Day: June 27, 2023

No Reviews Until July 5th

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But Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount, 7.12) is totally wowser — a shot of grade-A adrenalin and nothing but breathtaking elements top to bottom, plus some of the action sequences struck me — this was surprising — as almost Buster Keaton-ish in a welcome way. But the Austrian train wreck finale is in a knock-your-socks-off category by itself — an INSTANT CLASSIC.

I Didn’t Mind “Bridge of Spies”

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Posted on 10.4.15: Steven Spielberg‘s Bridge Of Spies (Dreamworks, 10.16) isn’t half bad — a sombre, dialogue-driven, fact-based spy tale. It’s a little Spielbergy in the second half (i.e., visual punctuations or signatures that feel a bit pushed or manipulative) but not in ways that I would call excessive or tedious. It’s aimed at the over-40 crowd as younger auds will most likely steer clear.

The only obvious stand-out, Oscar-worthy attribute is Mark Rylance‘s droll supporting performance as real-life Russian spy Rudolf Abel, but it’s a keeper. Rylance owns this movie the way Jane Fonda owns Youth; he may very well snag a BSA nomination.

Regular HE readers know how I feel about Spielberg, and I’m telling you I didn’t feel as if I was suffering through this at all. Half of Spies is actually pretty good and the other half is…well, in and out but basically tolerable. From me that’s almost a rave. And I don’t think that’s proportional. This is not a “great” film but a smart and mostly satisfying one, especially if you’re getting older and fatter and have a few faded memories of the days when Russian commmies were the big baddies.

Tom Hanks, once again portraying a walking emblem for American front-porch decency and Atticus Finch-style values, is James B. Donovan, the late American attorney who defended Abel after his arrest in ’57, and then, following the 1960 Russian capture of U2 spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, was asked to fly to Berlin to negotiate for Powers’ release by swapping him for Abel. Donovan also managed to free wrongly accused academic Frederic Pryor, whom the East Germans were holding on suspicion of espionage.

Spies is basically two espionage flicks, the first and best taking place in New York City in the late ’50s and the second occuring in Berlin in ’61 and early ’62. The Spielbergy stuff starts to kick in during the second half, and when it happens you’ll say to yourself “okay, here we go…time for Spielberg to remind us every so often what a great and exacting cinematic composer he can be.” What’s so great about part one (i.e., the New York chapter) is that Spielberg doesn’t insert any conspicuously brilliant flourishes at all, or at least none that demanded my attention.

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“We’re Takin’ On Too Much Wah-Wah”

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Nobody talks anymore about Sir “Low” Grade‘s Raise The Titanic, which opened and bombed in August 1980. Which means they’re also not talking about an incident that happens around the halfway point, when salvage experts begin to prepare for the dangerous job of actually raising the Titanic from the ocean floor.

At a depth near 10,000 feet, one of the project’s submersibles, Starfish, experiences a cabin flood and implodes.

“This is Turtle…we got Starfish in visual contact.”

Two Angry Men (Jew vs. Kraut)

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The early car conflict scene between two old guys (Lou Gilbert‘s “Rosenbaum” and Ben Dova‘s “Klaus Szell”) is one of the most gripping sequences in John Schlesinger‘s Marathon Man (10.8.76).

Set on a one-way street in the 70s or 80s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it must have been a bitch to shoot with all the traffic control issues and whatnot.

One problem: I’ve never believed that both men would recklessly and obliviously drive full-speed into a fuel truck. Perhaps one of them but not both. A potentially great scene ends on a note of disappointment.

Sidenote: 24 or 25 years before Marathon Man Gilbert played “Pablo,” a trusted friend and ally of Marlon Brando‘s Emiliano Zapata, in Elia Kazan‘s Viva Zapata (’52)

Jeff & Sasha: Hollywood’s Ongoing Woke Implosion

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No matter what the topic, Jeff and Sasha are reminded that there isn’t a single aspect of Hollywood diversion these days that hasn’t been woke-modified, influenced, or compromised by the urge to educate and enlighten by way of progressive guilt-tripping. Hollywood, in short, has totally torpedoed the classic idea of entertainment and Average Joes are sick of the preaching.

Oscar Poker Substack topics include the imminent financial disappointment of India Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ethan Coen and Trish Foster‘s Drive-Away Dolls and the rare journalistic cojones of Deadline‘s Michael Cieply.

Again, the link.

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Woke Valkyries

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Subhead for Eliana Dockterman’s 6.27 Time cover story about Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (Warner Bros., 7.21): “The year’s most surprising movie finds humanity in the iconic doll.”

“Surprising,” in this context, means that rather than celebrating and reveling in flush-pink, girly-girl materialistic splendor, which is what 97% of the film’s audience will be gleefully anticipating and paying to see, Barbie will unfurl feminist-inclusive-gay-trans colors.

It will not only push a satiric attitude of the pinker-than-pink aesthetic but perhaps (if the new Time cover story is any indication) even endorse a soulful renunciation of same. Those retro-fest values are strictly in the packaging and will not be fulfilled. Surprise! Barbie is Maoist wokey-wokey.

But of course, as anyone who routinely visits TikTok can and will tell you, Barbie’s bottom-line message is going to be ignored nationwide and worldwide. Because the most ardent Barbie fans are going to enjoy it, as I’ve recently stated, for “the wrong reasons.”