This was an incredible story: a man lands a passenger jet full of people on the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey. It was one of the few successful water landings and one of the few times a crash investigation could interview both the pilot and the co-pilot.
This story had a few complications which made it difficult to dramatize:
1) The whole incident took two minutes. All the action occurred in the average length of a commercial break during a TV show, so the movie had to take some liberties with the narrative. In Flight, as a contrast, the plane took a long time to crash, and that maneuver occupied a good chunk of the narrative time. Here, the entire flight from take off to forced water landing took two-hundred and eight seconds. While this fact makes it all the more impressive that Capt. Sullenberger acted with such confidence and poise, it hardly makes for an interesting movie alone. Which leads me to...
2) Capt. Sullenberger was a good man who did his job well. Again, to return to Flight, the dissonance between the character's flaws and his acts of heroism create a natural narrative tension. Here, no one was terribly surprised that Sully did such a good job. No one wants to see a movie where a good person does a good job without much struggle. Which leads me to...
3) The tension between the investigators and Capt. Sullenberger felt forced because he was such an excellent pilot and all the passengers survived. The movie seemed to suggest that overly stingy insurance regulators and reliance on technology called into question the heroism of the singular pilot who could have made that landing work. I am not sure that actually happened. There is little to suggest that anyone would have questions Sullenberger's decision past the initial question. Because the audience could clearly see that a competent man with years of experience handled the situation with such confidence and decisiveness that everyone managed to live, the actors playing the investigators seemed cartoonishly villainous.
In the end, though, the story was well-told and well-performed. It was a naturally interesting story, and I wish the focus had been more on the trauma of the lived experience than the obviously staged battle over regulations and system testing. Still, it was well-worth seeing.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
66.) Hands of Stone [9/12/2016]
Despite how cliched they can be, I tend to like fighting movies (see: Warrior and South Paw), and I particularly like when sports are used as metaphors for international relations (see: Bend it Like Beckham and Race). This movie caught my eye immediately: a boxer from Panama who fights an American legend during the height of the Panama Canal disputes (around the time Carter lost his re-election to Reagan).
That alone would have been enough for the movie: two boxers at the height of their careers fighting with vastly different styles and representing their own countries agendas in both an actual and a metaphorical fight. Unfortunately, the movie kept adding layers: there was an examination of poverty, as Roberto Duran was a street kid who learned to fight as a means of survival. Once he became overly wealthy, then, his transition into a different socio-economic class was hardly smooth. There was a discussion of the seedier sides of boxing, as both Duran and his American trainer, Ray Arcel, had suspicious dealings with shady characters.
In the end, the movie tried to cram in so much narrative that it felt overstuffed and bloated. At just under two hours, there simply wasn't enough time to develop the different narrative strands into a cohesive movie. All the different arcs seemed unrelated and the transitions between scenes could sometimes be jarring. Still, Edgar Rameriez made for a convincing fighter, and surprisingly Usher played Sugar Ray Leonard perfectly. It wasn't a terrible movie, so if you are inclined to like boxing movies, movies about South America, or Robert Deniro films, you could do worse than this. That said, it wouldn't be the one boxing movie from the last ten years I suggest anyone watch.
That alone would have been enough for the movie: two boxers at the height of their careers fighting with vastly different styles and representing their own countries agendas in both an actual and a metaphorical fight. Unfortunately, the movie kept adding layers: there was an examination of poverty, as Roberto Duran was a street kid who learned to fight as a means of survival. Once he became overly wealthy, then, his transition into a different socio-economic class was hardly smooth. There was a discussion of the seedier sides of boxing, as both Duran and his American trainer, Ray Arcel, had suspicious dealings with shady characters.
In the end, the movie tried to cram in so much narrative that it felt overstuffed and bloated. At just under two hours, there simply wasn't enough time to develop the different narrative strands into a cohesive movie. All the different arcs seemed unrelated and the transitions between scenes could sometimes be jarring. Still, Edgar Rameriez made for a convincing fighter, and surprisingly Usher played Sugar Ray Leonard perfectly. It wasn't a terrible movie, so if you are inclined to like boxing movies, movies about South America, or Robert Deniro films, you could do worse than this. That said, it wouldn't be the one boxing movie from the last ten years I suggest anyone watch.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
65.) Hell or High Water [9/10/2016]
I loved this movie. Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges were great. The writing was great. It was shot with deft subtly. I can't recommend this movie highly enough.
Set in Texas, it follows the exploits of two down-on-their-luck brothers (Pine and Foster) as they pull a series of small heists. The robberies catch the attention of two Texas Rangers (Bridges and Gil Birmingham), and the two groups of people set about trying to accomplish contrary goals: find financial freedom and stop the bad guys. The characters separate motivations unfold during the game of cat and mouse to complicate the viewer's sympathies, and the film resists simple catharsis.
Again, I could go on about this movie, but I don't want to spoil it. Go see it. A great film with a great cast and crew.
Set in Texas, it follows the exploits of two down-on-their-luck brothers (Pine and Foster) as they pull a series of small heists. The robberies catch the attention of two Texas Rangers (Bridges and Gil Birmingham), and the two groups of people set about trying to accomplish contrary goals: find financial freedom and stop the bad guys. The characters separate motivations unfold during the game of cat and mouse to complicate the viewer's sympathies, and the film resists simple catharsis.
Again, I could go on about this movie, but I don't want to spoil it. Go see it. A great film with a great cast and crew.
64.) The Light Between Oceans [9/9/2016]
Recently, I have been reading a lot about empathy and literature. One article I read discussed the difficulty of empathizing with the charactrers in Toni Morrison's Beloved as the characters resist catharsis. They can never move away from the slavery in their past, and as such, the reader is unable to fully immerse into the story.
While I am not entirely sold on that argument, I like the idea of characters which are difficult to empathize with. Catherine and I saw this movie, and had vastly different reactions to it, hinging on how we related to the actions of the main character. For Catherine, she found Elizabeth Greysmark's (played by Alicia Vikander) behavior entirely unconscionable; while I didn't agree with her actions, I could understand (and found heartbreaking) the life-altering decisions she made. There are massive swaths of grey in the characters here, and though we didn't agree, it certainly occupied more than a few nights of conversations. If for nothing else, the movie is worth seeing as a conversation piece.
63.) Morgan [9/8/2016]
In 2015, Ex Machina was one of my favorite movies (might have been my #1 movie of the year, but I can't be asked to go and find out), and Morgan is along that same vein: an artificial intelligence housed in the body of something young and feminine looking (the amazing Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina and Anna Taylor-Joy in Morgan). The idea is that the AI has shown a tendency towards dangerous behavior and an outsider needs to be brought in to determine whether or not the project is viable (Domhnall Gleason and Kate Mara, respectively).
The movies seem to be built on identical plot structures, though the differ in key areas: the handlers of Morgan feel something akin to love for their project, while Oscar Isaac is far more sadistic in how he handles Ava; the reasons for building the AI projects are vastly different (any more would give away too much of both plots); and the AI interacts much different in both movies.
There is some insightful gender criticism to be made here, especially in Morgan where the key interaction is between two women (a rarity in movies, as is, to say nothing of a movie in which one woman is definitely a captive, dangerous person). Certainly, books have been written about how women and androids can easily be conflated, and this film (or these films) will definitely add to that conversation. In all, I really enjoyed this movie.
The movies seem to be built on identical plot structures, though the differ in key areas: the handlers of Morgan feel something akin to love for their project, while Oscar Isaac is far more sadistic in how he handles Ava; the reasons for building the AI projects are vastly different (any more would give away too much of both plots); and the AI interacts much different in both movies.
There is some insightful gender criticism to be made here, especially in Morgan where the key interaction is between two women (a rarity in movies, as is, to say nothing of a movie in which one woman is definitely a captive, dangerous person). Certainly, books have been written about how women and androids can easily be conflated, and this film (or these films) will definitely add to that conversation. In all, I really enjoyed this movie.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
62.) Independence Day: Resurgence [9/7/2016]
It was a incoherent hot mess of a movie with massive plot holes, and a lot has been, and can be, said about that. Here, I want to focus on one part of this train-wreck I feel best epitomizes the issue with the movie: the hole the aliens were drilling into the Earth.
The whole reason for the movie was not revenge, as one might expect seeing as how Earth managed to annihilate the previous attempts at colonization. The first wave of aliens even sent out a distress signal to which these new aliens were responding. Once these new aliens arrived (same species, different ship), they set to work mining the planet for it's molten core. This wasn't a war ship, though it was equipped with lots of little fighter ships (for suppressing protesters, I would assume); this was a construction crew, like all of those running around the midwest constructing fracking wells (who also wish they had fighter ships to suppress protesters). There might be some clever eco-criticism here, but the film doesn't fully explore the issue. Instead, it sits back on the age old sci-fi trope: aliens bad; people good. The film gave only passing consideration to why they were there, and instead just went around killing without asking any questions. In fact, they even attacked the alien that came to help--and which will feature prominently in the next filmic installment.
The construction crew sets about mining the planet by drilling a hole in the ocean a mile wide. This hole will extend to the molten core of the planet, which the ship was meant to extract...somehow. Like the first movie, this gave the action a timer, as the intrepid humans had a limited amount of time to kill the queen before, as several characters noted, "the end of life as we know it." The hole is a mile wide in the middle of the ocean (they didn't specifically say which one, but the legs of the drilling space ship set down on the East Coast of the US and London, so likely it was the Atlantic). The drill gets to within two minutes of cracking the mantel and extracting the molten core, which suggests it was pretty damn close. The images from the radar screen on the salvage ship which happened to be in the ocean nearby (close enough to see the mile wide hole and the lazer drill, but not too close to be affected by it...somehow) suggested that there were mere feet between the tip of the lazer and the molten core. Mankind succeeds, and the aliens leave without filling in this hole. Of all the plot holes in the movie, this is the one that seems most unforgivable.
At first, I thought that a mile wide, 4000 mile deep hole would drain the oceans, but after crunching the numbers (thanks, Internet), it turns out the approximately 3200 cubic miles of water which would inevitably drain into that hole would only account for a small fraction of the 800 million cubic miles of water on the surface of the planet (.0004% to be exact, which would likely not even shift the coast line that significantly). It's possible (read: likely) that I did the math wrong, but my take away from an afternoon's research is that a hole that big wouldn't affect the water level too much because the ocean is fucking massive.
A bigger issue, and one that Oklahoma is certain to attest to, is that tampering with the crust of the planet will lead to cataclysmic earth quakes. Granted, the hole itself wouldn't affect the overall surface area. According to the internet, there are roughly 197 million square miles on the surface of the earth, and digging out about 3.5 of those would likely go unnoticed (there have been massive holes dug around the world, and the Earth continues to spin, though it should be noted that none of the man-made holes goes nearly as deep: the current record is about seven miles). However, filling much smaller holes with water has caused innumerable issues around the US. The use and disposal of fracking waste water has been tied to the steep increase in the number and intensity of earthquakes around the US, and the amounts of water and the hole being dug are paltry when compared to this massive hole dug by the aliens. Getting the exact data on size of holes and quantities of water used are beyond the reach of the simple Google searches I did, but it can be assumed the volumes are significantly less and the results have been fairly conclusive. Pumping extra water into the earth is not a good idea. In the movie, that water would be dumped into multiple layers of the earth. It would be instantly irradiated (as much of the fracking waste water is), full of all sorts of toxic heavy metals, and would likely dissipate the heat trapped towards the core. If nothing else, it would certainly destroy our water supply, raising the temperature of the oceans and melting what is left of the dwindling glaciers. It's also possible that such a fissure that deep and wide would allow the massive amount of pressure at the center of the earth to have a weak spot to push against, and whole planet would fracture.
In short, stopping the aliens just before they achieved their goal would likely not leave us with a livable planet. It is very possible that the Independence Day franchise is playing a long game of eco-criticism, and that this movie will leave unexplored the consequences of such a drilling expedition so that it can use them as a catalyst for further space exploration and a mass exodus off the planet. Like actual mankind's efforts to halt global warming, our efforts to live on a mostly ruined planet would prove untenable. The trio of films, then, would be one long metaphor about the horrors of delving too greedily and too deep, like the dwarves in Moria.
More likely, the writers here simply didn't think too hard about the physics of their movie. A certain amount of suspended disbelief is required for sci-fi films, and I certainly don't begrudge the writers refusing to acknowledge the absurdity of a laser drill or how a ship that massive would have affected the gravity of the planet. That said, they should think about how such technology would work within the confines of the real world it inhabits. Look at the first Star Trek reboot: the hole they dug was much smaller, but immediately the planet being mined was destroyed (Futurama looked at the same issue with similar results). Independence Day: Resurgence was just not thought through very carefully, and instead hoped the big explosions and massive (often overcrowded) action sequences, after which the human race stands bruised, but not beaten, would distract from the inherent absurdity of the plot.
Unfortunately, such lapses in realism can become distracting. Untied loose ends like this pull attention away from what the movie did do well, which was have a lot of aliens flying around the planet fighting. Like a chip in a wall, once one flaw is spotted, others start to become more evident. Then the whole delicate house of cards tumbles down. This was the issue here: the movie hoped no one would notice how unconsidered the conceit is.
The whole reason for the movie was not revenge, as one might expect seeing as how Earth managed to annihilate the previous attempts at colonization. The first wave of aliens even sent out a distress signal to which these new aliens were responding. Once these new aliens arrived (same species, different ship), they set to work mining the planet for it's molten core. This wasn't a war ship, though it was equipped with lots of little fighter ships (for suppressing protesters, I would assume); this was a construction crew, like all of those running around the midwest constructing fracking wells (who also wish they had fighter ships to suppress protesters). There might be some clever eco-criticism here, but the film doesn't fully explore the issue. Instead, it sits back on the age old sci-fi trope: aliens bad; people good. The film gave only passing consideration to why they were there, and instead just went around killing without asking any questions. In fact, they even attacked the alien that came to help--and which will feature prominently in the next filmic installment.
The construction crew sets about mining the planet by drilling a hole in the ocean a mile wide. This hole will extend to the molten core of the planet, which the ship was meant to extract...somehow. Like the first movie, this gave the action a timer, as the intrepid humans had a limited amount of time to kill the queen before, as several characters noted, "the end of life as we know it." The hole is a mile wide in the middle of the ocean (they didn't specifically say which one, but the legs of the drilling space ship set down on the East Coast of the US and London, so likely it was the Atlantic). The drill gets to within two minutes of cracking the mantel and extracting the molten core, which suggests it was pretty damn close. The images from the radar screen on the salvage ship which happened to be in the ocean nearby (close enough to see the mile wide hole and the lazer drill, but not too close to be affected by it...somehow) suggested that there were mere feet between the tip of the lazer and the molten core. Mankind succeeds, and the aliens leave without filling in this hole. Of all the plot holes in the movie, this is the one that seems most unforgivable.
At first, I thought that a mile wide, 4000 mile deep hole would drain the oceans, but after crunching the numbers (thanks, Internet), it turns out the approximately 3200 cubic miles of water which would inevitably drain into that hole would only account for a small fraction of the 800 million cubic miles of water on the surface of the planet (.0004% to be exact, which would likely not even shift the coast line that significantly). It's possible (read: likely) that I did the math wrong, but my take away from an afternoon's research is that a hole that big wouldn't affect the water level too much because the ocean is fucking massive.
A bigger issue, and one that Oklahoma is certain to attest to, is that tampering with the crust of the planet will lead to cataclysmic earth quakes. Granted, the hole itself wouldn't affect the overall surface area. According to the internet, there are roughly 197 million square miles on the surface of the earth, and digging out about 3.5 of those would likely go unnoticed (there have been massive holes dug around the world, and the Earth continues to spin, though it should be noted that none of the man-made holes goes nearly as deep: the current record is about seven miles). However, filling much smaller holes with water has caused innumerable issues around the US. The use and disposal of fracking waste water has been tied to the steep increase in the number and intensity of earthquakes around the US, and the amounts of water and the hole being dug are paltry when compared to this massive hole dug by the aliens. Getting the exact data on size of holes and quantities of water used are beyond the reach of the simple Google searches I did, but it can be assumed the volumes are significantly less and the results have been fairly conclusive. Pumping extra water into the earth is not a good idea. In the movie, that water would be dumped into multiple layers of the earth. It would be instantly irradiated (as much of the fracking waste water is), full of all sorts of toxic heavy metals, and would likely dissipate the heat trapped towards the core. If nothing else, it would certainly destroy our water supply, raising the temperature of the oceans and melting what is left of the dwindling glaciers. It's also possible that such a fissure that deep and wide would allow the massive amount of pressure at the center of the earth to have a weak spot to push against, and whole planet would fracture.
In short, stopping the aliens just before they achieved their goal would likely not leave us with a livable planet. It is very possible that the Independence Day franchise is playing a long game of eco-criticism, and that this movie will leave unexplored the consequences of such a drilling expedition so that it can use them as a catalyst for further space exploration and a mass exodus off the planet. Like actual mankind's efforts to halt global warming, our efforts to live on a mostly ruined planet would prove untenable. The trio of films, then, would be one long metaphor about the horrors of delving too greedily and too deep, like the dwarves in Moria.
More likely, the writers here simply didn't think too hard about the physics of their movie. A certain amount of suspended disbelief is required for sci-fi films, and I certainly don't begrudge the writers refusing to acknowledge the absurdity of a laser drill or how a ship that massive would have affected the gravity of the planet. That said, they should think about how such technology would work within the confines of the real world it inhabits. Look at the first Star Trek reboot: the hole they dug was much smaller, but immediately the planet being mined was destroyed (Futurama looked at the same issue with similar results). Independence Day: Resurgence was just not thought through very carefully, and instead hoped the big explosions and massive (often overcrowded) action sequences, after which the human race stands bruised, but not beaten, would distract from the inherent absurdity of the plot.
Unfortunately, such lapses in realism can become distracting. Untied loose ends like this pull attention away from what the movie did do well, which was have a lot of aliens flying around the planet fighting. Like a chip in a wall, once one flaw is spotted, others start to become more evident. Then the whole delicate house of cards tumbles down. This was the issue here: the movie hoped no one would notice how unconsidered the conceit is.
61.) Florence Foster Jenkins [9/4/2016]
There certainly needs to be a bio-pic about the most requested recorded performance at Carnegie Hall, and such a movie would have been smart to cast both Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant as the titular character and her philandering husband, St. Clair Bayfield. Jenkins was an interesting character: a pianist of some repute (played for the president at age 8) who was stricken with syphilis and lost her ability to play. She went on to then use her inheritance to float the high-art music scene in New York during the war. Because of her patronage, no one wanted to be overly honest with her, and thus she believed she could sing quite well. Her husband went to great lengths to keep her in the dark about her singing ability.
There is a really interesting story here at the cross-section of art, war-time economics, personal confidence, fidelity, and talent. There has to be a reason why Jenkins's record, which was objectively terrible, is the best selling album in Melotone Recordings Catalog. There has to be a reason her performance at Carnegie Hall is the most requested recording from their archive. Something about this woman spoke to the nation at a time when there seemed to be nothing positive happening.
The actors did their best with the script (Streep and Grant were amazing; Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg was okay), but it never quite examined the metaphorical value of Jenkins's career. The audience's surrogate, Cosme McMoon (played by Helberg), never seemed to realize the importance of the singer's performance, and instead focused on his own successes which came by riding her coattails. I left the film thinking it was interesting, but not sure why it was important.
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