The Post (2017): written by Josh Singer and Liz Hannah; directed by Steven Spielberg; starring Meryl Streep (Kay Graham), Tom Hanks (Ben Bradlee), Sarah Paulson (Tony Bradlee), Bob Odenkirk (Ben Bagdikian), Bradley Whitford (Arthur Parsons), Bruce Greenwood (Robert McNamara), Matthew Rhys (Daniel Ellsberg), Alison Brie (Lally Graham), and Carrie Coon (Meg Greenfield):
Steven Spielberg pays homage to the specific (All the President's Men) and the general (the look and feel and film stock of 1970's films) in this solid, occasionally inspired take on the release of the Pentagon Papers by first the New York Times and then the Washington Post. Spielberg has also fashioned a paean to investigative journalism that is as timely as it is inspiring.
The cast ticks along nicely, though I don't think Tom Hanks has quite the brash, Kennedy-style machismo of the real Ben Bradlee. Meryl Streep is terrific as Post owner Katherine Graham, finding her way and her voice in a world of mostly dismissive old white men. The film does a nice job of laying out the relevance of Daniel Ellsberg's release of what were soon dubbed The Pentagon Papers, the malignity of the Nixon White House, and the rumpled majesty of 1970's investigative journalists, especially Bob Odenkirk. It's not a great movie, but it is a good one. Recommended.
Scrooged (1988): written by Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer; directed by Richard Donner; starring Bill Murray (Frank Cross), Karen Allen (Claire Phillips), Bobcat Goldthwait (Eliot Loudermilk), David Johansen (Ghost of Christmas Past), Carol Kane (Ghost of Christmas Present), and Alfre Woodard (Grace Cooley): Bill Murray is on record as being displeased with the choice and work of Director Richard Donner. And he's right. Donner wasn't a comic director. How did he get this assignment?
The best parts of Scrooged lie in the performances and a sharp script by Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer, the former a legendarily bleak original member of the Saturday Night Live writing team. But Murray's criticism -- that all Donner knew how to do in comedies was get everyone to 'go' louder and louder -- is valid. Putting the twitchy, adenoidal Bobcat Goldthwait in a role that called for finesse and an ability to generate sympathy really didn't help either. Karen Allen is welcome as always as the lost love of Murray's Scrooge-like TV executive, and Carol Kane also does some violently funny slapstick. Lightly recommended, for it could have been so much better with a lighter, funnier hand on the helm.
Elvis & Nixon (2016): written by Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal, and Cary Elwes; directed by Liza Johnson; starring Michael Shannon (Elvis), Kevin Spacey (Nixon), Alex Pettyfer (Jerry Schilling), and Colin Hanks (Krogh): Fizzy, funny imagining of just what went on in December 1970 when Elvis met Nixon. Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey nail the voices and mannerisms of Presley and Tricky Dick, respectively, despite not particularly resembling them physically. It's funny stuff, with maybe a bit too much sentimentality attached to the friendship of Elvis and Jerry Schilling, the latter being what we in the business would once have called The Narrative Focalizer (TM). But when Elvis and Nixon are in a scene, the scene shines, with Colin Hanks offering capable back-up work as one of Nixon's staff. Recommended.
Arrival (2016): adapted from Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" by Eric Heisserer; directed by Denis Villeneuve; starring Amy Adams (Louise Banks), Jeremy Renner (Ian Donnelly), Forest Whitaker (Colonel Weber), Michael Stuhlbarg (Agent Halpern), and Tzi Ma (General Shang): The first half-hour could have used some strenuous advising from someone in the military so as to lose all the military-movie cliches and counter-factual errors that arise. Once we're inside the alien ship, however, things start to sing in this tale of First Contact.
It's really Amy Adams' show as an actor -- she's great, conveying both intelligence and heartache as the linguist drafted by the U.S. military to figure out the language of the aliens that just parked their giant contact lens in Montana. More scenes with the aliens would have been appreciated. Canadian director Denis Villeneuve does some nice work with visuals and sound design here, though once again he's made a movie that seems just about 10 minutes longer than it ideally should be. And the sound design occasionally buries the dialogue, suggesting that Villeneuve may be attempting to emulate the sonic garble of Christopher Nolan. Recommended.
The Great Shark Hunt: The Gonzo Papers Volume 1: written by Hunter S. Thompson (1956-79; collected 1979): Ridiculously long and curiously arranged, this collection of essays and excerpts by Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the America of the 1960's and 1970's.
Or the America of now. Because the scum also rises, still.
The early pieces demonstrate a Thompson in the process of developing that occasionally fictional non-fiction style known as Gonzo, where the Journalist Is There, though he may rearrange events to more cogently make a point. The normal undergrad thing to do is to latch onto Thompson's tales of drug use, ether-quaffing road trips, and general bad behaviour.
But he's a keen observer and commenter upon social and political topics. Much of that near-stream-of-consciousness prose still crackles, as do his observations from the underbelly of America. And by underbelly, I really mean all of America. Presidential campaigns are as scum-soaked and vile as any crime scene or ordeal of police brutality. Watergate is a doomsday that never quite gets to wipe the slate clean. Viet Nam is a horror.
Thompson's bete noire was Richard Nixon, but the Gonzo bile also spews on career Democratic political hack Hubert Humphrey, the idiots of the Democratic Party establishment, Gerald Ford and his soul-destroying decision to pardon Nixon without a trial, fat cats of all types, and bastards, bastards, bastards.
It might be nice to have Thompson around today to peer agog at American politics and American society, but it wouldn't necessarily reveal anything new. Sucking scum like Mitt Romney are eternal in their existence, changing only in their names and appearances. Highly recommended.
