The Oncoming Hope

Originally published at The 405

Directed by: Charles Ferguson
Releases: 18/02/11
Starring: Matt Damon, William Ackman and Daniel Alpert

Inside Job is Charles Ferguson's ambitious attempt to expose the systemic defects that led to the Great Recession. It's greatest success is in stirring up anger and horror at the sheer audacity of some of the architects of the crisis, who were actually willing to comment on the record under Ferguson's interrogations. However, I'm not as convinced it worked as a useful analytical framework to truly understand what went wrong before 2008.

The movie was very effective in describing the individual pieces of the puzzle such as deregulation, credit default swaps, derivatives, basic human greed (by both the banks and by the average Joe, obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses) and so on. It was less effective in explaining how these pieces came together to create a systemic meltdown. There was almost no mention of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and how they became embroiled in this mess. I suspect that the problem is that the story is way too complex to adequately cover in a two-hour mainstream release, but it's a real shame given the complicity of so many people that Ferguson managed to interview.

There are wonderful 'oh the wisdom of hindsight' interviews with Christine Lagarde (French Finance Minister) and Dominique Strauss-Kahn (IMF). There are also fantastic moments where Ferguson catches Bush toadies, cloaked in self-righteousness, contradicting themselves within 5 minute spans. You can see some of them actually begin to sweat.

That said, there is no doubt that these people screwed up enormously; what's still unclear is why. Ferguson had the opportunity to interrogate why they acted as they did. Apart from the Goldman-Sachs short-sellers, the industry as a whole cannot have been rooting for failure. What peculiarity in ideology led to this mess?

Also, Inside Job commits what I call the "Fahrenheit 9/11 sin": it made a specious argument about 'mentality' in the place of a useful analysis of systemic lock-in of mentality. The movie kept turning back to the 'prostitutes and cocaine' culture of 1980s Wall Street as an explanation for the hubris and greed driving the thirst for deregulation and increased amount of risk. This strangely Puritanical focus confuses personality with decision making; if there's a connection to be made between these men's retrograde attitudes towards women and their poor decision making at the office, than Inside Job doesn't make it convincingly.

The movie became much more effective and coherent when it turned a sharp lens on the conflict of interest between academia and consulting work. A full third of the movie is devoted to exposing the hypocrisy of the men who were paid to write highly prejudiced op-ed pieces on behalf of business institutions even as they were meant to be teaching the next generation the ethics of business.

There were a lot of moving pieces leading to the financial crisis; the unfortunate truth is that there wasn't any one piece that broke, everything broke at the same time. Inside Job's greatest strength is in identifying and describing the disparate forces at work that led to this disaster; perhaps, in a sequel, Ferguson can give us more insight into why they failed.

I just finished watching Another Year and I feel, well, deflated. There's a point in everyone's life where you believe that the angst and the drama are behind you; it's disheartening to be reminded that being old can be just as petty as being young.

The film centers around one happy couple and their shifting satellites. The movie exists to challenge Tolstoy's universally accepted opening salvo: "Happy families are all alike." Mike Leigh seems to say that happy families are completely unpredictable, shaped by the tensions between the ideal cocoon-like existence of long-time lovers and the desire to still be a part of the real world.

Into this steady dance roars comet Mary, who shifts the orbit of all the other satellites whenever she appears; she's a mess. What makes Mary so compelling is that, despite all our instant belief that she's "desperate," she doesn't see it that way. On some level, she still believes that the fruits of youth are within her reach, and that's why each disappointment whips back at her with energy that is both equal and opposite to the hopes she emits. This movie is worth watching for Lesley Manville's performance alone.

Jim Broadbent plays Tom, the most straightforward character. Gerri frequently restrains him from mouthing off. He is cynical and his is uncomplicated, sometimes impossibly so. He never hesitates to offer "rational advice" in response to the real problems of his friends and family; he clearly does not understand their pain, but needs to maintain the illusion of being a mensch.

His wife Gerri is a much more strange character; omnipresent, she remembers everything and everyone. She seems not to pass judgment, but while she never expresses her opinions in so many words, she reveals them in the smallest gestures, like her very slight eyeroll/sigh when Vera Drake leaves the room. Just listen to how her tone modulates in the course of each evening with Mary, the real star of the tale.

Is this what we're all doomed to become? If we're lucky we might end up self-righteous; if we are less blessed we radiate desperation as a magnet for more desperation and other desperate people. Another Year is a quiet film that asks big questions of the viewer, perhaps questions that we want to avoid for as long as possible. Don't miss this one, even though you may feel depressed for a day or two afterwards.

And they say remakes aren't any good.

I was expecting a lot of things: superior performances, Coen-wit, gruff and tough Jeff Bridges, and so on. I was not expecting a wonderful family movie in the manner of Disney adventure movies of the 1950's. It's got all the classic elements - a plucky heroine, bruisers with hearts of gold, cartoon evil villains. But combined with a simple yet engaging story and a crackerjack script, the Coens made a film with enough joy and heart to remind you why you fell in love movies in the first place.

And what a script!  This is a worthy sequel to O Brother Where Art Thou, with the same sharp wit and attention to character. It's the latest set in historic Coen-land, an Old West where it's best to keep your friends at arms length and your enemies in another county.

In the midst of all this desolation, in walks Hurricane Mattie, who's going to change at least a few men's lives wherever she goes. Quick-sharp, we learn at once that she's no wallflower, as she verbally decimates the hornswaggling horse merchant trying to take advantage of her. Bad move, bucko. If Jane Austen lived in Tennessee instead of Bath, she might have written this young girl into existence; for what is Mattie Ross but a younger, grittier Elizabeth Bennett?

Little Mattie Ross (can I just say, WOW Hailee Steinfeld) is in town to avenge the death of her father, armed with nothing but smarts and a whole lot of spunk. (I would root for her for best actress, but in an utterly bizarre turn of events, apparently you can be in every single scene of a movie and somehow be eligible for best SUPPORTING actress.)

The cinematography was also wonderful. It's impressive how the Coens found parts of Texas that are as barren and unforgiving as anything in arid Nevada, and they've sussed out snowy locales that breathe cold through the screen the way the Ozarks did in Winter's Bone.

But all throughout, there's a black sense of humor shining through bleak scenes of violence and death. Whenever things threaten to get too dark and scary, in walks Matt Damon, playing against type as a dilettante U.S. Marshal with one hell of a superiority complex, despite a lack of courage, achievement, or wit. If Mattie is Elizabeth Bennett, Marshal LaBoeuf is the Mr. Collins of the bunch. His buffoonery, combined with Mattie's bravery and Rooster Cogburn's desert pragmatism make for one hell of a trio.

There's nothing really to say about Jeff Bridges, except that he's terrific as always. I suspect it's the lack of vanity in his performances that stop him from being considered an 'acting powerhouse,' even though he gives his all in pretty much every role given to him (even Tron: Legacy). I suspect they gave him the Oscar last year only so the Academy could say, "see? We know that not all acting has to be big and emotional," and then wash their hands of Bridges and another generation of actors who are contemplative instead of showy. But as we all know, he is One Cool Dude. (And one day I'll get around to writing about Starman, one of the best movies you've never seen).''

It's a crying shame that this movie is a dark horse contender for the Academy Awards, but unlike certain other films I could name (the one about dancing crazies, the one about the voiceless King), at least it deserves its place at the awards table. It's a fine piece of work, and you can tell that it was conceived out of love and not a cynical need to impress.

At what point can you separate feelings about the 20th century British monarchy from actually enjoying the damn story? The Queen managed it beautifully, not making its subjects to be saints (in fact they're downright callous). Stephen Frears found humanity in a set of people who are intriguing precisely due to how unknowable they are. The King's Speech, on the other hand, fails to really find that humanity. Put simply, I don't care about the monarchy, but The Queen was still compelling. The King's Speech did not sway me in the slightest.

I was very grateful that they made Winston Churchill a bit toady, even though the movie somehow sent the false message that placing Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister was somehow a "Strong Statement Against Hitler." In fact I'm generally a bit confused about the chronology of the whole thing, but I won't linger on that. I'm not one who believes that art loses value when it is less than faithful to the truth. (Nor are most people these day, see "Social Network, The.")

The first half of the movie, a family drama where George agrees to humiliate himself and improve his speech, makes sense. He's embarrassed not at his inability to make moving speeches, but to communicate confidently to his family, to his precious daughters. All so well, all so moving. The tension between George and Lionel Logue is powerful and watchable; these are two completely different animals facing off in the cage. But everything goes off the rails as the possibility of becoming King becomes eminent and real, and the drive of the story changes from 'help George to stop stuttering' to 'help George to stop stuttering so he can be an awesome King.'

The problem of the whole thing is motivation. It's a tale of a man finding his 'voice,' but what does finding his voice actually achieve? He's hardly one of the oppressed. He's royalty, for godssakes. All he has at stake is his self-esteem. Gaining his voice only helps him to be slightly better at the job he has by default and cannot actually be fired from; he's a figurehead with an enormous salary who doesn't actually have anything to do at all but make pretty speeches and shake hands. God forbid the monarchy find itself incapable of its symbolic role and find a useful justification for its continued existence and exorbitant salaries.

I've been harping on that point because that's the narrative the movie fixes on: can George learn to stop stammering and what? Govern? No. Make military decisions? No. At one point, the dialogue acknowledges this problem, but the film doesn't attempt to answer it. We are not offered any real insight into why this is so important to George, except that he just can't wait to be King! But why? People want things for a reason, whether concrete, external, or purely internal. But that's not clear here.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, but I can't help but feel that this sort of movie exists as a cynical calculation to win Oscar nominations. I'm also not saying that there isn't a story worth telling in that era of British royalty, but this one isn't it. And I feel truly horrible in thinking that Madonna's upcoming film about Edward and Wallis Simpson will probably be far more compelling (the horror!).

However, I can't be too upset with this movie, I didn't go in thinking it would be anything more than a calculated farce, so I wasn't disappointed. More importantly, how could I stay mad when it had an exquisite moment between Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle? Nearly two decades later, the chemistry still crackles.

All in all, it's a well-made movie with excellent performances, but it lacks a moving narrative, or at least one with clear motivation and drive. And for GOD'S SAKE will somebody give Guy Pearce a leading role? This is the 5th movie in a row where he shows up for five minutes and disappears.

Perhaps I am a bit harsh, but my feelings are tempered by the fact that the 3/5 of the movies I've seen this week have told stories of people who are not given an honest voice in society, in media or in their lives, and that lack of voice has genuine repercussions. They were not perfect movies, but at least they told unfamiliar stories highlighting fresh perspectives. So perhaps I would have enjoyed The King's Speech more on any other week, but this week, it just felt stale.

I waited a while to see this movie, not because I'd heard particularly bad things about it, but because a friend and I were talking about a perplexing and irritating new trend in movies (and in books, but that's a topic for another time): New York stories about New Yorkers doing upper class New York things and basically being...New Yorkey. It's the land of Sex and the City, where no homeless people exist except as ways to demonstrate what kind of people our characters are, where everyone is white, and the most pressing drama is always existential, never concrete.

Please Give doesn't quite go that far, but it veers very close. Of the main characters, all but Rebecca Hall are truly horrible, and not just horrible, but really the most horrible people in the world. Are we really expected to feel any sort of sympathy for a girl who literally takes money from her mother's hands when she's trying to give it to a homeless man? A teenager who wants  $200 dollar jeans and hates that her mom gives the money to the needy instead. Horrible. But so OBVIOUSLY horrible.

And Amanda Peet. Also very obviously horrible, asking Catherine Keener about what she's going to do with the place when her grandmother dies, IN FRONT OF HER DYING GRANDMOTHER ON HER GRANDMOTHER'S BIRTHDAY. And did you know she's horrible?

Not that Peet is capable of playing any kind of role other than bad, of course. I can imagine her having conversations with her agent:

"Oh, Amanda, you're so bad!"

"Oh agent, I hate you and you're a dirty cocksucker."

"Oh Amanda, you're so bad! Let me get more roles for you so you can annoy people other than me."

I would formally request Hollywood to ban Amanda Peet from acting, ever again. She's a soul-sucking vacuum that draws life and reality from any story; a plastic mannequin standing in place of what should be challenging and compelling characters. Oliver Platt is equally guilty in this film, but I give him a pass as he has been great in past roles.

Catherine Keener, who's normally impossible to hate, gets the most abjectly boring story - she feels guilty. Not guilty about anything real, but that irritating white upper class guilt, where she feels bad about being rich (but not really), about not being disabled (but again, not really). She does in fact have real problems in the form of her sociopathic teenage daughter and lecherous husband, but somehow those things don't matter. Her existential guilt is what matters to director Nicole Holofcener. And the moral of her story? It truly is better to buy her daughter $200 jeans than to, say, teach her to be a better person.

It's a non-wacky movie that tries desperately to be wacky, turning humans into ciphers instead of real people (again, with the exception of Rebecca Hall). I just don't know how I feel about a movie where everything that happened is totally inevitable. Where everything that happens is not only foreshadowed, but fore-highlighted. As irritating as it was, you just KNEW Keener was going to buy acne-brat those jeans. You knew that the grandmother was going to die, and that Amanda Peet would continue to be crass and horrible. There was not a single surprise, and not a single instance of forward momentum.

The only thing to recommend this movie is that it does have genuinely funny moments. But skip it, unless Manhattan Malaise is your cup of tea.

Everything you need to know about the film is in the opening scene: 17 year old J sits watching Deal or No Deal as his mother sleeps, or so it appears until the cops show up. Turns out she's dead of a heroin overdose. J proceeds to call his grandmother, Jacki Weaver's fantastically disturbing 'Mama Smurf' Cody, to figure out what do next. She brings him into her lion's den, and so J ends up in a surreal home where the matriarch not only enables her criminal grandsons in their lives of crime, but forces them to kiss her full on the lips (eww).

J quickly learns firsthand how dangerous the Cody world is, as his terrifying uncle drags him into the family business even while the cops turn up the heat, leading to bursts of extreme violence at the most unexpected moments. Let's just say that until the credits roll, no one is safe.

Jacki Weaver plays everything close to the vest until the final quarter of the movie, where she finally shows her true colours (they run blood red). It is the performance of a lifetime, where you don't even realize how subtly she's manipulating her family until all is revealed.

Actually, all the performances are great, especially Ben Mendelsohn as "Pope," the scariest, most ruthless member of the family. Every look he gives speaks danger, even when he's just offering to lend an ear after tragedy strikes. You don't want to take anything from him, because the cost will inevitably be too high.

Guy Pearce appears in yet another minor role (seriously I think he signs to these small indies just so the films can get funding), in a mustache from another century. He's J's only hope, and once we find out exactly how limited that help is, we truly understand the hopelessness of J's situation.

If I have one criticism of the movie, it's that it wraps up a bit too neatly. It's not so bad as to undercut the rest of the film, but it's definitely improbable. That said, it's a great movie, you should go see it! Am most pleased that Jacki Weaver got the token 'out of nowhere' Oscar nomination.

Blue Valentine can be adequately described with one word: brutal. Do not watch this if you are just embarking on a serious relationship. Don't watch it if your relationship is on the rocks. If you watch it when you're single, you might never enter a relationship again.

It presents a harsh reality that's all too real; sometimes there is no grand turning point when a relationship ends. Often it's just a steady chipping away by one against the other, until the very foundation breaks and the whole tree falls, smashing through everything in its way.

It has occurred to me of late that there has been a strange cross-pollination between mainstream and indie films, to the point where some indies like Kids Are All Right look as shiny as whatever Vince Vaughn tripe they're pushing down our throats. Similarly, you get mainstream films like The Town that pay a lot more attention to nuances of character than you'd expect in a mainstream action movie.

I've been missing that particular 'look' that indies of the late 90's and early 2000's had, not grainy exactly, but somehow gritty, a bit dirty, perfect in its imperfection. Random shots go out of focus when they perhaps shouldn't, fades and cuts seem to take just a little bit longer than they ought to. Everything is lit a shade too bright.

Something about that style of filmmaking makes the actors work harder; they can't act just with gestures, eyes or voices; every last bit of their bodies need to make a statement. It's poetry of sorts - just as every single word matters, every vibration is essential. I wish there were a term for this style (or maybe there is and I'm just ignorant). Blue Valentine is a great example of this; it's a very small movie with no fancy tricks but terrific actors, and still manages to loom so large in viewing and in memory.

We watch Michelle Williams as she steps onto the wrong train, a train which never seems to stop to let her off, or even stretch her legs. It's heartbreaking to see, as her journey moves forward in time, she loses her looks, her spirit and her very will to live. We don't even need to see her face to recognize this, it's in her posture. This is her story, from the first frame to the last, her attempts first to cope and then to escape.

And just so, Ryan Gosling's character grows up and becomes, well, horrible! He somehow becomes a vacuum, sucking the life out of everything around him at a velocity that's nearly impossible to break free from. It's not just his words, not just his actions, but something in his entire being makes it plausible that this is how he always faced life: looking for a way to take it for granted. He starts off desperately needy and transforms into desperately possessive. Who wouldn't break under that sort of pressure?

What makes the whole thing bearable, in the end, is that Blue Valentine is very much a story about these two people. It's not a referendum about the institution of marriage. It's not the grand story of the disillusionment that comes with age, when you learn that fairytales are not real. It's a close-up portrait of two people, one who is breaking at the seams, and one who is speeding up that process without even realizing it. This is the sort of movie that lives and dies on the strength of its actors, and they absolutely excel.

1. Oversaturation: I was sick of every move that FB makes being front page news, especially when it was starting to be seen as more of a menace than a tool (anonymous bullying, data mining, privacy violations, etc).
2. Accusations that the film is rabidly misogynistic: these criticisms were loud enough that Aaron Sorkin actually issued a formal response to people criticising the film on this level. Given that he felt a need to respond, it suggested to me (falsely, mind you) that there was some truth to the accusation.
3. The Aaron Sorkin Factor: I love the West Wing, I LOVE Sports Night, but lets face it: Sorkin's movie output hasn't been that appealing, and I was worried about the fact that, much like his Charlie Wilson's War, he admitted upfront that he invented most of the story.
4. I kinda assumed it would be boring: This probably ties back into point 1, but having heard so much about Mark Zuckerberg, and yet so little of actual substance, I assumed the movie would suffer the same failing.

1. Oversaturation: The greatest thing about the movie is that while it's ostensibly about Facebook, it's really more of a Greco-Roman tragedy of brotherhood. The central line running through the film is the foundation and destruction of the friendship between Zuckerberg and Saverin, and the betrayals and interlopers seeking to hasten that destruction for their own devious ends. That said, I still wish it wasn't 'about' Facebook. The way the story was structured, it would have been interesting no matter what it was about. The acting, the directing, the story itself would have been better served without the distraction of 'facebook.'
2. Accusations that the film is rabidly misogynistic: I think I'm pretty attuned to (and some might say over-attuned to) slights against the feminist body politic. That said, as with most cases where things just get out of hand, I suspect the accusations were made without any reference to the text: many of the protesters cannot have seen the movie. Those that make the argument in good faith seem to be confusing the admittedly rabid misogyny of the lead characters with some sort of point behind the writer. 'Nerd doesn't get the girl which then drives his messianic desire to take over the universe while maintaining a healthy hatred of women' is a fairly timeless plot, and no one really thinks Star Wars or Buffy is misogynistic because of that theme, for instance. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg treats women like dirt, but to be fair he treats everyone like dirt (except for his idol, Sean Parker)
3. The Aaron Sorkin Factor: While I dwelled on my worries on this point, apparently I forgot to consider his main strength: cracking dialogue. The dialogue is sharp all throughout, especially Zuckerberg's and the Winklevi's.
4. I kinda assumed it would be boring: Wrong, wrong, I was oh, so wrong. Did I mention destruction, betrayal, interlopers and hatred? These are strong characters, played by very strong actors (and yes, Justin Timberlake fits into that camp). And of course the soundtrack really strengthens the suspence in the movie. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have done a fantastic job, drawing from what sounds like lost tracks from The Downward Spiral. The technoey beats with the soft piano licks is perfect for what's happening in the development scenes: you have the classical desires for greatness and revenge, and the modern weapon known as the internet.