts, but they often fall short of DEFINING their subjects, of knowing and understanding them, of giving us a sense of who they were and why they did what they did.

I think two things. I think biographers, when they’re qualified, can tell more accurate stories of their subjects than their subjects can. But I also believe only the subjects can give us accurate depictions of who they are.

Related to that, I see most of life as imprecise, having few absolutes. I think we need to accept and embrace the grayness. They say the best actors are those who live in the moments apart from their rehearsed expectations. That makes sense to me.

I don’t know if this relates much to the conversation Todd and I had, but it got me wondering about what truth, knowledge and reality are.

Calvary

Last night Melanie and I saw the movie "Calvary" as a selection of the New York Times Film Club. It stars the always engaging Brendan Gleeson as a priest in a small Irish town.

The story line deals with a man who becomes a priest after losing his wife. During confession one Sunday, someone we never see threatens to kill the priest the following Sunday. As the days tick off, we meet the strange characters who make up the parish and the community, and the initial comedy of their outrageous and unfiltered eccentricities soon gives way to a feeling of doom and hopelessness. It's a great who-done-it - or who's-going-to-do-it - and refreshingly original. The unexpected ending is a bit of a head-scratcher, but in a good way, in a way that makes you consider everything that comes before as you form a more complete understanding of the film. It's fascinating and thought-provoking and I'll probably see it again at some point.

I wanted to read reviews afterwards to see if I could get a better handle on it. Here's one from January written after the movie played Sundance. It's a brilliant review by Justin Chang and there's nothing more I could add to it. Enjoy.

-----

Film Review: "Calvary" by Justin Chang, Chief Film Critic for Variety

Writer-director John Michael McDonagh and actor Brendan Gleeson made a big international splash with 2011’s “The Guard,” a terrifically entertaining action-comedy that offered little indication of the depths of humor, compassion, despair and grace they would achieve in their masterful follow-up, “Calvary.” Grounded by a performance of monumental soul from Gleeson as a tough-minded Irish priest marked for death by one of his parishioners, the film offers a mordantly funny survey of small-town iniquity that morphs, almost imperceptibly, into a deeply felt lament for a fallen world. A completely sincere work about the persistence of faith and the Catholic Church’s soul-shattering legacy of abuse, this literate, beautifully crafted picture should translate near-certain critical plaudits into a distinguished arthouse reception worldwide.

Given the B.O. receipts and Oscar nominations racked up by Stephen Frears’ anti-clerical dramedy “Philomena,” it will be intriguing to see how McDonagh’s less ingratiating but vastly more accomplished picture plays with audiences in Ireland and beyond. The director has described his second feature as “basically Bresson’s ‘Diary of a Country Priest’ with a few gags thrown in,” a description that for all its absurdity nails the essence of this caustic yet contemplative film: Leisurely paced, unapologetically talky and overtly concerned with matters of spiritual import, “Calvary” may not achieve the record-breaking success of “The Guard” (still the most successful Irish indie of all time). But for sustained maturity and tonal mastery, it upstages not only McDonagh’s debut but also his brother Martin’s comic thrillers “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths,” all while retaining the pungent fatalism and bleak humor that run so indelibly through both filmmakers’ work.

“I first tasted semen when I was 7 years old,” an unseen man tells an unnamed priest (Gleeson) in the dark shadows of the confessional. He goes on to explain that he was repeatedly raped by a priest over the course of five years, a crime for which he will exact retribution in the most irrational and unexpected way imaginable. “There’s no point in killing a bad priest,” he says. “I’m going to kill you because you’re innocent.” He sets their fateful next appointment for the next Sunday, exactly one week later, leaving our anxious hero of the cloth to determine which member of his flock is planning to murder him.

What follows is an existential detective story of sorts, or perhaps an Agatha Christie whodunit by way of Hitchcock’s “I Confess,” in which the priest goes about his coastal village, tending to his flock while a seven-day clock ticks quietly away in the background. What he finds is a community steeped in anger, disappointment and, despite their continued presence at mass, a near-total indifference to the notion that faith, repentance and good works have any real meaning.

There’s a butcher (Chris O’Dowd) who is initially suspected of beating his town-slut wife (Orla O’Rourke), until he explains that she probably sustained her injuries at the hands of her Ivorian-immigrant lover (Isaach De Bankole). There’s also a vaguely sinister police inspector (Gary Lydon, reprising his role from “The Guard”) whom the priest interrupts mid-tryst with a saucy male prostitute (Owen Sharpe); a doctor (Aidan Gillen) who makes no secret of his violently atheist views; an extravagantly wealthy man (Dylan Moran) whose riches have failed to bring him any lasting happiness; a sex-starved young man (Killian Scott) considering joining the army in order to vent his violent impulses; and an aging American writer (M. Emmet Walsh) determined to end life on his own terms.

All these villagers are introduced, one after another, in a series of sharply written, compellingly acted and increasingly pointed moral discussions, during which the priest will offer his counsel while scanning for clues as to who the would-be killer might be. But the richest insights here are those we glean into the character of the grizzled clergyman himself, a widower and a father, a dog lover, a recovering alcoholic, and an unusually pragmatic, erudite soul (“You’re too sharp for this parish,” one villager notes) whose every nugget of hard-headed wisdom resonates with bitter life knowledge.

It’s a role that one cannot imagine in the hands of anyone other than Gleeson, who has never seemed less capable of hitting a false or inauthentic note. Despite the actor’s deliberately constricted range here, moments of gruffness, exasperation, resignation and quietly choked-back emotion all manage to register, fleetingly yet indelibly, in the those magnificently weathered features. This virtuous protagonist couldn’t be more different on paper from the surly, sozzled cop he played in “The Guard,” yet Gleeson roots both characters in the same bone-deep integrity, and the same fearless determination to follow their sense of duty to the unforeseeable end.

It’s not clear at exactly what point the film has made its shift from foul-mouthed village comedy to quietly devastating passion play; certainly the transition feels complete by the time the priest pays a visit to an imprisoned rapist-murderer-cannibal (played, in a particularly perverse casting choice, by Gleeson’s son Domhnall). Amid all the accumulated waste and despair, two scenes stand out for their extraordinary tenderness: a beachside reckoning between the priest and his troubled daughter (a superb Kelly Reilly), and a thoughtful conversation with a woman (Marie-Josee Croze) who has lost her husband but not her faith. Hope, it seems, has not been completely extinguished. And yet, as it follows the priest on the lonely walk to his own personal Golgotha (the seven days of his journey conjuring any number of biblical allusions), “Calvary” makes clear, with utter conviction, that the Church’s incalculable abuses have exacted and will continue to exact a terrible human price.

Putting aside the stylistic bravura of “The Guard,” McDonagh and his collaborators have delivered a technically immaculate work that feels appropriately austere by comparison. D.p. Larry Smith’s widescreen compositions are framed with unfussy precision; as stunning as the rugged landscapes are to behold, particularly the shots of waves breaking against cliffs (the production shot on the east and west coasts), the lighting and color balancing of the interior shots are no less exquisite. Patrick Cassidy’s melancholy score is summoned at just the right moments.

For the record, the press notes mention that “The Guard” and “Calvary” are the first two installments of a trilogy that will conclude with a film titled “The Lame Shall Enter First.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary_(film)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Melanie and I saw “Dawn of the Plant of the Apes” at the gorgeous Ziegfeld Theater on 54th between 6th & 7th in Manhattan last Thursday. Our friends Joyce and Todd joined us for what turned out to be a mostly disappointing movie.

Todd and I discussed this at length later and we agreed on a few things about why the movie wasn’t better.

First, you have to fault the writing. The first “Planet of the Apes” film from 1968 is a classic because of the imaginative source material (the novel “La Planète des singes” by Pierre Boulle was first published in France in 1963 and later translated into English as “Planet of the Apes”). That screenplay is attributed to Michael Wilson and Rod Serling. Wikipedia says this about the script:

One script that came close to being made was written by The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, though it was finally rejected for a number of reasons. A prime concern was cost, as the technologically advanced ape society portrayed by Serling's script would have involved expensive sets, props and special effects. The previously blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson was brought in to rewrite Serling's script and, as suggested by director Franklin J. Schaffner, the ape society was made more primitive as a way of reducing costs. Serling's stylized twist ending was retained, and became one of the most famous movie endings of all time.

I saw “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” from 2011 and didn’t think much of it; it’s a silly, light, popcorn movie with decent special effects. “Dawn of the Plant of the Apes,” while a bit more ambitious, is not much better. It tries for the Big Statement but executes it bluntly and poorly, hitting you over the head like a high school literature teacher with the idea that though societies might be different from each other, we should all try to get along. The dialogue is embarrassingly flat at times and though the cast is very good, they don’t have a lot to work with.

What sells this movie – to the tune of $172 million in ticket sales so far – is the special effects. I’ve never seen CGI creatures done this convincingly before. Andy Serkis, who was the body-double for Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, again serves as a motion capture model, here for the character of Ceaser the ape leader. It’s interesting how he gets an acting credit, blurring the distinction between an actor with makeup and something created with special effects. The movements are his, but you’re not really watching him, you’re watching a digital creation which is rendered on top of him. But however you define Ceasar, it’s a groundbreaking achievement. The character is fluid and convincing and appears to genuinely interact with the actors in the frame. I imagine Serkis stood with the actors during the shooting, so they did have someone to engage with. What’s especially impressive are the subtle facial movements and expressions, not stiff like those in the ape makeup in the 60s and 70s, but not overly exaggerated either, which would break the reality of how ape faces move. I also like the cast, especially Jason Clarke who you might remember from “Zero Dark Thirty,” or the good but short-lived TV series “The Chicago Code” from 2011. I liked seeing Keri Russell too, and I love seeing Gary Oldman in pretty much everything. But as I said, they’re underused here.

The movie itself, the story, is lame. The premise is, a virus has wiped out most of the human population while apes have become intelligent as a result of genetic modification. In the beginning we see the apes talking to each other in sign language, and when they encounter humans (as you know they must), we learn they can talk too in an animal, guttural way. Later in the movie they drop in and out of spoken communication with each other for no apparent reason, even when people aren’t around. The movie establishes this isn’t their preferred or natural form of communication, so by shifting gears the film doesn’t follow its own logic. A movie might be absurd, but if it obeys its own reality, you might go along with it. This one doesn’t do that.

In the 2011 film the apes gain intelligence from a gas called ALZ-113. Many are exposed to the gas, but I don’t remember their number being very high (though I could be wrong, it’s been a while since I saw it and I didn’t like it much). In this new movie, it seems hundreds of apes are now intelligent. Since the Ceaser character isn’t much older than he was in the first film, it can’t be that all these new intelligent monkeys have been born since the first film, so where did they all come from?

There’s a village of apes living in the woods on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge and there’s a small group of humans in San Franciso, but miraculously the apes and humans know nothing of each other’s existence. We learn the people are running out of fuel, meaning they have some, so why don’t the apes see their lights at night?

The main goal in the film is the people need to get a damn working again to generate power, but of course it’s in the ape village. They need the power so they can use their radio to search for other pockets of civilization, but wouldn’t they have been doing that already with the fuel they had? The script is attributed to three people, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Mark Bomback. Maybe there were too many voices?

I’m not the audience for big Hollywood blockbusters. Even when I was a teenager I preferred character-driven, human dramas to big, loud, expensive, cartoony movies (though there are exceptions). After reading interesting things about “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” I’d hoped it would improve upon the previous movie; it doesn’t.

Along the way the movie does a LOT of explaining of EVERYTHING that’s happening. There’s not much subtlety here, and not a lot to involve you emotionally. The characters are two-dimensional and oddly less realistic than the CGI monkeys. Each side has a villain and in both cases you wonder why the group puts up with them. When a small band of rogue apes tries to attack the people – at least we’re led to believe it’s a small band - they suddenly become an endless army of fighters with rifles that never need reloading.

And, as my friend Joyce wondered afterwards, why don’t the monkeys have any butts? Where are their butts? They certainly have them in zoos!

The movie plays like a cartoon, and not a very good one. Yes, apes riding horses is kind of cool, but it’s also kind of silly looking too. But if you like fighting and explosions and great special effects, I guess this movie is for you; apparently, that includes a lot of people.

It’s not all bad, there are interesting things about it. In addition to the great special effects, I like how an attempt is made to make any kind of statement beneath the surface, however clumsily. It does do a good job of showing how things can be misunderstood between groups that don’t trust each other. And I like how the ending leaves things open, clearly with a sequel in mind, but also not needing to explain and resolve every last thing.

So far this year, my favorite movie might be Jon Favreau’s “Chef” with John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Sofía Vergara, Oliver Platt, and small but effect turns by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr. It’s a great movie that opened on May 9th and has earned to date a staggering… $27.3 million. Oh well…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_of_the_Planet_of_the_Apes

And So It Goes

Everyone knows hookers and curmudgeons in movies end up having hearts of gold. Because we know this, there’s never any surprise when it happens. The one exception I can think of is Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa." In the beginning he's a pig and in the end he's a pig; it’s delightfully refreshing.

Melanie and I saw the new movie “And So It Goes” last night as part of the New York Times Film Club. It stars Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton and is directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Mark Andrus who wrote the modern classic “As Good As It Gets.” It opens Friday 7/25.

“And So It Goes” shows the budding relationship between Oren Little (Michael Douglas) and his neighbor Leah (Diane Keaton) (a character who doesn’t seem to deserve a last name) who are neighbors in an idyllic Connecticut town. Oren Little is a widower and soon-to-retire real estate agent selling his home of many years while living in one of his rental properties, a quaint, four-family lakeside house. Leah, an apparently retired widow, fills her time singing in a small town bar and occasionally sparring with Little.

Little is a curmudgeonly, apparently friendless heel, disliked by most and only tolerated (barely) by his colleagues. He has an estranged son and a granddaughter he’s never met. The son appears, after ten years, on the cusp of going to jail (nine months, six with good behavior). With no one to look after his daughter - we learn the mother is MIA and of low moral character – the son thrusts her upon Little. Little is no one’s idea of a loving grandfather and Leah quickly becomes involved and helps care for the nine (almost ten)-year-old girl.

The plot is largely predictable and old-fashioned in a not unpleasant way. It’s obvious from the start Little will have some kind of transformation and become a more likeable character, and we know a relationship will grow between Little and Leah. Is anyone surprised Little is attracted to Leah? She acts and looks just like Diane Keaton.

The movie has small-town charm and some nice interplay between the stars and other actors. It gets off to a bit of a self-conscious start and I couldn’t help examining it and studying the production more than being involved in the story. Things improve as the movie plays out.

Michael Douglas looks considerably older here. He was most recently seen in last year’s “Behind the Candelabra” on HBO as Liberace in a surprising and brilliant performance – he won both Golden Globe and SAG awards - and looked healthier and more vital. He doesn’t look bad here, just older and frailer. Recently Douglas has battled tongue cancer and the reports are he’s recovered, but he frequently slurs his lines and it makes him sound either drunk or a little feeble.

Diane Keaton is a pleasure as always, fresh and spontaneous with that quirkiness she does so well. Her character is a delight. She’s not the center of the movie, but is well developed and we see several sides of her. I like how much singing she does, there are several scenes of her performing in local clubs. She did a great rendition of “Seems Like Old Times” way back in “Annie Hall” so I knew she had chops. Nice to see her using them again. Her voice is soft and breathy and vulnerable above the bare musical accompaniments.

The movie has effective humor and a good amount of charm and it is enjoyable, but it’s predictable and derivative of a lot of movies you’ve seen. Not much is new here, and though that’s not always a bad thing, there’s not a lot to make this one stand out.

Rob Reiner hasn’t had many successes lately, disappointing for a man who began his directing career so strongly with movies like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally...,” and “A Few Good Men.” His only recent film I think I’ve seen is the only-OK “The Bucket List.” (Then again, how bad can a movie be starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson?) “And So It Goes” isn’t bad, but it probably won’t resurrect Reiner’s directing career.

I do like many things about the film, and Sterling Jerins is good as the granddaughter. It’s also refreshing to see a romantic comedy with two older leads who play off each other well. But the film is light and insubstantial; not bad, but I’m not sure it has enough for people to grab onto. It’s a little Hallmarky and schmaltzy - a little, not a lot - but I’m not sure you could remove that without making a completely different movie. I guess I was hoping for more from Rob Reiner and the writer of “As Good As It Gets.” I did enjoy it, but I’d probably only give it two or two-and-a-half out of four stars.

"Snowpiercer" and "Edge of Tomorrow"

I saw two movies yesterday, “Snowpiercer” and “Edge of Tomorrow” which I snuck into after the first movie was over. This was at the AMC 25 on 42nd Street, so named because it has 25 theaters on four levels. Once you get in for your movie, you’re free to ride the escalators up and down checking out the other floors and theaters. After “Snowpiercer” let out, I hit the men’s room, then looked for another interesting movie I could quietly slip into. The cleaning crew waited outside the “Snowpiercer” theater while the credits played and I didn’t want them to see me sneak into a nearby theater, so I turned into the lobby and ducked into theater 25 without looking to see what was playing or when it started. Turns out I walked in just as the trailers were showing, talk about great timing! And the movie ended up being “Edge of Tomorrow,” the new Tom Cruise Sci-Fi movie.

First, “Snowpiercer.” “Snowpiercer” is a South Korean movie (in English so it’s a joint production) set in a world frozen over after a chemical was dumped into the atmosphere to stop global warming (don’t you hate it when that happens?). The few remaining people travel the globe non-stop in a train separated by class into the rear (the wretched) and the front (the privileged). It’s a stupid idea and I’d normally give it a pass, but it got a good review on the Ebert site so I thought I’d check it out. Very silly. Fun and entertaining, but beyond preposterous. You really have to give up and just go with this one if you want to get anything out of it. Fortunately, it ends up being a fun watch. It somehow managed to get a fantastic cast with Chris Evans (Captain America), Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, and Ed Harris. There are good action sequences in the confined spaces of the train, and I give the movie marks for originality. It’s goofy and ridiculous and an enjoyable, over-the-top two hours.

“Edge of Tomorrow” was pretty good. Being a Tom Cruise movie, it’s made well with convincing special effects, a tight, fast-paced story, and solid performances. Cruise is surprisingly good in this one. He rarely gives performances of much depth, but here he plays a character who struggles and grows as he accepts his fate and rises above it. The story is about how the Cruise character Major William Cage is forced to fight on the front lines as a Private against aliens who invaded the earth some time earlier. On his first mission he’s killed by an alien who oozes some kind of acid all over him, and suddenly Cage wakes up and it’s the day before all over again. He keeps getting killed and coming back, and during the movie you find out why this is happening. I love time-travel movies and this is a good one. I don’t think the movie is the blockbuster the studio was probably hoping for (IMDb has it earning 90 million after four weeks with a budget of 178 million) and that’s too bad because it deserves to do better. It’s entertaining, action-packed, and smart. Of all the movies to wander into, I picked a good one.

So not a bad day at the movies. I’d taken Friday off from work because I had some friends over Thursday night and didn’t want to worry about going in if I stayed up too late. Our cleaning lady came that afternoon so to stay out of her way, I went to the movies. There’s something deliciously decadent about taking a day off from work and going to the movies.

So I’d give “Snowpiercer” 2.5 out of four stars because I think it accomplishes what it sets out to be and it is fun, and I’d give “Edge of Tomorrow” 3.5 out of four.