High Plains Drifter (1973)

  High Plains Drifter. (1973) [D: Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill]

A stranger rides into Lago, site of an illegal mine. He gets rid of three thugs who were hired by the town to keep the peace, but turned nasty. Three convicts, who are owed loadsadough by the town for having eliminated an inconvenient person, are coming for their pay. The town hires the Stranger to prepare for them. That’s the set-up. What unfolds is a moody tale of morally challenged people, the ambiguities of justice, the imperfection of human nature, the self-delusion that sustains respectability, and so on.

A great movie, with some brutal rough spots that will turn off many viewers.

The last scene: The town clown is marking a headstone as the Stranger leaves. “I still don’t know your name,” he says to the Stranger. “Yes, you do,” the Stranger replies. We do, too: His name is Nemesis.

Recommended. **** (9/10 for IMDB)

 

The Great Dictator (1940) [D: Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard) An overrated film. The satire works very well, especially since Chaplin has sussed that Hynkel-Hitler was the empty puppet of his impulses. But Chaplin can’t resist inserting slapstick and farce, which interferes with the developing terror. The Brown Shirts may have been buffoons, but their buffoonery killed people. Chaplin shies away from following the logic of his plot to its dark conclusion. The final scene, obviously meant to be a stirring call to arms against tyranny, turns the plot into sentimental farce. Satire is allied to tragedy, and doesn’t need a happy ending to make its point. But perhaps the American audiences of 1940 preferred to laugh at slapdash tyrant instead of considering the moral imperative laid on them by recognising evil.
    I watched this movie because of its reputation. It’s become a curio, important for its historical significance. It did help mobilise American opinion against Hitler. But it's also an example of the muddled mess that Chaplin was capable of producing when not restrained by a strong director. A mixture of inspired satire, slapstick, and comedy, but that’s all, a mixture. The movie doesn’t have the structure that I expected. It’s a series of set pieces loosely strung on an underdeveloped plot line. Too often, I got the impression that Chaplin was showing off, or relying on his audience recognising a shtick he’d used many, many times before. **

Dr. no? Yes, it's the first 007 movie

    Dr. No (1962) [D: Terence Young. Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord] Well, I’ve finally watched this historically significant curio, almost 50 years after it was made. The very first James Bond film.
    It’s tedious, badly acted, poorly scripted, with uneven photography and far too much ominous music. It begins with three blind men wandering into the parking lot of a posh Jamaican hotel, where they murder an MI6 operative. The same crew then murder an MI6 radio operator. Bond is enjoying baccarat at a casino (what is it with casinos, that they’re supposed to signal sophistication and world-weary elegance?) when the call comes to report for a new mission, which ends with the death of Dr. No when his island retreat blows up.
     The production values are merely average, nowhere near the carefully imagined and designed sets we associate with 007. But then, nobody thought this movie would launch one of the longest running super-hero franchises ever. For James Bond is a super-hero, even if he bleeds occasionally. Connery is especially bad, I suspect the director didn’t think it worth the bother of providing actual direction.
     I can’t recall how many of the series I’ve seen. The first one was To Russia, With Love, and then Goldfinger. Looking at the Wiki list, I ecognise Thunderball, and Moonraker. Maybe I saw Casino Royale. In any case, Connery became a much better actor, well aware of his limited range, and collaborating with his directors in exploiting it expertly. I think Indiana Jones’ father was his best role. I think Roger Moore was the best of the other Bonds, none of whom I think measured up to what Connery eventually made of the role.
    You can find out all you want to know, and more, on Wikipedia. If you’ve never seen Dr. No, I think it’s worth a look merely because it’s such an awful introduction to the franchise. By the way, I tried to read one of Fleming’s novels once, couldn’t get past the first dozen pages or so. On that evidence, even this movie is better than anything Fleming produced. *½

Sam Elliot, bashful cowboy: Conagher (1991)

 

 Conagher (1991) [D: Reynaldo Villalobos. Sam Elliot, Katherine Ross, Barry Corbin.] Based on the novel by Louis L’Amour. Rustlers, a cattle baron, a homesteader who dies in an accident on his way to town, a bashful lonesome cowboy, a lonesome widow and her two lonesome kids, questions of loyalty and integrity, a stage line establishing its route through the district, and of course the laconic dialogue that marks the Western as a man’s man type of movie. But this is really High Romance. Elliot plays the knight in tarnished armour, Ross is the Lady in need of rescue, and it all plays out with a minimum of gore and a maximum of historical realism. Good movie. Available on YouTube. ***

Funny Boy (2020): Growing up queer in Sri Lanka

Funny Boy (2020) [D: Deepa Mehta. Arush Nand, Brandon Ingram, Agam Darshi et al] Arjun is a Tamil boy who realises he’s gay in a country that criminalises people like him. The movie follows his life from childhood to young manhood, set in Sri Lanka during the ethnic war that resulted in somewhere around 100,000 deaths and about a million Tamils migrating to India, Canada, and other countries.
     Arjun’s Aunt Radh helps him accept his differences despite his father’s urging him to give up “girly” things. He later falls in love with a Sinhalese classmate. The ethnic violence peaks, and the family emigrates to Canada, where Radh has moved after a marriage arranged by her family to prevent her marrying a Sinhalese man. That marriage has failed, but Radh is happy to welcome her family to Toronto.
     The movie’s adapted from a novel by Shyam Selvadurai, The story is one damn thing after another. From time to time, we see the older Arjun in place of the boy, and later on, the boy instead of the man. I suppose this is intended to show how Arjun’s memories make his life cohere into a story. Real life isn’t a neat story, however. The messiness, almost incoherence of the script, mimics this, but also distances us from the characters, who become objects moved around by events that they don’t and can’t control. This is clearest at the crisis of the film, when rioting Sinhalese almost discover Arjun’s family hiding in a Sinhalese neighbour’s storage room, and go on to break into Arjun’s home and destroy it. Arjun’s decision to yield to his attraction to Shean doesn’t free either of them. It’s at best a brief time of mutual joy which can neither resist nor protect from the politics surrounding it.
     A knowledge of the Tamil-Sinhalese war helps provide context. The acting is uniformly very good, helping us Westerners understand a culture so different and yet so similar to our own. I get the impression that Mehta had a clear vision of what she wanted, and it wasn’t a neatly structured plot tied up with a neat bow of a resolution. I think she also wanted to show how avoiding politics is no defence. The movie was engaging despite itself, the kind that tosses up half-recalled scenes when you least expect them. Worth watching, even if only to get a vague notion of what it’s like to live in a different society than your own. Recommended. *** [Posted on IMDB with redactions]
      Footnote: The majority of posts on IMDB were whinges by people with a political axe to grind. In particular, they were annoyed that non-Tamils were hired to act the Tamil roles, and apparently they spoke Tamil badly. I can’t judge that, I can only judge the acting as I viewed it.

A Matter of WHO: hunt for disease carrier (Movie)

A Matter of Who (1961) [D: Don Chaffey. Terry-Thomas, Sonja Ziemann, Alex Nicol] A case of small-pox arriving in London on an international flight triggers an international hunt for the source. Terry-Thomas plays the Health Department investigator working on behalf of the WHO, which makes the title an overly cute pun.

     The hunt forms the spine of the plot. Crooked oil-deal shenanigans, politics, love, etc complicate the story and add the thrills the audience expects. There’s even a helicopter. Fun and games, and a satisfying ending. Terry Thomas for once tones down his mad-cap eccentric character, the rest of the cast play their stereotypes well, the photography and music are unintrusive so we can focus on the story, such as it is.
     Later treatments of the dangerous disease theme focus on the work of containing it, etc. Here, the most interesting bits for me were the ones that showed how the disease-containment work was being done. 1961 was still culturally the 1950s, and the movie-makers of the time didn’t trust the audience to accept a quasi-documentary film, so they added the spice of intrigue and crime. An OK hour and a half of entertainment, with subtexts relevant for our covid-19 times. **

What if you were the only one capable of lying?

 The Invention of Lying (2009) [D: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson. Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill) In Mark’s world, no one lies. Everyone tells the truth, and nothing but the truth (but not, thank the man in the sky, always the whole truth). A pretty dreary and morose place. Then Mark discovers he can “say what is not.” He uses his newfound skill to first make loadsadough and then to comfort his dying mother with a tale about “the man in the sky”. That story gets away from him. He woos Anna McDoogles, who wants a genetic match so that she can have nice skinny blond kids. True love wins in the end. The script includes a number of well-considered satiric jabs at the credulity of humankind, but sadly the full potential of the core idea is not, I think, developed. This is one of those rare stories that would work better in print than it does on screen.
     A competent job by all concerned, good for an hour and a half or so of mildly amusing entertainment. **½

Two Movies

I like movies, and sometimes watch one twice or even three times. Here's two we watched in March of this year.

    High Noon (1952) [D: Fred Zinneman. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly] This is one of the classics that holds up. If anything, it gets better every time I see it. Simple story of a sheriff who decides on his wedding day that he has to finish a job he started when he arrested a killer, who has been released, and is coming back for revenge. The one man who is willing to help pulls out when he finds out he’s the only one. The townsfolk back off from risking their lives, unwilling to accept that the killer and his cronies will destroy the town if they win. Cooper wins of course, and rides off with his bride, no doubt happy to leave the town to stew in its cowardice.
   The movie’s a fable, but it’s an unobtrusive one. The pace, the beautifully composed shots, the wonderful tonality of the black and white film, the use of natural sound, the haunting theme music, the conceit of making the movie exactly as long as the sheriff’s job, the desolation surrounding the town, the well-realised characters, all these combine to tell an astonishingly believable story. I’ve seen this movie at least three times that I can recall; I do not tire of it. ****

The movie is adapted from a short story The Tin Star. See my disussion of it at https://kirkwood40.blogspot.com/2014/08/john-cunningham-tin-star-colliers.html

   The American President (1995) [D: Rob Reiner. Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Michael J. Fox, Martin Sheen.] A love fantasy set in the White House, where widowed president Andrew Shepherd woos lobbyist Sidney Ellen Wade, while dealing with a reelection campaign. The plot is convoluted enough that a short summary is impossible, but the main line is clear enough: Boy meets girl, boy and girl have an affair, boy almost loses girl, boy and girl wed and live happily ever after. Well acted, competently paced and photographed, with just enough cliches bent off-kilter to provide freshness: we enjoyed this movie. Romantic love always gets me. I want to believe that everybody can be happy. The political games are well handled, too, and while they avoid getting too deep into the dirt and stay well away from the dark side, they feel true enough to make us believe the threats to Andrew and Sidney’s happiness, and how they resolve the ethical questions surrounding their relationship. **-½

How Hitler Lost the War

     How Hitler Lost the War (2005) [Producer David Hoffman, writer Robert Denny] The popular myth of WW2 is that England fought heroically against the Nazi hordes until the USA came along and won the war for them. There was also something going in Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union, and in the Pacific between the Americans and the Japanese. But never mind the details, the Allies won the war.    
     In the last 30 years or so, historians have reread the details, many of which were new, and it’s clear that the Allies didn’t so much win the war as that Hitler lost it. Or, to give it a more balanced spin, that Hitler made some fatal mistakes which enabled the Allies to regroup, attack, and win. If he had not made those mistakes, the outcome for the Allies would not have been a simple victory, and could very well have been a defeat.
     This film points to several tactical and strategic errors. For example, Hitler stopped the army from capturing the defeated British and French troops at Dunkirk and sent in the air force to destroy them instead. The RAF turned out to be a much better protector than Hitler expected.
     Another tactical error was to concentrate his eastern forces on Leningrad and the Ukraine instead of on Moscow, as his army chiefs advised. But that was done within the major strategic  error of attacking the Soviet Union.
     In the Ukraine, the German forces were welcomed as liberators, but Hitler’s racist superstitions prevented him from capitalising on this. Instead, he sent in the SS to round up and eliminate undesirable elements. He wanted the Ukraine for lebensraum. So the Ukrainians formed guerilla groups to fight the Germans.
     That last point shows up Hitler’s fundamental mistake. He went to war to gain land, and failed to focus on defeating the enemy. War is always waged for political reasons, but it is a very bad mistake to focus on the political goal instead of the military one, which is to defeat the enemy. First things first: Hitler never really understood that. He also vastly overestimated his knowledge and understanding of politics and war. He had a talent for spotting and exploiting weaknesses and pressure points in his adversaries, but he had no grasp of the larger purposes which drive political and military conflict. In particular, he did not understand that sooner or later the other great powers would decide to stop him. A moderately powerful Germany that one could do business with was acceptable, no matter what the Nazis did inside the country. A self-aggrandising Germany that threatened the balance of power was not. The film does not make this an explicit point, but it’s the context of its thesis.
     Well done, with interviews with German as well as Allied veterans. A treat for the military history buff, a good general history doc for everyone else. ***

A movie and a concert

     The Wind Rises (2013) (D: Hayao Miyazaki. Voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt et al ]
     A biography of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of Japanese WW2 fighter planes. The story’s simple: Horikoshi is near-sighted, so he can’t qualify to fly planes. Instead, he designs them. He falls in love, but the girl has TB. However, they marry, and have a short time together before she dies. The story of the design successes and failures is well done, the personal life is touched on rather than told, and the subtext is definitely anti-war, mixed with pride at the success of Japanese engineering. It’s an animé movie, a style that occasionally jars: I don’t like the way in which grief and other strong emotions are portrayed. But overall it’s well-done. Recommended. ***

    Blast From the Past: Louise Lemieux Does the ‘50s Louise sang mostly standards, mostly love songs, and mostly the ones that were hits because of teenagers: Bye, Bye Love; Are You Lonesome Tonight; Only You; Peggy Sue; etc. Teen angst is not new, only the recent worry that it’s a sign of emotional fragility is. She also likes songs from the musicals: I Could Have Danced All Night; Oh, What a Beautiful Morning; etc. She’s a performer who happens to use songs to entertain, and she does a wonderful job of it. We’ve known her for a long time, and have always enjoyed her concerts. The show was not sold out, which means some people missed a great evening’s entertainment. ****

2001: A Space Odyssey, a flawed masterpeice

   
 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [D: Stanley Kubrick. Keir Dullea et al, and HAL-9000] A museum piece, instructive: what’s interesting is how limited Clarkes’ technical imagination was, and how his social imagination was essentially zero. Clarke could imagine technical progress, up to a point: he didn’t fully extrapolate the effects of the relentless miniaturisation of electronic devices. Fred Pohl had already written The Age of the Pussyfoot, which among other things imagined something very like a cross between a smartphone and a tablet PC, but much more powerful than what we actually have. Look it up.
     But where Clarke and Kubrick fail most is the social context. Beginning with the clothes, which are merely late 60s fashions streamlined a bit. Gender roles are still very 50s. The Cold War’s US-Russian rivalry is still going on. There is no awareness of the probable outcomes of the anti-racism movement of the 1960s. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, the year of this movie’s release, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was released the year before this movie. Not too late to affect the script, its ideas were very much part of public discourse.
     It was already clear than China and other Asian economies would eventually rival and even surpass the USA and Europe. The notion that the West would continue its supremacy in science and engineering was already undermined by the  achievements of Japan. All these things could have influenced the script, especially since so much of the movie displays the engineering achievements expected by 2001.
     The decor and ambience of the movie celebrate technology. Kubrick uses music to underline the joy and grace of beautiful machines. The long sequence of the PanAm space shuttle arriving at the space station is shown to a sumptuous version of the Blue Danube waltz. The scene in which Dr Floyd calls home on video phone is there to emphasise the wonderful technology of the future, as is the space station itself, the moon shuttle, etc. Clark’s faith in the saving grace of ever more magical tech is touching, now that we have become accustomed to it, and are beginning to understand the negative effects of overly-rapid change, aptly called disruption.
     But those are minor cavils. This is a pioneer movie. Not only in its visual effects, all done with analogue techniques utilising models and matte boards, and photographic manipulations. Its story, such as it is, is about work. There’s no character conflict, there’s only work to be done. What plot tension there is comes from the character’s attempts to work out what to do when HAL goes rogue.
     The story has five parts: the discovery of tools, instigated by the mysterious black monolith. The discovery of the monolith on the Moon. The expedition to Jupiter. The rebellion of HAL, and Dave Bowman’s destruction of the computer’s personality module. Dave’s arrival and stay somewhere in orbit around Jupiter. Bowman’s aging, and the appearance of  a fetus journeying back towards Earth.
     But there’s more to the movie than its story or its plot structure. It is a celebration of technology, of the Universe, of humankind’s ability to overcome obstacles, and an expression of a mystical faith in some barely imaginable future of humankind. Clark and Kubrick wanted to foster wonder and hope. Wonder at all that human curiosity and skill and art can achieve, and hope that ultimately humans will become better than the warring semi-apes that we are.
     Worth seeing again, despite its datedness and flaws. ****

Human Computers and the Space Race

     Hidden Figures (2016) [D: Theodore Melfi. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, et al.] Three black women, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) working at the Langley Research Centre  as computers (human calculating machines) figure prominently in the calculation of the  numbers needed to plan and fly the first US manned flights into space. This history was until recently known to very few people.
     The movie does a good job of telling their story. Sensibly, I think, it focuses on the work they did, with enough backstory about their families, and references to the racial tensions that a few years later erupted into the civil rights movement, to give some sense of them as real people.
     The movie shows us what it’s like to do a good job. Like Sully, it’s about people doing their best, managing to achieve their goals despite the social and psychological constraints that burden us all, and some more than others. The movie makers knew how to convey the tension of actual and incipient failure, and the relief and joy of success. The human interactions are touched on lightly. One thing that comes across very well is the awareness that small errors could kill, and small errors are inevitable when calculating results based on numbers with built-in measurement uncertainty. We also see that professional pride and competitiveness may endanger the people who rely on those calculations to keep them safe. A rocket is a slow-burning bomb. Riding one into near-Earth orbit is always dangerous.
     I liked the movie. It’s depiction of Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary is perhaps a tad too self-congratulating (I think the sheer grind of being black in a segregated State was glossed over, not to mention the fear of random harassment or worse), but on the whole the movie had the ring of truth. Above all, it's a movie about work. The "hidden figures" faced obstacles that many, perhaps most of us, would not have even tried to overcome, but they did. They did so because they wanted to do the job right. Their greatness lies in their refusal to let anything get in the way. The greatness of the white characters, especially Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) the team leader, is that they shared that passion for getting it right.
     It’s a feel-good movie for sure. It takes us back to the days when America tried to be the best it could be, and when we formed the memories that make us pine for the days of greatness. ***½

2020 02 24: Katherine Johnson died today.

Early Cary Grant vehicle

 

     The Amazing Adventure (1936) [D: Alfred Zeisler. Cary Grant, Mary Brian, Peter Gawthorne] A debilitated rich young man visits doctor who tells him he's suffering from money. Takes bet that he can’t last a year on his own, earning his own living. Finds out how the other half lives, also discovers that some people are kind, and some people are crooks. Helps first employer launch his extra-special cook-stove, defeats crooks, finds true love, rewards those who were kind, and fades out on clinch with wife who like him was taking a year off to earn her own money. The movie is barely an hour long, looks and feels like it was cut from a longer version. Pity. **

Spy Caper Spoof

      Spy (2015) [D: Paul Feig (also wrote), with Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Miranda Hart] Mildly amusing spy caper spoof in which a CIA desk-operative Susan Cooper (McCarthy) volunteers to take on a “track and report” field mission involving an international gang of suave psychopaths who are trading in suitcase-sized atom bombs.
The joke is that Cooper is not a svelte, elegant, self-confident wonder woman, but a dumpy, inelegant, unconfident woman who’s hopelessly in love with the spy (Jude Law) she assists. But she’s smart, brave, has trained in martial arts and firearms, and gains self-confidence as she outwits, outfights, and outshoots assorted baddies. The fun comes from McCarthy’s acting, our recognition of the James Bond tropes, the above averege script (although far more F-bombs than it needed), and the care taken to make all minor characters just caricatured enough for humour. The cast and crew obviously have a lot of fun too, which always helps. Enough (semi-plausible) plot twists to keep you watching.  I enjoyed it. **½

Alien language, alien mind (Arrival, 2016)

     Arrival (2016) [D: Denis Villeneuve. Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker. Based on a story by Ted Chiang.]

     The aliens finally arrive, in 12 ships scattered round the globe. They clearly attempt to communicate, so linguist Louise Banks (Adams) is recruited to learn the language. The heptapods (one less tentacle than octopuses) use both whale-like sounds and a written language. Louise, with some help from physicist Ian Donnelly (Renner), deciphers the written symbols, each of which is a complex circular string of squiggles that represents a complete utterance.
     The movie, like the story it’s based on, asks and plausibly answers a number of questions. Could one  communicate with a non-human mind? Yes, if there are some common concepts to start from, in this case the difference between “human” and “Louise”. Does learning a language rewire the brain? Yes, in fact it does. Does that rewiring change the way you perceive the world? Maybe. As a bilingual, I would say yes, but not as drastically as is posited here. For the heptapods time isn’t linear: They have an all-at-once perception of past, present, and future. Their circular "sentences" can be read starting from any point and in either direction. Louise’s daughter has died of leukemia. As she masters the heptapod language, Louise's latent second sight develops so that her daughter’s life becomes present to her, as does her future with Ian, and the child she will have with him.
     The mcguffin is that the 12 ships each provide part of the answer about the heptapods’ purpose in arriving on Earth: They will need human help in the future, but can get it only if humans co-operate and become one world. Which happens, but only because Louise is able to talk to the Chinese ruler in his own language over an NSA cellphone.
     As you can see, this is a complicated movie, on many levels. Villeneuve knows how to make us engage in what for many of us would be an esoteric irrelevance or a boring exercise in abstruse academic theorising. The acting and editing occasionally confuse, that’s why I want to see it again. Is it a fault that the movie demands more than one viewing? I don’t think so. ****

A Water Landing (Sully, 2016)

     Sully (2016) [D: Clint Eastwood. Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart et al].

     Chesley Sullenberger landed American Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River after losing both engines to a birdstrike shortly after take-off. The movie is built around the Aviation Safety Board hearing into the “crash” (Sully insists it was a “water landing”), presented as attempting to show that a return to LaGuardia was possible, which would imply that instead of being a hero, Sully was a fool. The film convinces us he was a hero. Or rather, that he was a man. He didn’t want to die, so he did the best he could do, and it worked.
     Excellent reconstructions of the crash, nice flashbacks into Sully’s 40-year flying career (beginning with his flying lessons as a teenager), believable characterisations of men and women who just do their job. The cross-cutting between past and present, indoors and out, in the plane and on the ground, hearing rooms and streets, the hotel and Sully’s home, heighten tension: We know that all 155 people on the plane survived, that Sully was vindicated, but the movie still engages us so thoroughly that for a while we feel that things could turn out very badly indeed. Hanks respects the character he plays.
     Simulation of the event is available on on YouTube:
     Watch the movie in a theatre if possible. ***½

Men In Black A Classic

    Men in Black (1997) [D: Barry Sonnenfeld. Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn et al] I think this is the fourth time I’ve watched this movie. Maybe the fifth. It holds up well.
     It’s inspired by a comic book series that seems to be a rather rambling, unfocused mess. The movie delivers a coherent story, with witty dialogue, well-done riffs on stereotypical characters, a superlative storyboard, and actors who know that to make a fantasy work means hinting at the backstories that animate their roles. The whole crew obviously had fun making this ridiculous story work. Competent photography, well-executed special effects, direction that keeps the story moving fast without ever losing the audience, music and sound that rarely intrude, sly allusions to the tropes of the genre. What more can you ask for?
     It’s the actors that make this fantasy above average. Jones has the world-weary look of a pro who has seen it all, but hangs in there because a) it’s his job; b) he’s good at it; and c) it’s necessary. He’s moderately patient with recruit Will Smith, who delivers his standard smart-ass character, a wise guy who has trouble with authority, but takes the job seriously. All the secondary roles are done well, even the tow-truck driver has a history, hinted at when he reveals a gun tucked into his waistband.
     Movies like this are often underrated. They’re slick, live-action fantasy comic books after all, and what can such a genre teach us about real life? A lot, actually. That loyalty matters. That the cranky outsider is essential precisely because he’s a cranky outsider, and sees things that others miss. That life demands sacrifice. That with luck, a bit of talent, and damn hard work, you can exceed your own expectations. That the universe is a mysterious, dangerous, and wonderful place. And that a movie crew that believes in the project can deliver a classic. ****

Holmes, the Man of Action.

     Sherlock Holmes: The Game of Shadows (2011) [D: Guy Ritchie. Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, et al.] Conan Doyle’s Holmes this isn’t, but it’s a consistent re-imagining of the character. Moriarty wants massive profit by selling arms, so he arranges for assassinations intended to provoke war. Holmes and Watson manage to spike his guns, literally. Holmes takes Moriarty with him over the Reichenbach Falls, and the movie ends with Watson typing "The End". Holmes materialises out of the armchair against the wall, and adds a question mark.
     Nicely done as a movie, good script with a clear enough narrative line and enough characterisation to give the actors something to work with. But the trend to CGI-enhanced, over-long “action” sequences doesn’t improve it. Robert Downey Jr does a creditable job as Holmes, Jude Law as Watson, and Kelly Reilly gets a nice bit part as Mary Watson, expert at solving ciphers and codes. Jared Harris’s Moriarty doesn’t convince me as the master of evil. Overall, a comic-book version of Holmes, a pleasant enough entertainment. **½

Food matters

     Seeds of Time (2013) Documentary that follows Cary Fowler as he travels round the world  as part of a world-wide seed-saving project. He was one of the instigators of the Svalbard Seed Vault. His message is simple: industrialised agriculture has brought about a sharp decline in crop diversity just when climate change has raised the need for genetic diversity so that crops can be adapted to changing conditions. Besides Svalbard, a project to preserve potato diversity in Peru gets central billing. There are also scenes of conferences, graphics illustrating the loss of seed banks, and so on. This is one of those slow-moving crises that people will ignore until it’s too late.
      Besides the Peruvian potato saving project, the film includes examples of seed saving by gardeners and other projects designed to preserve and increase diversity. Some of the repetitive bits could have been cut to provide more room for gardening, which in pure energy terms is the most efficient method of growing food.
     Unlike industrialised agriculture, a garden multiplies energy. The efficiency of agribusiness is an illusion limited to money. In terms of resources, it’s highly inefficient, because the externals aren’t priced. Gardening is labour intensive, but we get more food energy out of a garden than we put into it. Good thing too, or our ancestors, couldn’t have survived without preserving garden produce for the long cold winter. We subsidise agri-business by underpricing oil, which means we exchange the future of the planet for the present freedom from labour.
     A film both depressing and hopeful, relentlessly earnest, but necessary. Watch ity, and grow beans in your backyard. ***

Brooklyn (2015)

      Brooklyn (2015) [D: John Crowley. Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domnhall Gleeson.] Eilis Lacey goes to America at the cost and urging of her sister Rose. There, she suffers from home-sickness and loneliness, then meets Tony Fiorello, a nice lad whom she marries the day before she returns to Ireland for a friend’s wedding. She almost decides to stay, but she goes back home to Brooklyn.
     The movie’s a romance with more edge than one might expect. The plot is cliche-ridden, most of the characters stereotypes, the dialogue straightforward and sometimes trite. Nevertheless, the movie works. It does so because it takes itself just seriously enough that we engage with the characters and believe Eilis as a young woman who must decide between yielding to her yearning for Ireland and her desire for her new life in America. The story’s about how the new country becomes home, and the old country a place to visit. Its mood and ambience, the willingness to look at (but not dwell on) pain and darkness, the insistence on hope, these remind me of a Maeve Binchy novel.
     Acting, photography, narrative pace are very good. Occasionally, the movie teeters on the edge of sentimentality, but its central theme, that one’s happiness has a price that other people must also pay, is one worth remembering. The music is occasionally intrusive. It’s almost two hours long, but felt shorter. A good evening’s entertainment, but probably not to everyone’s taste. **½