Margin Call

"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter or cheat."

Margin Call is the story of one night at a the trading floor of a fictional investment bank (it reflects Lehman Brothers primarily) where a young analyst (Zachary Quinto) discovers a serious problem; the volatility of the mortgage-backed securities on the firm’s books is too high and a massive swing downwards would create a loss larger than the market cap of the entire company. He tells his superiors, there a bunch of meetings, the CEO is brought in on a helicopter, they are forced to sell their position of worthless securities into the market and a bunch of people get fired. The movie attempts to simulate the decision making process that some of the big banks in the US went through that led to their eventual downfall. The problem with the movie is that it is a myopic view of a very complex event.

Margin Call plays right into the Occupy nonsense ideal that has been pervading popular culture; essentially, that the entire financial crisis was caused by greedy banks and it’s all their fault. The movie never once addresses any of the reasons behind why the mortgage-backed securities becoming worthless (greedy Americans entering into homes they couldn’t afford and agreements they didn’t understand, then declaring bankruptcy and leaving the banks to foot the bill). It only focuses on the banks’ securitization of the mortgages and getting stuck with them once they were worth nothing. I am not defending their decision to ditch their positions knowingly full well they were worthless, which was objectively unethical, but it is a very small part of the whole series of events. I recognize that this movie is meant to only be about one specific event, but the fact that the movie is about an unnamed bank is clearly meant for the audience to assume it is a proxy for all banks and they all did something similar to this. The entire film reeks of anti-capitalist bias and I found it extremely off-putting.

The specific story in the film of how the bank discovers the problem and deals with it is, for the most part, fairly realistic. There is some absurdity to be found, such as the analyst who discovers the issue being a literal rocket scientist, because of course, no one (including the audience) would ever doubt the financial analysis done by a rocket scientist. This movie assumes the audience has the brain of a monkey and cannot do any critical thinking for itself. The big question is: of all the things that Wall Street banks did during the financial crisis, why was this chosen to be the focus of the story? Why not Goldman Sachs’ selling of mortgage-backed securities and then betting against them with the firm’s own money? There are many more interesting stories to do with unethical bank dealings that this movie could have been about; I don’t know why the screenwriters chose this.

Actually, yes I do. The real, underlying problem with Margin Call is that it was written by people who have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to finance. Even the title of the film is inaccurate. A margin call is imposed on a borrower by an outside lender who forces the borrower to raise cash by selling securities. In contrast, the fictional investment bank in this film decides to ditch its position in the mortgage-backed securities because the value of the securities fell outside the bank’s value-at-risk (VAR) computer-model parameters. Nobody outside of the firm was demanding cash and the firm was not suffering from a liquidity crisis like real-life Lehman Brothers experienced before it went under. This movie was written by people who just want to blame banks for everything and have probably read the Wikipedia articles on the financial crisis and have proclaimed themselves experts. This movie’s overall tone is propagandist nonsense and is insultingly one-sided against the financial industry.

A story about people meeting to discuss increased volatility of mortgage-backed securities is not exceptionally interesting, so the movie fills the gap with a star-studded cast. The performances are admittedly very good, particularly the late show-stealing appearance by Jeremy Irons as CEO John Tuld; a thinly-veiled reference to Lehman CEO Richard Fuld. Stanley Tucci is also fantastic as one of the senior risk managers, though he is in about three scenes total. However, the characters could not be more clichéd if you were reading a textbook about clichéd characters. Each character has precisely one dimension, and they are as follows:

• The smooth-talking CEO who only cares about himself.
• The young analyst who only cares about money, who idolizes up to...
• The young manager who makes more money than he knows what to do with.
• The young analyst who discovers a problem everyone else missed because he is a rocket scientist genius.
• The middle manager who wants to do the right thing but struggles with it because he has sacrificed his entire life for the company.
• The boss of the middle manager who is too young for his job and also only cares about himself.

There are some other characters floating around but they are basically variations of the above. The best character is actually Paul Bettany’s, the self-obsessed young manager from above, who says most of the intelligent things in the movie. He has a particularly good monologue towards the end of the film that I enjoyed. It’s sad because scenes like this show the potential that this movie had and squandered.

The movie’s bias against finance professionals kicks into high gear during the last ten minutes of the film where you see one character talk about how he was once an engineer and found that much more fulfilling, and another character who is divorced from his wife because he cared more about his career. Even the rocket scientist professional questions at one point the ethicality of paying any one person as much as some of his coworkers are. Give me a break. Are there any normal, ethical people working for the company, are happily married and do their jobs so they can provide for their family? Of course not, because that wouldn’t jive with the whole “everyone in finance is greedy” vibe of the entire film.

Bottom line, beyond the good performances of the actors, there’s not much good here and I don’t recommend this movie. It’s one-sided, clichéd, uninteresting and boring. Save your time and watch the fantastic Inside Job by Charles Ferguson instead.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

"Hold still. I've never done this before."

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: I have not read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo nor have I seen the Swedish film adaptation. The book is on my to-read list, but in all honesty, it’s pretty far down the list. As a born skeptic, every time a book gets as much attention as the Milennium Trilogy has, I become wary and usually assume it is akin to another Dan Brown novel (no offense to Dan Brown fans) and decide to read something else. I can’t discuss differences between the movie and book or the relative merits of each; I can only tell you what I thought of this movie as it stands on its own.

Regardless of the way I personally choose what books to read, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is immensely popular in North America, most people are too lazy to read the subtitles of the Swedish film, so obviously a Hollywood adaptation was in order. David Fincher, riding high from the success of last year’s The Social Network, takes the director’s chair and returns to the type of crime story he told in Seven and Zodiac. As a huge fan of most of Fincher’s work, I think he is at his best in these types of stories.

The film stars Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist fresh out of a court battle that has ruined his reputation and drained him of his life savings. To get away from it all and to make some money, he takes a job from Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to try and solve a mystery that has gone unsolved for forty years: the disappearance of his grandniece, Harriet. The story focuses on Mikael slowly piecing together the mystery through his run-ins with Vanger’s estranged relatives and looking at old police reports and newspapers.  

Running parallel to Mikael’s story is the tale of the titular girl with the dragon tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, played to perfection by Rooney Mara (Zuckerberg’s ex-girlfriend from the Social Network). Her transformation into Lisbeth is truly remarkable and the movie is worth watching for her performance alone. Her character is, sadly, a bit clichéd, and most of the story is solved by her being a computer genius and good at everything. You just have to take it at face value that she has access to all information everywhere whenever she wants and she is always one mouse-click away from what she needs. This is lazy writing, both in the movie and I assume in the book; it’s akin to the “zoom, enhance” nonsense from CSI shows. It gets out of control in the last twenty minutes of the film where she turns into James Bond and somehow has all of the skills of an international spy. Aside from this silliness, Lisbeth’s character is genuinely interesting. I enjoyed learning the bits and pieces that are offered about her life so much so that it makes me want to read the Milennium books just to learn more about her.

The mystery itself is interesting and well-told for the most part, but it relies far too much on the audience’s ability to memorize the names of the characters (and there are many). My advice to those watching (who, like me, have not read the book) is to pay close attention to everyone’s names moreso than you usually might when watching a movie. The final reveal is surprisingly fast and oddly without any real drama and it is easy to miss the quick line of dialogue that communicates the final twist in the story. There is a bit of a rushed feeling to the whole movie, like it constantly wants to move forward and doesn’t want to dwell on anything for too long. Even the final shot of the film, which is at the end of a fairly emotional scene, ends abruptly and the credits come on faster than a sitcom. It’s almost like the movie is telling you not to reflect on the scene and wants you to go away. This feeling, unfortunately, pervades throughout, and I would have gladly sacrificed some of the scenes that feel like they were there solely because they’re in the book for a simpler, slower version of what is not a very complicated story.

It may sound like I didn’t like this movie, but that isn’t the case. I think I just expected it to stand more on its own and for Fincher Zaillian (who also wrote this year’s fantastic Moneyball) and to make it more of their own film. I am confident that the last twenty minutes would have been cut had they not been adapting such a popular book. This section is unnecessary to this story in particular, is overlong, and I assume is important in the sequels. In this film though it just seems like padding. The movie is nearly three hours long and I can think of several scenes that could have been cut and the movie would have been equally as coherent (although I am told there are large sections cut from the book anyway, so it seems like not everything was sacred).

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross again provide the score (they also did the phenomenal Social Network soundtrack) and they do not disappoint. The duo again uses electronic sounds and ambient noises effectively to help push the tension created by the film's cinematography. The opening cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song (featuring Karen O. on vocals) has also made its way on to my iPod.

Despite my nagging issues, this is a well-made film and I recommend it to anyone who likes a good yet somewhat predictable mystery, whether you have read the book or not. Mara’s performance as Lisbeth is the birth of a modern movie star, like Noomi Rapace’s was in the same role in the Swedish version (you can catch her in the new Sherlock Holmes movie). The movie is highly graphic, so keep that in mind when watching with the family. Just remember to pay attention to the names.

50/50

"No one wants to f**k me. I look like Voldemort."

I had high expectations for 50/50 and it is quite a feat that it has managed to both meet and exceed them. Joshua Gordon-Levitt, like Ryan Gosling, has shown he is exceptionally good at picking his roles and I am at a point now where if he is in a film I know there is a good chance I will enjoy it. His streak of great choices continues in 50/50 and he gives one of the best performances of his career. Gordon-Levitt comes across as so likable you can’t help but root for him in whatever he’s got himself into, whether it’s misplaced love, invading dreams or dealing with cancer.

50/50 is the story of Adam (Gordon-Levitt), who is diagnosed with a rare type of cancer and is given a 50% chance (get it?) of surviving. You see all the steps of his disease; the diagnosis, the chemotherapy, the surgery, and witness firsthand the effects his situation have on himself and those close to him.

The film is loosely based on the life of Will Reiser, the screenwriter of 50/50, which I think helps the script’s ability to come across as so real. Kyle (Seth Rogen), is Adam’s best friend and the one he leans most on as he tries to help Adam stay afloat. Seth Rogen is actually a close friend of Will Reiser, so who better to play the character of himself than himself? Rogen is channelling true emotions in his character because he was there for the real deal. Seth Rogen pretty much plays the same character in every movie because I assume he is playing how he is in real life, but his stoner humour comes across less forced here than it usually does compared to Funny People or Knocked Up.

Anna Kendrick (who is really starting to grow on me, and I will excuse her Twilight roles) plays Adam’s inexperienced therapist who gets some of the funniest dialogue in the film. Watching her and Adam’s relationship develop is one of the highlights of the story and their scenes contain some refreshingly natural dialogue. Anjelica Huston and Bryce Dallas-Howard round out the cast as Adam’s mother and girlfriend respectively. Adam’s mom is the typical worried mother (and who can blame her?), though the manner in which he responds to her reaching out to him may have you re-examining the way you talk to your own mother.

The film has an impressive ability to go back and forth between scenes that are genuinely hilarious and scenes that are extremely emotional. This movie is not always for the faint of heart, and though the ending is fairly predictable, the way it gets there will tug your heartstrings more than once. I particularly enjoyed watching Adam realize he was not alone with his disease and the impact of having a loved one have cancer (say, a best friend or a son) can be nearly as devastating as having the disease itself but in a different way.

I like that the movie didn’t spend any time on life lessons and had no scenes where he promised everything would change if he beat the disease. I like that the scenes that are dramatic are told using imagery or subtle dialogue without having the actors stand up and yell THIS IS EMOTIONAL at the top of their lungs. I hope other screenwriters and directors watch this film and use it as inspiration for how to handle these scenes. What I loved most of all about 50/50 was the ending. There is no campiness to be found, no overflow of jokes to try and break the tension, no sudden change in tone that is inconsistent with the rest of the film (ahem, Knocked Up). The end just happens and the movie ends. I wish all movies ended like this.

Bottom line, I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t enjoy this movie and wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. If you or someone you know has dealt with cancer firsthand, this story will grab you and refuse to let go. Don’t miss it. 

Crazy, Stupid Love

"Are you the billionaire owner of Apple computers?"

"No."

"Then you have no right to wear New Balance sneakers. Ever."

Crazy, Stupid Love was a frustrating experience for me and I had a constant love-hate relationship with the film overall. I really want to like this movie; I like the cast, I like the idea behind the film, but poor writing and direction end up producing a shallow mess. There are great scenes in this film floating among an ocean of mediocre campy nonsense and it ends up being just a series of missed opportunities.

This unfortunate reality is, sadly, not surprising given the pedigree of the those involved. The writer, Dan Fogelman, also wrote the screenplays for Cars and Cars 2, far and away the worst Pixar films ever made (though he also contributed to Tangled, which I enjoyed). The film was directed by directing duo Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the masterminds behind such classics such as Cats & Dogs and Cats & Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore. You can see where I am going with this. However, everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves for past missteps, but unfortunately this team does not succeed here.

Crazy, Stupid Love is about Cal (Steve Carrell) who is trying to piece his life back together after finding out his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore) had an affair with another man (Kevin Bacon) and wants a divorce. Cal moves into a small apartment and starts hanging out at a bar where Jacob (Ryan Gosling, dashing as ever) is, of course, able to nail every girl in the place. Jacob takes pity on Cal and his situation and offers to help him brush up his wardrobe and lady skills so he can also nail girls and get on with his life.

Cal’s tale is the main thread of the story, but several other stories take place at the same time. Hanna (Emma Stone, who I always enjoy) is a stressed out law student with a crappy boyfriend, Cal’s fourteen year-old son Robbie is in love with his older babysitter (who incidentally is in love with Cal), and Cal’s ex-wife begins to question her decision to leave her husband. The movie hops around each of these stories randomly until they all come together abruptly toward the end. While it is a clever idea to have the simultaneous stories intertwining together, it prevents the film from developing any one character (save Cal) to any real extent. The film spends so much time flipping around between the stories without anything eventful happening that it becomes tiresome rather quickly.

One of my biggest issues with this movie is that it spends far too much time on Robbie (the son), who is a completely unbelievable character. I am not sure what thirteen year olds Dan Fogelman (the screenwriter) has been hanging around, but most are more concerned with Call of Duty than their perceptions of love and what it means to be in love. It is not unrealistic for a younger boy to have a crush on his older babysitter (I had a huge one on mine), but the lengths that this film takes his silly story are maddening. I had the same issue with Manny in Modern Family for the first season but the writers quickly recognized the absurdity of his character and have toned him down significantly over subsequent seasons. I am not sure where this Young Boy Obsessed with Love with Wisdom Beyond His Years character came from (yes, I just invented this term) but it needs to go away and fast. The speech scene at the end of this movie made me literally uncomfortable and it was painful to endure to the end.

Jacob (Ryan Gosling) is the most interesting character in the movie and represents the story’s biggest missed opportunity. In one of the film’s best scenes, about two thirds through, you finally get to see beneath his shell at his true person. This is handled well and adds significant depth to his character. However, after this point he is barely in the film again and becomes a background decoration in the remaining scenes. We finally got to learn more about an interesting character (though a bit clichéd), but the writers are simply done with him and we are back to Robbie and his nonsense.

Crazy Stupid Love’s story is great in concept and it has a few good ideas and story twists (the main of which I actually did not see coming), the performances are great, but even the acting cannot overcome the poor dialogue, absurd scenarios and terrible pacing. I want to like this movie, and wish I could see past everything and appreciate a nice, heart-warming story, but I just can’t.

Warrior

"Break out the yellow tape, Sam. Tommy's walking away from the cage like he's leaving a crime scene."

Warrior was, for me, the most pleasant surprise of the year. I started doing MMA (mixed martial arts) as a sport earlier this year and enjoy it much more than I expected to. I never watch UFC and have no interest in beating people up, but I was looking for an alternative to running as a form of cardio and needed to add some variety to my exercise. It’s a great sport and there is much more strategy to it than the casual observer understands.

With MMA increasing in popularity exponentially over the past decade, it seems it was only a matter of time before they made a movie with the sport at the centre in the vein of Rocky or other boxing classics. I don’t think anyone ever expected that the end result would be such an emotional, well-written and well-directed film that uses MMA only as one of several tools to tell a great story.

Warrior centres on two brothers, Tommy (Tom Hardy) and Brendan (Joel Edgerton) who both enter the same MMA tournament to compete for the grand prize of a whopping five million dollars. Each brother has their own motivations for entering the tournament that are drip-fed to the audience through the course of the story. Tommy and Brendan share a dark past with their alcoholic-turned-Christian father, Paddy (Nick Nolte) that you are able to piece together slowly through the character’s conversations. The brothers have not seen each other in many years and have gone down very different paths and this tournament has brought them together again. The movie swaps back and forth between each brother’s story giving each roughly the same amount of screen time.

For those who do not follow MMA, the two primary fighting styles (among several others) that are utilized by fighters are Muay Thai (punching and kicking to try and knock out your opponent) and Jiu-Jitsu (grappling on the ground and trying to inflict enough pain on your opponent to cause them to tap out). These two fighting styles are extremely different and it requires years of training to excel at both and learn to utilize them together.

Each of the brothers represents a separate fighting style that is a reflection of their character. Tommy is an ex-marine; brooding and full of hatred, he bottles up his anger and looks ready to explode in every scene. During his fights, he taps into that bottle and is fierce and unstoppable. Tommy fights primarily using Muay Thai and does not bother to slow down and worry about jiu-jitsu; his aggression and speed more than compensate for his weakness on the ground. Brendan is a physics teacher; he is married with two daughters and wants nothing more to provide for his family and give them a better life than the one he had as a child. Cool and collected, Brendan is smaller and slower than most other fighters, but his patience through Jiu Jitsu allows him to succeed and submit more aggressive opponents.

While Warrior reuses many of the clichés that are used to death in sports movies and rags-to-riches stories (the abusive father, the unsupportive wife, the training montage), they are handled so well that it doesn’t really matter. The movie is, for the most part, fairly predictable, and just by watching the trailer or reading this writeup I am sure you can figure out who the final fight of the tournament is between. However, something that the dual story dynamic introduces is that you end up rooting for both brothers equally, and the story introduces enough reasons for you to root for both of them. This buildup of events, combined with the strong feelings the brothers have towards for one another due to their past, make for one of the most emotional bouts ever put on film. Both brothers desperately need to win to find stability in their lives and they put years of past feelings into every punch. I sat on the edge of my seat during the entire finale and was immensely satisfied with the result.

The movie is well-paced and moves smoothly back and forth between stories without jarring transitions. The fights are brilliantly choreographed and if you aren’t interested in MMA at the beginning of the film you likely will be by the end. The performances are powerful, with Tom Hardy putting in one of his best turns to date. Hardy has certainly become someone to watch as of late, finally coming into the spotlight with his show-stealing role in Inception as Eames. His true breakout role was in Bronson a few years back, but I don’t know anyone who has seen that movie (I highly recommend it). We will get to see him beat the crap out of Batman as Bane in the Dark Knight Rises this summer and I look forward to seeing what he can bring to the character. Watching Joel Edgerton is watching the making of a movie star and I look forward to seeing how he springboards from this film.

Warrior joins the small handful of movies that I have watched twice in one day. Something in this film resonated with me and I love watching it over and over. Maybe it’s that I started MMA this year and it’s well timed and I appreciate the fight scenes. Maybe it’s that they used one of my favourite songs by The National during the final scene. Whatever it is, I enjoyed Warrior immensely and recommend it to anyone whether you appreciate MMA or not.

Paranormal Activity 3

"This isn't Casper the f**king friendly ghost."

I am unapologetically a huge fan of the Paranormal Activity movies. They quite frankly scare the crap out of me and make living alone significantly less pleasant. Every time someone in a condo adjacent to mine makes a noise I can hear through the ceiling or wall, these movies immediately cross my mind. I don’t believe at all or ghosts in spirits, but the fact that these ridiculous films cross my mind every time I hear an unexplained noise is a testament to their effectiveness in ruining my sleeping habits. While the Saw films spiraled further and further into absurdity and irrelevance after the second movie, the Paranormal Activity films have gotten better with each installment, an extreme rarity for a horror franchise.

The first in the series was a surprisingly great film made by someone who has likely seen hundreds of horror movies and had a perfect understanding of how to build tension and create real horror without special effects (or money). The fact that you are never given a visual representation of the ghost/spirit/whatever (hereafter referred to as “The Whatever”) adds much to the effect, and watching every scene with the knowledge that it is likely in the room there with the characters (and they don’t see it) adds a level of suspense I have never seen executed so well in a horror film.

PA1 was a runaway success, and of course all successful films in Hollywood must have a sequel. I was initially hesitant about the idea of any continuation of the series and felt that major studio involvement and a larger budget would rob the movie of its indie charm and take the series in a different (and less subtle) direction. My fears were abated when I ended up enjoying the second film more than the first. PA2 benefitted greatly from the increase in production values and larger budget and did a great job of retaining the homemade feel of the first. I also appreciated how the writers made the story fit in so well with PA1 as the first film was clearly made without the intention of further sequels. The second film created a much larger story for the series, added new characters and a mythology from which further sequels could be made.

Based on the quality of the second film, my faith in the idea of sequels in this franchise was restored. The third film is, without a doubt, the best in the series yet. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (who made the fantastic Catfish last year), this latest installment is the best-directed and best-written film in the series thus far. The producers made a smart decision to change up the directors from the second film to keep the franchise fresh and allow a different (but still consistent) vision of what a Paranormal Activity film means.

I don’t want to divulge much of the story as I personally find it one of the most enjoyable parts of these films, but the film follows the two sisters in the 1980s as children around the time The Whatever first starts hanging out with the family. Kristi (the sister with the baby from the second film) can see The Whatever all times, refers to it as Toby, and the rest of the family thinks it is just an imaginary friend. Once some weird stuff starts happening around the house, the girls’ mom’s boyfriend decides to set up cameras around the house to see what’s up. If you have seen the first two films, you can probably guess how that goes.

The “gotcha” moments in this film are fewer than the previous films and it spends more time on building the story and situations before everything goes to hell in the last half hour. The finale is fantastic and is the best segment in the series so far. If you are not gripping your seat during the last scene, you are a much stronger person than I. This film, like the first two, is an effective mix of the stationary cameras set up (with no one manning them) and handheld video cameras. It has a distinct documentary feel and adds a realness to the movie that would not be attained with conventional cinematography. This isn't Blair Witch Project running around and screaming; it is slow, methodical camerawork that keeps you constantly at the edge of your seat.

Unrelated to the quality of the film itself, I would like to draw attention to the fact that PA3 might have one of the best marketing campaigns I have ever seen. A downfall of the first two films was that if you had seen the trailers, you went into the movie knowing some of the scary parts and would end up waiting for them the whole movie. In a brilliant move, none of the scenes in the trailers for PA3 are in the actual film. The overall concept is the same and communicated through the trailers, but none of the scares are given away.

I believe that the directors recognized the issue with the marketing for PA1 and PA2 and filmed extra scenes specifically for the trailers, as several things that happen in them don’t make any sense in the context of the overall story of the final film. My reasoning for this is (minor spoiler alert) is that Julie (the mom) doesn’t believe anything is happening in the house because she never sees anything weird happening herself (until towards the end). This is a key part of the story as Dennis (the boyfriend) is constantly trying to convince her that something is up with the house and she refuses to believe him. The trailers for the film show several things happening to Julie directly, and I am pretty sure she would believe something was going on if she got yanked into the bedroom by something invisible (end spoilers). Regardless of how these alternative scenes came about, you can safely watch all of the trailers to pump yourself up for the film without ruining any of the scares. The always-intelligent commenters on YouTube state repeatedly that they were “disappointed” that the final film doesn’t contain any scenes from the trailer, but I can assure you that this is a positive.

If you didn’t like the first two installments, you won’t like the third. The film is identical in concept as the first two and won’t win over anyone who didn’t like it the first two times around. If you did like the first two, I can’t imagine you not enjoying the third. The scares are better, the story is stronger, and the overall atmosphere is much more effective. If this is the final Paranormal Activity, then the series will go down in history as one of the best horror trilogies of all time. As of this writing, the film has made $84 million from a budget of $5 million, so I would not be surprised to hear of a new installment next Halloween. If the films continue to be this good, this is a series of movies I will happily continue to lose sleep over. 

Moneyball

"Would you rather get one shot in the head or five in the chest and bleed to death?"

"Are those my only options?"

Moneyball, like Social Network, is an interesting movie about a topic that should be, by conventional logic, not interesting at all. This film is about baseball statistics, but you don’t need to appreciate nor have a deep understanding of the sport to enjoy it. If you decide not to watch this movie because you don’t appreciate or know anything about baseball, that’s the same as saying you won’t watch Cool Runnings because you don’t know anything about bobsledding or won’t watch Apollo 13 because you don’t know anything about space travel. I hope you don’t make this decision as this is one of the best films of the year and you would be missing out on a great story.

The production of Moneyball was a bit of a nightmare and it seems a miracle that the finished result is as good as it is. The film adaptation of Michael Lewis’ famous novel was originally drafted by writer Stan Chervin, and when Brad Pitt became attached to the project as a producer and lead star and hired Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York) to do a new draft of the script. Steven Soderbergh (the Ocean’s films, Che, Traffic) was signed on to direct, but he wanted to do an untraditional film with player interviews and take a non-narrative approach. In June 2009, a few days before filming was supposed to begin, the picture was put on hold until they could find a new director who had the same vision as the producers. Benett Miller (Capote) was chosen as a replacement director  and recent Oscar-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s War) was brought in to do a third draft of the screenplay. Finally, in July 2010, over a year later, filming began. After seeing the finished film, I am glad the film went through the turbulence that it did, as it prevented it from being a cash-grab adaptation of a successful book.

Moneyball is the story of the Oakland Athletics’ general manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), who utilizes a non-traditional approach to scouting players called “sabermetrics.” He hires Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young economics grad to be the brains of the operation and help him choose players. Beane’s decision to go against the grain is met with serious resistance from the team’s manager, Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and the older scouts who are used to picking players using more subjective measures such as how nice their face looks. When the Athletics do not perform as expected, Beane is forced to choose between staying the course and continuing to believe in his methods or cave and go back to the way things were.

Moneyball is a character sketch of Billy Beane and I am forced to wonder if he is as interesting a person in real life as Brad Pitt portrays him to be. In any case, Brad Pitt is in full-on cool-dude mode and they may as well have made this a fiction movie and called him Tyler Durden again. He is charismatic, smooth and fast-talking and controls every room he enters with his commanding presence. He pushes his belief in sabermetrics on others like a used-car salesman and isn’t afraid to cut people loose when they don’t buy into his story.

Behind all the smooth-talking, however, is man with a life of disappointment, regret and lack of self-worth. He failed in his professional baseball career, his marriage, and is constantly searching for his place in the world. The film cuts back and forth between parts of Beane’s life to give the audience a better understanding of what made him the man he is today. Your feelings towards him will turn from admiration to sympathy before the credits roll.

Like The Social Network, many changes were made in the transition from Michael Lewis’ book to film, and if you have read the book, this film may drive you insane. Peter Brand is not a real character but is a combination of Paul DePodesta and a few other characters mashed into one. Many of the events and their causes are different in the film than the book (and real life). If you have read the book, I urge you to relax your expectations and think to yourself what story this movie is trying to tell and what changes are necessary to make a movie about baseball statistics a captivating story for a broader audience.

This film is a serious Oscar contender for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. As it stands now with the films that have been released this year, I would put my money on it to win all of the above including Brad Pitt finally winning best actor. However, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has yet to come out, and many feel that Fincher got robbed last year when he didn’t win for the Social Network. It will also be interesting to see if the rabid critical praise for Drive translates into Oscar nominations. Regardless of the awards it does or does not win, I give this movie my highest recommendation and hope that you see it despite how you may feel about baseball.

Win Win

"This kid's got man-strength, dude."

The writer/director of Win Win, Thomas McCarthy, is killing it right now. After impressing audiences in season four of The Wire and several other small roles, he started his writing and acting career with two phenomenal films back-to-back; The Station Agent and The Visitor. With Win Win, he is now three for three, and this is probably his best film to date. The strength of McCarthy’s films seems to lie in the characters, and he continues to create characters that are both fascinating and jarringly realistic.

The always reliable Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer in a small town who is struggling to make ends meet and provide for his family. Mike has an elderly client, Leo (Burt Young), who is developing Alzheimer’s and doesn’t want to leave his home. Mike finds out that Leo is somewhat wealthy and his estate will pay $1,500 per month to his legal guardian; a sum of money that would help out with Mike’s money troubles. Mike decides to take on guardianship but doesn’t want to take care of Leo so he puts him in a nursing home. He lies to himself by saying Leo will be better off there but knows deep down this is the wrong thing to do.

Mike is the protagonist of the story, but how often do you see a protagonist do something as immoral as putting an old man in a home against his well? You might tell yourself, “I would never do something like that,” but are you certain? Can anyone honestly say they have never sacrificed someone else’s well-being for their own benefit? It is choices like this that transcend McCarthy’s characters from movie people into real people and they allow the audience to empathize with the situations that much more.

Everything seems to be working out and Mike’s financial pressures are relieved for the time being, until Leo’s unknown grandson Kyle (Alex Schafer) shows up hoping to live with Leo. This is impossible as Mike has stuck him in the nursing home, so Mike decides to take Kyle into his own house until he can figure out what to do with him. Kyle doesn’t have any other relatives other than his drug-addicted mother in rehab from whom he ran away in the first place. Mike’s wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) is not pleased by Kyle’s smoking and the fact he looks like a criminal, though the family begins to love him as if he were one of their own. Mike’s betrayal of Leo then threatens to surface, and the win-win situation he has created balances on the edge of a knife.

Kyle is, like Mike, another fascinating character. You are never given the full picture of his troubled past but you are able to ascertain details (an absent mother with an abusive boyfriend, etc.) through the handful of times he opens his mouth. Kyle is an angry teenager but is not a lost cause; he simply longs for a true emotional connection with someone and his genuineness as a person comes out in his interactions with Mike’s kids. Kyle’s outlet for his anger is in his wrestling, but even there he lacks self-control.

I won’t go into the story anymore, but the plot does a good job of avoiding the normal clichés of sports movies and family dramas. The outcome of the film is more or less predictable and there are no huge surprises, but it is enjoyable to watch the pieces to fall into place. It is fun to see Mike try to wiggle his way out of the mess he has created himself and you will be moved several times before the credits roll. There is a standout scene where Kyle is reunited with his mother and you experience firsthand the hatred he has built up toward her. It is painful to watch and sad to see a son who literally has nothing left for his mother.

Come Oscar season, Win Win will all but disappear beneath the hype of big hitters like Drive, The Ides of March, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Dangerous Method, J. Edgar, and Moneyball. Win Win does not look to compete with those films, not on budget nor on scope, but you would be doing yourself a disservice to miss out on this great movie.

Drive

"My hands are a little dirty."

"So are mine."

There has been much hype leading up to the wide release of Drive these past few months. The film received a standing ovation at Cannes, director Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Valhalla Rising, the Pusher Trilogy) received best director at the festival, it boasts a ridiculous 93% on RottenTomatoes, and I have seen more than one Facebook status proclaiming Drive as “the best movie ever.” I went in with high expectations, and though the film falls slightly short, it is a great film and I certainly enjoyed it.

Drive is a textbook example of style over substance, and is an even rarer example of that type of film working to tell a compelling story. There is little plot, sparse dialogue, and few characters in Drive, but the way in which the story is told keeps the audience invested in the characters and interested in the outcome. This is not an action-filled car chase movie as the trailers would have you believe, but a slow-burn thriller character study that will drive impatient film goers mad.

I have been a Ryan Gosling fan after watching him knock it out of the park twice in a row in Half Nelson and Lars and the Real Girl. His performance in Blue Valentine afterwards cemented him in my eyes as one of the best actors in films today. His performance in Drive is good, though the script does not require a significant amount of acting on his part. He carries a strong intensity through his character, and when he speaks, everyone listens.

The main character of Drive is unnamed, but that’s fine, as Ryan Gosling really plays two different characters in this film: a quiet, thoughtful mechanic and stunt driver who also moonlights as a getaway driver (Quiet Ryan), and the unhinged, murderous Ryan, who kills without hesitation (Angry Ryan). His name isn’t important as you don’t learn anything about Ryan in this film, and you never find out what happened to him to make him the way he is. All you need to know is that he is equally a gifted driver and mechanic as he is emotionally unstable.

For the majority of the movie, you watch Quiet Ryan go about his daily life and are offered small glimpses of Angry Ryan, such as when a man recognizes him at a coffee shop from one of his previous jobs. Quiet Ryan works during the day as a mechanic for Shannon (Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston), who is indebted to a pair of mobsters, Bernie (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman). Perlman is always a treat, though I wish both him and Brooks got more screen time and I feel like both characters are somewhat unutilized.

Quiet Ryan meets his new neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), whose husband is in prison, leaving her alone to take care of their son, Benicio. Quiet Ryan helps her out around the house and begins to care for both Irene and Benicio. When Irene’s husband, Standard, is released from prison, his criminal past puts his family in danger. Quiet Ryan offers to help Standard on a job in exchange for his family’s protection, but things don’t go exactly as planned. Angry Ryan must then find a way to set everything straight.

 Ryan Gosling has described Drive as his “superhero movie,” and this is a perfect description. Quiet Ryan’s leather driving gloves serve as his uniform, and when the gloves come on, Angry Ryan is unleashed and people are going to get hurt. Like the main character himself, the movie relishes in its ability to flip back and forth between total serenity and total destruction in mere seconds (the elevator scene is a perfect example of this). Drive has a handful of scenes that are surprisingly violent, and part of me wonders if it would be more effective if the gore was more subtle and the camera focused more on the characters themselves rather than the knife/fork/foot being used. In any case, it is an artistic choice by the filmmakers, but it makes the film difficult to recommend to everybody.  This is a bit of a shame as the rest of the movie is generally appropriate for most audiences.

Drive’s aesthetic style is definitely winning it points, particularly with the critics. The movie uses slow-motion to great extent and very wisely (you could frame almost any shot from this film on a wall).I definitely dig the 80’s vibe, though it largely disappears after the opening credits. Cliff Martinez’ ambient soundtrack does the job well, and music cues are used sparsely but effectively.

(Begin spoilers)

I was let down, however, by the last ten minutes of Drive, including the ending. First off, the editing during Angry Ryan’s final conversation with Bernie is quite frankly terrible (to refresh, it splices back and forth between their conversation inside the restaurant and the events that happen afterwards outside the restaurant). There is a reason that more movies do not do this: it is confusing, hard to follow, distracting, and it takes away any intensity that either scene is trying to create. You also spend half the scene trying to figure out what’s going on. As a mental exercise, when you watch Drive, think about how much more effective each of the two scenes would be on their own.

Another movie off the top of my head that also does this is The Matrix Reloaded about three quarters of the way through the film. When Morpheus is explaining the plan to break into the building that houses the Architect, it cuts away to the characters actually carrying out the tasks. It is extremely confusing and completely pointless. I recognize this is nitpicking on a three minute scene, but the entire film builds up to this scene and it completely falls flat. For a movie that is so focused on its editing style, this stood out to me as amateurish and ill advised.

I also have some issues with the final stabbing scene with Bernie and the ending itself. In the stabbing scene, it can be safely assumed that Angry Ryan knows full well that Bernie is going to try and kill him during their meeting. From how the scene plays out, I think it can also be assumed that Ryan’s plan is to 1) kill Bernie, and 2) leave the money. With these assumptions, why on earth would Ryan then leave his back to Bernie, allowing himself to get stabbed and risk his life if his plan was to kill Bernie anyway? Angry Ryan kills without hesitation in every other scene in the movie. Why not just take Bernie outside, kill him and leave the money? Someone pointed out to me that maybe Ryan thought Bernie wouldn’t try and kill him if he gave up the money. I don’t buy this, as Ryan saw that Bernie had killed Shannon in a previous scene and Bernie also has motivation to kill Ryan as he confessed to drowning his partner, Nino. I found the way that Angry Ryan acted in this scene was jarringly inconsistent with his character in other situations throughout the movie.

Afterwards, Angry Ryan just takes off out of town. I assume this is because Bernie tells him he is going to spend the rest of the life looking over his shoulder. But why? The money belonged to the mob, but they don’t know anything about Ryan or the fact that he has it. Everyone who knows about the money is dead, why leave it? He doesn’t leave it because it’s the right thing to do, he actually suggests keeping and running away with Irene and Benicio it in a previous scene. I don’t understand why he decides to leave or why he leaves the money. It’s not what he wants to do, and I don’t see any obstacles to him getting what he wants (to stay with Irene and Benicio and keep the money).

(End spoilers).

Despite my nagging issues with the final ten minutes of the film, Drive is a great film, and one I definitely recommend if you can stomach the violence. It is a well-made film through and through, and is worth watching for the aesthetics alone. Ryan Gosling continues along his path to becoming one of the biggest stars in Hollywood (three movies this year alone), and this film will likely be remembered as one of his best.