Molly's Game

Molly’s Game                                                                                                                January 20, 2018

This movie is a patch work of scenes from Molly Bloom’s life. From little Molly learning how to ski, to an Olympic skier, to a novice poker manager, to a high stakes poker entrepreneur, to a felon. These scenes are managed through flash backs but make the narration awkward. The problem with this segmentation is it limits character development. Michael Cera (whose acting is best described as warm milk on a warm day) is Player X in a key poker sequence. The relationship with Molly could have been good or bad, but was equivocal because the scene ended

.

Molly, played by Jessica Chastain, is an Olympian skier who suffers a career ending accident. She takes a gap year on her way to law school which lasts about ten years. She becomes an entrepreneur of a high stakes poker attracting film celebrities, athletes and Wall Street titans. Pots are in the hundreds of thousands. The film feels like a docudrama. A lexicon of poker terms are explained  and are quickly forgotten. Little poker cards float in the air displaying winning and losing hand. Like a docudrama Chastain practically narrates the entire movie.

Chastain’s roles vary from rebellious daughter to damaged athlete to a high stakes poker entrepreneur. She gives a good performance, but the material limits her scope. This film lacks pathos. The film’s moral imperative is not whether to publish the Pentagon papers or to seek revenge for a murdered daughter, but to keep Molly in the game and out of prison. The tawdriness of the film is like a gossip magazine.

The two strongest interactions are Chastain with her father and her lawyer. Kevin Costner plays her father as a hard driving perfectionist, whose unyielding parenting drives her away. Costner plays the role cold and detached, not a stretch for him.

 The best scenes are with her lawyer played by Idris Elba. Their interaction is spirted and heated. He is a reluctant lawyer and she an unsympathetic client. The exchange is compelling because he strips her down to the essential and she is vulnerable and needs his help. They have good chemistry.

This is not a movie about pulling yourself out of poverty by your boot straps, but rather balancing yourself on stiletto heels wearing a skin tight mini dress. This movie is more voyeuristic than dramatic. Rather than a must see movie it is at best a nice to see movie.

The Martian

The Martian

This movie has generated a lot of hype; does it live up to it? In my opinion not all the way. As a Ridely Scott movie it garners a certain level of prestige. He has directed big hits such as Blade Runner and Alien and some foul balls like Robin Hood and Exodus: Gods and Kings. In this nearly three hour, large parts are tedious. The film is a combination of Lost in Space and This Old House. Matt Damon’s character is marooned on Mars and to survive he has to improvise how to make dirt, water, plants and fix broken machinery. At one point he actually uses duct tape (man’s best friend) to fix a broken helmet. Tension in this movie is like a deflated tire and only towards the end is some pressure applied.  

There are big stars in this movie. Supporting Matt Damon are: Jessica Chastain, Kata Mara, Kristien Wiig, Chitwetel Edjiofor, Michael Pena and Jeff Daniels. No one broke any serious drama sweat. They portrayed a steely cold can do NASA attitude. This makes good copy for NOVA but not for drama. Even in life threatening situations Damon’s character is almost placid (recall Tom Hanks in Apollo 13, you could cut tension with a knife). There was light comedy which is a plus. To keep their PG rating they could not say the F word and had to mouth it.

Jessica Chastain was the cool commander who has some key parts towards the end. Kristien Wiig is the relations executive who seemed a bit out of her element. No funnies from her. The rest of the actors were pretty straight forward. Aside from Michal Pena I was not familiar with the rest of the crew. Jeff Danial’s plays the director of NASA as a stiff. He does it really well.

As with his other Ridley Scott films cinematography is rich and spectacular. The graphics were great and the rendering of the Mars’s surface is realistic. I am sure all the NASA paraphernalia is accurate. The duct tape was real.

The last few minutes has the best suspense of the whole movie. No, I will not say what happens. Are the last few minutes’ worth the whole movie? This is not Apollo 13 or even Gravity. The Martian is a feel good can do attitude movie. I know I am swimming against the tide of raves from the critiques with this review, so please make up your own mind as you should always do.

Interstellar

 Interstellar is the much ballyhooed film of the season. Making the cover of Time magazine with its stellar stars blitzing late night shows, Interstellar has some bumps. Christopher Nolan usually deals with fantasy or comic book hero scripts is now tackling the hard science of astrophysics. Real science trumps fantasy and makes the script complex. At times I lost the tread of the movie.

 The scientific concepts in the film are not new. Wormholes, black holes, singularity and relativity theory are established theories. Einstein’s Twin Paradox (Where one twin travels into space and the other remains on earth. When the space traveler returns his earthbound twin has aged but he has not) is a main element of the script. Nolan coops these concepts into his story with Hollywood spin and gives them a veneer of newness. He could have used these tenets of cosmology for a more dramatic, even fantastic effect, in his movie.

The tenure of the film is mopey. Worldwide blight threatens life on earth (the last okra crop was lost, who cares). McConaughe and fellow astronauts are tasked with finding a habitable plant in distant galaxies. The movie runs 165 minutes (or in old man time three bathroom visits) and has some pockets of boredom. How much can you talk about the effect of time and gravity in one movie? It took almost two hours before a fist fight broke out and it was not much of a fight since they were in space suits.

The actors played their roles very well. McConaughe is a farmer/engineer/astronaut the reluctant leader of the stellar explorers. His motivation for taking the mission was the salvation of his family. I was pleasantly surprised how well Anne Hathaway handled her role. I thought she had too much glam to fit in to a space suit and get helmet hair, but she carried off the role. Regarding Jessica Chastain I cannot say anything about her role. Matt Damion plays a marooned astronaut whose space suit fit a bit too tight. With his Amish beard Casey Affleck is barely recognizable.  Michael Cain mumbles. I never complain about Hans Zimmer, the conductor, but the music was too loud (I could even hear it in the bath room) and overwrought.

Cinematically Interstellar pales compared to stunning scenes of Gravity. I expected better shots considering the expanse the space trip covered. The wormhole looked like some distant button and the black hole was some passive swirl. One of the explored plants was interesting while the other looked like a meat locker.

Towards the end of the movie Nolan resorts to his Inception bag of tricks. Now fantasy trumps science; rooms distort and phenomena abound. The movie became a bit schizophrenic; frankly this part was more interesting and fun.

I know I am whining but I expected more from Nolan and his brother.  He tried to be too true to science, which does not go well with popcorn. Nova never won an Oscar.

Zero Dark Thirty - Yeah, Like She Blended in Pakistan

Zero Dark Thirty

It took two hours of a two and half hour movie before the Navy Seals attacked Bin Laden’s compound. What happened during those first two hours? A meticulous orchestration of tension. The beginning scenes show torture and water boarding. News footage of Obama plays denying that Americans use torture. Are we just as bad as the terrorists? Of course not, we’re the good guys. The torture scenes were few, but what set the tension was the pursuit for Bin Laden that lasted years. The false starts, mountains of information, satellite surveillance, phone taps. There were also terrorist acts, some successful and some not.

The cast was great. Jessica Chastain played Maya the CIA agent with the flaming red hair (yeah, like she blended in Pakistan). She showed singular determination in her quest to capture Bin Laden. As a woman in a counter intelligence op, fitting in was a challenge. Was she a woman trying to act like a tough man or was she just a tough woman? In an opening torture scene she removes her balaclava to demonstrate her nerve. When asked to bring a pitcher of water for water boarding, she does so without hesitation; a baptism of sorts. In a meeting with her superiors she is relegated to the back of the room like a child. She lets her presence  be known by using a profane expletive. The boss liked it.

James Gandolfini played a spot on foul mouth Leon Panetta. Other cast members were formidable.  Jason Clarke plays the clinically cold blooded interrogator who has a Phd in God knows what. Kyle Chandler is the uptight station boss who pushes Maya for results and instead gets smacked down by Maya. Tough chic.

The raid itself was by the book. Interestingly the soldiers were never referred to as Seals. It was a bit anticlimactic since we all know the ending. Nevertheless, there was an impressive body count, with the Seals double tapping everyone, men and women. The only sign of a dead Bin Laden was a tuff of grey beard sticking out from a body bag.

The last scene shows Maya totally spent. When a pilot asked her where she wanted to go she did not answer. How do you fit back into the normal world when everything you did for the last several years was abnormal and probably illegal? 

But we are the good guys, right?

joe