Tag Archives: Biography

Oct 25 2013
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Reviews

“12 YEARS A SLAVE” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Over a decade of injustice and cruelty.

12 Years A Slave is quite possibly the best film of the year.

It is also the most disturbing.

Based off the 1853 autobiography of the same name, 12 Years A Slave follows the true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man who lives with his family and plays the violin in Saratoga, New York.

One evening, he becomes acquainted with two young gentlemen who claim to be circus performers looking to hire him for a one-night gig. When he wakes up the next morning, he is in chains, and realizes that he was drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery by his captors. During his years as a slave, Northup goes from one owner to the next, from a kindhearted owner named William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) to a cruel, racist and mean-spirited pig named Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), who presents the greatest trials he must face if he is ever to survive.

12 Years A Slave is a film that not only lives up to all of its built-up hype and expectations: in many ways, it exceeds them.

Its quality as a work of art is so striking and powerful that it can be compared to other historical tragedies, including The Pianistand Schindler’s List.

Director Steve McQueen, who made the morally reprehensible and eerily bleak film Shame back in 2011, redeems himself here as a filmmaker. McQueen, in collaboration with cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, is not only masterful with framing his articulate, beautiful shots with 12 Years A Slave, but also brilliant with orchestrating scenes between his actors, showing us the bleak realism and truth of the slavery years in America.

Ejiofor, who portrays Northup in 12 Years A Slave is endlessly captivating. In moments where you think he might just be phoning it in, or just going along with the motions, he surprises you and releases an emotional intensity in ways no other actor has this year, not even Forest Whitaker in Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Newcomer Lupita Nyong’o plays a young female slave in this movie so passionately that you forget she’s an actress and slip into her character’s tragedy as a human being more than you do as a movie character.

Most noticeable perhaps is Michael Fassbender as Edwin Epps, who is so hateful and so spiteful in this role that all of the audience’s energy, anger and frustration is focused on him and his sadistic acts. Fassbender was brilliant in his portrayal, and I sincerely hope that he at least gets an Academy Award nomination for his performance.

Every other aspect of this film can be praised endlessly. The script by John Ridley, who wrote Three Kings in 1999, was endlessly emotional and captivating. The score by Hans Zimmer was quiet, humble and breathtakingly beautiful, encompassing both the truth and tragedy of Northup’s heartbreaking story.

However, let there be a strong word of caution: 12 Years A Slave will elicit violent reactions from its audiences. You will laugh. You will weep. You will grind your teeth in anger and frustration, maddened by the many years of cruelty, prejudice and barbarism that no human being should ever have to experience. But it compels you to care for the character, to reach deep down in your heart to feel what he is feeling, to experience compassion and sympathy in ways almost no other film can do, not even with Schindler’s List. 

And let this be a testament to the film’s quality: at the end of the showing, there was a white man who could be heard weeping in the back of the theater. In between his hiccups, tears and hysterical reactions, he turned toward the black viewer sitting next to him, shook her hand and after introducing himself said to her, “I’m so sorry for what my race did to your ancestors.”

That man felt a powerful feeling of guilt and shame for the things that he saw in 12 Years A Slave.

That man was me.

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Sep 27 2013
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Reviews

“RUSH” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Don’t think.  Don’t pause.  Just drive.  

I couldn’t have thought of a better title for the movie Rush, because that’s exactly what it is: an unstoppable and uncontrollable rush of energy, excitement, and gravitas, a movie that starts on a high note and simply refuses to let up all the way through.  I hear a lot of complaints that there are biographical movies that are more concerned with cashing in on people’s legacies rather than making an authentic account of a person’s true story, such as Jobs or The Iron Lady.  Here is a break from all of that, a refreshing and ideal account of two racers who live every moment of their life trying to figure out how to beat the other guy, while understanding that their symbiotic relationship is what made them both great racers in the first place.

Focusing on the 1976 Formula One Grand Prix season, Rush follows the story of two different racers, both with polar opposite personalities and complexions.  James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) is a hard-headed racer who races with passion instead of brains, and a playboy who drinks a lot, smokes a lot, and sleeps with beautiful women, a lot.  Nicki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) is a intelligent, smart, and crafty german who is just as focused and analytical as he is rude and ignorant. The film chronicles the contempt they feel for each other and the mutual respect that makes them strive to be better than the other man.

Before you go and see this picture, I encourage you to go online and google the names “James Hunt” and “Nicki Lauda” and look at their images.  Got it?  Okay, now that you’ve done that, go and watch the movie.

If you actually took the time to open up another tab and look at the images, you will be just as shocked as I was.  Comparing the sight of Lauda and Hunt with that of Bruhl and Hemsworth isn’t comparing them at all: they look exactly like the same characters, from the red jackets around their back to the color and hairstyles that we see on their heads.

I love it when movies do this: when movies are so accurate to the real-life figures that they copy their appearance so accurately, it is nearly impossible to differentiate from them.  We’ve seen this from The Fighter in 2009, and recently from Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln.

Here is yet another example of a movie that is compelled by truth and driven by accuracy, pun intended.  Rush is exhilarating.  Exciting.  Edgy.  Anticipative.  Emotional.  True.  Everything about this movie is a heart-pounding, sweat-pouring adventure, and what’s truly impressive is not that the movie makes us feel this way: its the fact that it really happened, and that really director Ron Howard is just documenting it rather than retelling it.

One of the highlights in the film are easily its lead actors.  Not only do Hemsworth and Bruhl look exactly like the people they are portraying: they act like them too, with their rivalry and their edginess apparent in every fraction of a scene.  Sometimes their clashes are funny, like the dialogue bits between Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network, while at other times its strikingly serious like the James Braddock/Max Baer rivalry in Cinderella Man.  Whatever the situations, these actors do well at remaining in tense situations and they never, ever break their character.  Hemsworth is energetic, lively, and egotistical as Hunt, a man whose only loves are beautiful women and racing.  Bruhl is equally as egotistical, but he’s got a sly smartness about him you can’t help but appreciate.  There’s one great scene where Hunt calls Lauda a rat and he responds by saying “You think I’m hurt that you call me a rat, Hunt?  Rats are ugly, but they are smart.  Intelligent.  I am proud of that.”

The film doesn’t slow down at their performances, however, and filmmaker Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) and screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) are quick to follow up on the pace of these two fine actors.  The guys who made Fast And Furious could take a hint or two from this movie. Morgan and Howard not only succeed in making the movie exciting and suspenseful through key moments in races, press conferences and private, vulnerable moments when these racers are all by their lonesomes: they’ve managed to make it gripping and relevant, a grounded drama thats equal parts and insightful into these two men’s lives that we feel like we’re witnessing their story upfront in the pit, not viewing it from far away on the sidelines.

Oh, I could go on all day praising this film and how all the elements culminate into a near masterpiece.  The soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is tense, unsettling, and noble, defining these men’s relationship just as well as the movie does.  The editing is tight, crisp, and clean at the hands of collaborators Daniel Hanley and Mike Hill.  For Pete’s sake, even the cinematography by Anthony Mantle was so good at capturing emotions and details so intimate, Howard would probably have missed some of them if Mantle wasn’t there to point them out.

Bottom line: Rush is entirely, unforgettably awesome.  It’s a strong and powerful tale about two passionate racers who knew what they were after and were willing to sacrifice whatever they could to go after it.  We see why they want to beat each other.  We understand who they are and why they are racing.  We know what makes them tick and we want to see them make it through every pulsating moment of the film in order to accomplish their dreams.  Trust me, you’re going to want to sit in on this race.  Oh, and bring your seatbelt.  You’re going to need it.

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Sep 23 2013
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Reviews

“THE BUTLER” Review (✫✫✫✫)

A humble heart living through harsh times.  

When we watch movies like The Butler, we are reminded of our history and why we must never return to the horrible origins that we came from.  When I say that, I am saying that regardless of race.  The film is obviously centered around the issues of slavery, segregation, and racism, and asks us to feel sympathy towards the African population for all of the horrible things they’ve been through.  But the movie evokes a more powerful emotion from me personally, a deep sense of regret and shame that my own race, the Caucasians, were at one point responsible for all of the death and cruelty we inflicted upon our own African brothers.  And why?  Because they have a different pigment than us?  That’s the sort of hate and bias that lead us to World War II when Adolph Hitler led the Third Reich against the Jews.

Based on the career of real-life butler Eugene Allen, The Butler follows the story of Cecil Gaines, a black butler who grew up during the slave era, growed up learning how to be a white man’s servant, got a job at the White House, and continued to serve there for almost 35 years. Throughout his career he witnesses history unfold in itself, from President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s (Robin Williams) decision to enforce desegregation laws in Arkansas, to witnessing the assassination of John F. Kennedy (James Mardesen), to seeing the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers, to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., to the eventual inauguration of Illinois Senator Barack Obama into office.

The Butler is an earnest, humble film, parts approachable and observant yet equally ambitious and honest. Like movies such as Ghandi, The Hurricane, and The Shawshank Redemption, this is a movie that looks into the reality of situations and shows them exactly how they were, no matter how tragic or heartbreaking those circumstances were.

Take, for example, the scene where the Ku Klux Klan is introduced.  During his college years, Cecil’s son Louis (wonderfully portrayed by David Oyelowo), was on a bus to protest against a racist Alabama.  While on their way, their bus stops suddenly as they stare at the white-robed, torch-bearing Klan staring at them with their hateful eyes.  Equal parts petrified and terrified, the protestors desperately tried to escape before the Klan started igniting the bus with fire and molotovs.

I sat there watching these scene, equally infuriated and enraged as I was emotional and mournful.  How could this be our country?  How could this have once been our land, our people who so hypocritically claimed to be the land of the brave and home of the free?

To watch these scenes and to incur such an emotion takes great skill and courage, and I think Lee Daniels does a great job orchestrating these scenes in ways that makes them so emotional and powerful.  Daniels, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for Precious took quite a fall last year when he made Paperboy, a idyllic, preposterous, and morally reprehensible film that was anything except relevant, coherent, and well, good.  Here Daniels redeems himself, and leads a star-studded cast through such a gripping, overwhelming story that I think it surpasses his accomplishes even with 2009’s Precious.

Oh yes, the cast.  The cast is what makes this picture, but you already know that if you take the time to simply read the cast list.  Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan.  Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan.  John Cusack as Richard Nixon.  Liev Schriber as Lyndon B. Johnson.  Minka Kelly as Jackie Kennedy.  John Mardesen as JFK.  Robin Williams as Dwight Eisenhower.  Alex Pettyfr as a plantation owner.  Terrence Howard as Cecil’s neighbor.  Cuba Gooding Jr. as a head butler.  For Pete’s sake, Mariah Carrey is in the film as Cecil’s mother and she doesn’t even say a line of dialogue.

The best performances, however, are the lead ones by Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey.  Whitaker, who won the academy award for The Last King Of Scotland in 2006, steals the show in every single scene he’s in, showing the still portrait of a man who is tired, weary, and emotionally strained, a man who has seen endless ages of wrongful suffering but can do little to change it because he’s worrying about himself and his family.  Winfrey is equally as striking as his wife Gloria, a woman who is also hurting and in deep suffering because of her situation and because of a drinking problem she has long struggled with.  Both of these characters are central and integral to the plot and to the progression of the story, and at many times, they’re the only ones carrying the movie through as a whole.

The Butler is one of the best films of the year.  Period.  I know there’s a lot of movies about African-American history being released later on this year (Such as Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom and 12 Years A Slave), but there’s no denying the power, drama, or the history the movie so brilliantly provides us.  Yes, there are some inaccuracies to the butler’s real-life story (Starting with his name, with the real name being Eugene Allen), but the fact that it is loosely told is the best asset Daniels has towards his narrative. Since the figure is so little-known in today’s world, it allows Daniels to let loose and tell the story that he wants to tell, not the story that he’s committed to tell.  This is a movie that shows the history of a great man and a humble servant who was simply trying to support his family and to get through the days of wrongful judgement and discrimination.

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Aug 09 2013
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Reviews

“42” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Thanks, Jackie, for showing us white folks how its done.

You’re not watching a movie when you watch 42, you’re watching a legacy.  You’re watching one man’s story as he started from the bottom, as a black baseball player living during the accursed segregation era of our country, who is suddenly called to greatness and is demanded to be a bigger and better person than he thinks that he is.  It isn’t entertainment as much as it is a retelling of one man’s life, and everything he had to go through during the turmoil and cruelty of the 1940’s.

This man, of course, is Jackie Robinson, the black man who did to baseball what Rosa Parks did to buses.  Portrayed here by newcomer Chadwick Boseman, the movie starts off showing the beginning of  Robinson’s career with the Kansas City Monarchs, a primarily black baseball team who gets treated the same way at a gas station in the way a homeless man would be.  Robinson doesn’t stand for it, but it doesn’t matter: he is soon recruited by a man in a black van asking him to come with him to meet with baseball executive Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), who wants to be the first man in American history to recruit the first African-American ballplayer onto the Brooklyn Dodgers.

His assistants are baffled.  “A black baseball player on a white baseball team”?  What are his reasonings?  Rickey makes multiple excuses, from the financial benefits to simply being different.  It isn’t until later in the film where a much deeper reasoning is found in Rickey’s baseball history, though I dare not spoil it just for the sake of you being able to experience it yourself.

Eventually, Robinson has his meeting with Rickey, and he’s surprised when Rickey tells him that he wants to recruit him on the Brooklyn Dodgers.  There’s only one condition Rickey has for Robinson: he wants him to control his fiery hot tempter when white players act out unfairly against him.

“I don’t want a man who has the guts to fight”, said Rickey.  “I want a man who has the guts not to fight”.

There are two things that make this movie stand out from the typical baseball-biography picture: the director, Brian Helgeland, and its lead, Chadwick Boseman.  Boseman, who is mostly a no-name actor, dives headfirst into his character, and inhabits the role so well that it is impossible to think of anyone else replacing him.  You just need to see this guy in action: the way Boseman puts himself out there is just like how Robinson would have played on the field, from digging his hands in the dirt to firm his grip, to stealing second, third, and home bases like he was taking candy from children.  It’s especially funny watching him getting ready to steal bases: he jogs his legs together and shoots a look at players with a face that says “Come at me bro” to which pitchers get obviously frustrated at him.  Jamie Foxx couldn’t have done better than Boseman did.

But its just not the movements, the pitches, and the home-run hits Boseman delivers that makes him a convincing actor: his expressions are flawless, his dialogue delivery spot-on, and his performance so affectionate, with his every spoken line coming across truthfully and genuinely from the heart.  I could name multiple scenes in the movie, on the field and off, that genuinely touched me.  Perhaps the most memorable with Boseman was when he was out on the field ready to bat when a baseball manager starting shouting racial expletives at him.  I’m not even kidding: if every other word he was shouting wasn’t a profanity, it was the N-word.

This scene was powerful, frustrating, and maddening all at once, and we could feel our anger channel through Boseman when he had to hold his tongue, when he had to walk off the field, and when he screamed in the locker room, breaking his bat against the walls in furious anger.

Oh yes, many emotions were felt in this movie, and writer-director Brian Helgeland does a great job at expressing all of them.  Surprising, I think, that the same man who wrote and directed the tonally inconsistent A Knight’s Tale was able to make a movie this sincere and heartfelt.  I’m being unfair though: I forgot that Helgeland also wrote the screenplays behind movies such as L.A. Confidential and Mystic River, and here he brings that same sense of grounded realism from those pictures into this one.  Throughout the course of the picture, Jackie Robinson grows as a person and as a player, and so do the people around him.  Relationships become bigger.  Bonds become stronger.  Intimate details are revealed through each character to Jackie, and through his stressful, agonizing, and roller-coaster emotion journey Jackie becomes the hero that nobody expected him to be: not even himself.

If a weakness exists, I’ll admit that 42 is straightforward storytelling, with little room for originality or surprises.  That’s only because we already know the history though.  What 42 lacks in innovation, it makes up for in emotion, in gripping and well-written storytelling with a great cast compelling us through it, with especially one of the performances being completely unexpected.  The best moment of the picture comes after Jackie grows closer to one of the players, the player encourage to not feel fear when openly associating himself with a black man.  As they run back out to their respective places in the field,  the player calls out to him: “Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear the number 42.  That way they won’t tell us apart”.

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May 28 2013
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“ARGO” Review (✫✫✫✫)

“Argo”: The science-fiction epic that didn’t exist

In 1980, political instability and rebellion shook the grounds of Iran, a once prosperous city run dry by the greed and evil of its former shah, Mohammad Pahlavi.  When the U.S. agreed to house Pahlavi in southern California after he contracted cancer, the Iranian people stormed the U.S. Embassy in a furious rage and took everybody inside hostage.  Only six Americans escaped with their well-beings intact.

This is the true story of Argo, a political thriller based on the Iranian hostage crisis of 1980.  After barely escaping the U.S. embassy just before it is overran by Iranians, the Americans flee and take refuge inside Canadain Ambassador Ken Taylor’s (Victor Garber) house as social and political stability continues to crumble outside of the Taylor household. They remain stuck there for 69 days.

Enter the CIA. The intelligence agency plots ways to try and rescue the Americans and get them home to safety, but no luck. Their best ideas involve riding bicycles and meeting them at the border with gatorade. All hope seems lost until Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) hatches the idea of disguising the American’s as a film crew scouting for locations out in Iran. As the Secretary of State asks Tony Mendez, “You got any better bad idea than this?”

“This is the best bad idea we have sir. By far.”

Here is a movie that knows how to utilize suspense and tension to the fullest effect. Similarly to how Kathryn Bigelow sets up the stakes of the film within the establishing shot of the 2009 best picture winner The Hurt Locker, Argo similarly sets up its stakes with a tense, horrifying sequence of the Iranians overrunning the U.S. Embassy in the beginning shot. They jump over walls and tear down the gates as they storm through the front lawn. They break through doors and windows as they charge into the building, screaming as they hold up picket signs and crow bars. They bind their hostages in rope and cloth as they grab and shake them all while screaming into their ears and breaking furniture around them. In the world of film, the goal is to put audiences into the scene, into the moment of the picture. We are not just put into the environment of Iran in Argo: we are immersed in it.

At the same time though, this is a movie that knows how to expertly balance drama with humor and comedy. Two essential roles in this movie help achieve this: John Goodman as make-up artist John Chambers, and Alan Arkin as movie producer Lester Seigel. These two are the C-3PO and R2-D2 of filmmakers, a duo who argue and bicker over the smallest, funniest of details. In one scene where they were looking over scripts for the operation, Lester complains as to how they are all of poor quality.

John: “We’re making a fake movie here.”

Lester: “If we’re making a fake movie, I want it to be a fake hit.”

This is one of those rarities of films where it transcends merely being labeled as a “movie” and has graduated to being something as an “experience”.  Argo is a tense, nerve-wracking film.  It keeps you on the edge of your seat, cringing, waiting, teeth chattering, spine tingling with every tense moment of the film pulsating through your entire body.  Ben Affleck directs this film with alluring precision, utilizing jump-cuts and precise cutaways to the greatest effect during this American horror that is a true story.

Very few films match the precision and craftmanship that this film possesses.  Combine that with the film’s smart, witty dialogue, as well as its great spirit for humanity, and what you have is one of, if not, the best drama film of the year.

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May 16 2013
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Reviews

“LINCOLN” Review (✫✫✫✫)

A man, not a monument, named Lincoln.

I’m rarely made more aware of what Lincoln was in history than what this powerful biopic reminds me: Lincoln was a man.  He wasn’t a fable.  He wasn’t a myth.  He wasn’t some sanctified holy figure that was crowned with solely freeing the slaves.  He wasn’t even technically honest Abe.  Abraham Lincoln was, solely, earnestly, realistically, the 16th President of the United States.  He was for the Union, he despised slavery, he was humble on approach, and he always fought intently for the things that he believed in: the things that he thought were right.

Depicting the final months of Lincoln’s presidency, including the end of the civil war and the abolishment of slavery, Lincoln is a very personal view of the final months of Abraham Lincoln’s life.  In that period Lincoln pushed for african freedom, dealt with conflicting opinions of his cabinet, sought peace negotiations with the confederacy, managed an entire union, and was in a state of emotional grief with his family after the recent death of Lincoln’s middle child, Willie.  If you told me that Lincoln had an easy time during his term as American president, I would call you grossly inaccurate.

In this drama-driven biopic, Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Abraham Lincoln.  When you watch him in this movie, I guarantee you that you won’t recognize him.  Day-Lewis doesn’t just portray the famous president: he embodies and embraces Lincoln’s spirit on every possible level, from the weariness in his voice to the hunch in his back.  His performance is so acute, there is barely any indication that he even is Daniel Day-Lewis.  For two and half hours he disappears into his role, and we briefly witness the miraculous resurrection of Lincoln through Daniel Day-Lewis.  The film lives and breathes on Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance.

Even then, a great actor cannot do anything without great material.  Enter Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner.  Kushner, who co-wrote Spielberg’s earlier history epic, Munich returns here to compose a story that is as complex and insightful as it is dramatic and informative.  Speilberg obviously needs no introduction.  For a decade-defining career as Speilberg’s, and for a project as personal to Spielberg as Lincoln, its obvious he would pay as much attention and focus to this era as he would with Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan.

Even then, I’m surprised at Spielberg’s role in this movie.  He’s effective as a director with this film, but he’s not the highlight.  He kind of takes a backseat to Kushner’s screenplay and Day-Lewis’ performance, with him serving as the production’s moderator rather than their visionary.

Which believe me, I’m fine with that.  At times, a director must learn to step back and just let the production flow into place.  Here, Spielberg is a great moderator, carefully directing Day-Lewis through Kushner’s fragile, elaborate script and always making sure he never takes the wrong step along the journey.  It isn’t like Spielberg’s previous films where it relies on flashy effects and CGI: this film is carefully paced through revealing dialogue and personal character development.  While it’s a step out of Speilberg’s comfort zone, it more than works for this production.  Lincoln is one of Spielberg’s most personal and most effective works to date.

The film’s only problem: pace.  Because this film relies on dialogue and performance as its greatest assets, there are times where the film becomes so muddled within its political kurfuffle and babbling that at times its hard to keep track of all at once.  You should know what I’m talking about: Senators and Congressmen shout and babble about to each other in such incoherent conversation that our ears zoom out for a bit and miss some key information we’ll need to remember later on.  This will be a problem for some viewers in the audience, as it will be difficult for some people to be hooked on the beginning of Lincoln’s story because of its slow, slow, slow pace.

But even then, I’m so absorbed into Lincoln’s story and Day-Lewis’ performance that I don’t even care about this minute fault.  The one thing that defines this film, the one thing Spielberg, Kushner, and Day-Lewis got right more than anything else is Lincoln’s compassion, his character, and his humanity.

I remember an interview Speilberg and Day-Lewis gave to Yahoo!Movies earlier this year.  When asked about the gravity of the challenge of bringing Lincoln’s legacy to life on the big screen, Spielberg had this to say about his lifelong dream project:

“…we have a big responsibility in telling the story,” Spielberg said. “And we determined that we didn’t want to make a movie about a monument named Lincoln, we wanted to make a movie about a man named Lincoln.”

A man.

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