Stephen Hawking’s life defies
bullshit terms such as inspirational. Fifty years he has lived with motor
neuron disease, his body crumbling even as he stuns us with his thoughts on how
we came to exist. What comes next. “The Theory of
Everything” is not about theories, but Hawking’s marriage to Jane
Wilde. That’s enough story. It does not require delusions and conspiracies
as was done to genius John Nash in the overdone “A Beautiful Mind.” For this
love -– as you know –- succumbs. The life and mind and demand of Hawking’s needs are too much to bear, and that is the hook
of this story. Directed by James March (“Man on Wire”), “Theory” knows fantastical
love cannot overcome reality. And Hawking is about reality. He believes God is
a myth; Wilde holds that God is among us. Their marriage cannot survive, not
when she falls for a kindly man of God, and he for a pragmatic nurse. “Theory”
bypasses many of Hawking’s history-resetting thoughts, but the filming of such, would
be impossible. No? As Hawking, Eddie Redmayne breaks out as a major young actor
of our time, while as Jane, Felicity Jones plays at war with the soul. B+
Friday, December 5, 2014
The Skeleton Twins (2014)
“The Skeleton Twins”
has Sundance Winner embedded in its DNA: Dissatisfied white people moan, weep,
break, and then manage to pull themselves together whilst living in a stunning home set among more stunning locales, here rural New York. It bleeds White People
Problems. Yet it works. Hat tip to the leads. Former “SNL” cast mates Kristen
Wiig and Bill Hader play estranged twins reunited through attempted suicide. In
LA, Hader’s heartbroken gay Milo slits his wrists. He is found before dying, and
the hospital call to sister Maggie (Wiig) stops her from gobbling pills. Sister brings brother home, where they
attempt to patch their shattered relationship, and here’s where “Skeleton”
soars: Hader and Wiig vibe shockingly true sibling love, inside jokes, bitterness,
and parent-inflicted pain. It echoes in every smirk, lip-synch romp,
and cruel taunt. I was awed how good these actors bounce off each other. And I know
twins, my brothers are identical. Sadly estranged. That vibe is impossible
to duplicate. Wiig and Hader got me. Whatever screenplay director/co-writer
Craig Johnson started with, and it’s smart despite the whole WPP slant that can
be tiring, it fires crisply by its words being spoken by these actors.
B+
Labels:
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Wednesday, December 3, 2014
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 and Gone Girl (both 2014)
Blockbuster films “The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1” and “Gone Girl” share little in common other
than book source female authors, respectively, Suzanne Collins and Gillian Flynn.
But, damn, these movies do show the difference of a bloated, ill-advised screen
adaptation (that “Part 1” is a millstone) and another adaptation that takes the
meat and bones of its source, cut the fat, and creates a raging animal that leaves
one spooked, rattled, and –- most importantly –- wanting more.
(Collins helped
adapt her story, with others, Flynn takes sole credit.)
If you’re smart enough
to be on the Web, you know the basics of each film. “Mockingjay” comes from the
third and final book in a wildly popular series about teen Katniss (Jennifer
Lawrence) as she struggles against a fascist future America where lives of the
poor are held as sport to the rich. War is brewing.
“Girl” follows a He Said,
She Said format as a once good marriage has turned toxic and maybe deadly. The
wife has gone missing, and the husband has “killer” inscribed on his scumbag forehead.
The novel “Mockingjay” clocks in under 400 pages, and as with all of Collins’
books, reads fast. No stops or fluff. Fewer pages means less work to cut from
page to screen. But success breeds greed.
After the great sequel “CatchingFire” –- with its devastating emotional punches, great action and characters,
and a cliffhanger ending –- became a smash hit even over its predecessor, watching
this new film is a surprisingly dull overlong drudge.
It’s half a real movie
with dozens of outtakes crammed in. It makes the mistake of sidelining Katniss
for nearly two hours of weeping and thumb-twiddling as she lets the boys take
over. Ouch.
The “Games” books and films have excelled IMHO over the awful, inept, feminism-hating “Twilight” series
because Katniss has no time for romance or weeping, because she is too busy being
the protector of her family. Very little of her
is here. The studio now just sees dollars, and a dark, thrilling dystopian tale
of and for youth is stretched too thin.
We get scenes repeated -– Katniss stands
over war rubble and charred bodies no less than five time, and two of those in
the same exact location, where she ransacks, twice now, her ruined home for
supplies.
As the focus was nearly entirely on or about Katniss in previous
films, we know grow our side-character roster, and God bless Philip Seymour
Hoffman -– I miss him dearly –- most of his scenes are unneeded, with no need to
watch him talking to Katniss’ PR handler (Elizabeth Perkins).
Near the end,
Katniss stands in a control room watching from afar as men go into battle, and
she watches and watches, and spends what might be 10 minutes repeating, “Are
you there?,” to the evil dictator who also is watching the rescue from afar,
President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Much more happens and I won’t spoil a drop
for those unfamiliar with the book, but just sitting there knowing we have
another two hours of film to watch in what should have been a tight,
relentless, three-hour film exhausts me.
“Part 1” wants to sell itself as drums
of war, but that pounding is all cash registers clinking, a move the
wealth-crazed, Ayn-Rand-loving villains of this tale might ironically approve.
The heroes? Katniss, and the haunted veteran played by Woody Harrelson? They
would mutter, “I don’t have time for this.”
“Gone Girl” –- even at two and half
hours –- knows the best always leave you wanting more, be it book, film, or
food. Flynn’s book was a helluva read, bouncing back for 400-plus pages between
man and wife as they delve into their disintegrating marriage, he speaking in
the present day after the wife goes missing and police and media come calling
and ravaging; her from the past, in diary entries, sliding from happiness to
despair.
That’s three quarters of the film, until Flynn and director David
Fincher don’t just turn the car around, they crash it wheels up in icy muck,
and watch it -– and us -– sink and freeze. Part of the genius in “Girl” is the
casting, with American sweetheart Ben Affleck as the husband and relative
unknown actress Rosamund Pike (“Jack Reacher”) as the wife.
Affleck’s Nick Dunne
is a former NYC journalist turned bar owner, back in his Missouri sticks
childhood home with a dead mom, a senile father, and a twin sister, and many
dark secrets. His shirt always untucked, blue jeans under a gut, and a blank
face, he is cold and aloof, so much to the point that the police starting
wrinkling their eyebrows. Hard. Especially after the diary of the wife, Amy, is
uncovered. Its most recent pages purging tales of abuse.
Amy was raised a New
Yorker and the child of parents who mined their daughter’s youth for books,
children’s book that always seemed one step ahead of their own girl, one punch
above perfect. “Amazing Amy” the book series was called. How can anyone stand
to strive to be amazing, to live up to fiction? I will stop there.
Fincher
again has made a cold, daring film that cuts right to the dark pit of the soul,
that little black ball rolled up deep inside, found in “The Game” and “Fight
Club.”
Flynn adapted her own book, gutting sections, condensing others, and adding
new ribbons of dark blood toward the end. Spoilers? Harsh drama and part sick satire,
“Gone” is a nasty trip through marriage and media, and personality, how people
–- all of us -- perform in public, for one’s spouse or family, and even to ourselves,
striving to meet expectation or get that life –- that perfect life -– we know we
saw on TV, or dream about, or read about once.
Like that book series. It’s toxic.
(How harmful was a show like “Leave It to Beaver” to read, struggling American
families?) There are great moments of crushing satire and criticism of the
media that bounce the film along and ring true in our age where white wealthy
women disappearing is national news, but not so for anyone of color, or low
income.
Tyler Perry plays the part of a sleaze lawyer who comes to
Nick’s “rescue,” and he brings a dynamic, comedic charge to the film that saves
it from going too dark, and he’s in a magical feat, our way into the film.
This
is a film to watch and talk about over booze and food, not read about. See it
for no other reason than Affleck -- a successful director and new Batman -- crushing his role as an ugly man impossible to
hate. He is a marvel to behold, as is the amazing Pike.
Yes, “Mockingjay” will make tons more money and get more press, but
“Gone” is the film that stays the course. Unwavering.
Mockingjay: B- Gone: A-
The Game (1997)
David Fincher’s
red-herring thriller “The Game” failed with most mainstream critics. I loved
it. I just saw a different movie.
“Game” is a deceitful movie about the
deceit of movie-making, the Hollywood button-pushing that we know is fiction,
but that we get sucked up into: Drama, action, comedy. The edits, camera
angles, lights, sound effects: We know it’s fake, but we buy in bulk. We get
involved. The plot: Michael Douglas is soul-dead San Fran multimillionaire
Nicholas Van Orton who accepts a “gift” from his baby brother (Sean Penn), a
vacation that comes to him at home and office, a personalized attack that crushes
and removes every instinct Nic has built, bought, and forged, starting with a
TV with its own mind and running past a crashed cab in deep water. The plot is
preposterous, of course, but it’s on purposefully so, this beautiful nasty
meta-film of a film stars a man who has bought into his own Hollywood thriller
by choice, we the audience running with him. By choice. Douglas -– the symbol of
amoral America during the 1980s –– is perfectly cast as a vastly
unlikable man who we root for quickly. We are him. A
Labels:
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Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Birdman (2014)
When we first see
Michael Keaton as a has-been Hollywood actor at the opening of
tar-black fable “Birdman,” he is floating in midair as the intimidating voice of his once big-screen superhero alter
ego -– see the title -– talks aloud inside his own head. That’s the start of this wondrously warped story. Yes, Keaton, who played comic book hero Batman, plays
an actor who played comic book hero Birdman. Meta comedy is promised and
delivered. Plot: Keaton’s Riggan Thomas is determined to reset his relevance by
staging a Broadway play. The impossible task consumes Riggan:
His lead actor is a prickish actor played by infamously prickish actor Edward
Norton, and Riggan’s daughter (Emma Stone) teeters on drug relapse. Stone, of
course, plays Spider-Man’s girlfriend. Spider-Man appears as a mocking taunt. Brilliant. Questions pop: Mainly, Will Riggan escape Birdman? Director Alejandro G. Inarritu
serves a must-rewatch film about a man more scared of obscurity than death and a damning of the Marvel Movie Universe ruling cinemas and
then flames his own film as Marvel-like action plays out. More than the
art-house deep-thoughts comedy, this strange film is pure wicked fun to watch unspool. A
Labels:
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Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu,
Batman,
Birdman,
Broadway,
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comic book,
Edward Norton,
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Fame,
fantasy,
Marvel,
Michael Keaton,
New York City,
satire,
superhero,
wicked
Enemy of the State (1998)
When I saw “Enemy of
the State” in 1998 I loved it as a shockingly smart, electric child to the 1974
classic thriller “The Conversation.” Will Smith here plays a D.C. lawyer
trapped in an impossible conspiracy involving the National Security Agency,
portrayed as a power-mad and secret-crazed demon of data collection, snooping, and
illegal spying, with anyone in its way, hunted for life or left for dead. “There’s no such thing
as privacy,” one character says. Director Tony Scott (RIP) and his writers must
have seen the future. This is our reality. Our now. The NSA owns us. We willingly
gave ourselves over. Now, the great cinematic trick: When Smith’s lawyer –
arrogant, a cheater, way too assured of himself – falls hard, his only savior
is an ex-snoop played by Gene Hackman, who played an expert snooper in
“Conversation.” The casting is genius. Smart. Instant built-in background. The character
names may be different, but the faces match. Fast paced with crackling dialogue
and action, I once got a giddy charge out of nerds at computers handed the
power of America. Now I see it as evil truth. Name one other film more precognisant. A
Labels:
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Gene Hackman,
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Tony Scott,
Washington,
Will Smith
Life Itself (2014) and Dead Poets Society (1989)
Watching “Dead Poets
Society” –- the Peter Weir-directed classic with Robin Williams as a liberal teacher
at a strict conservative boy’s school -- and “Life Itself” – a documentary
about Roger Ebert’s impact on film and family -- back to back is crushing, and
ironic.
These films are oddly, wildly, surprisingly linked. Both men were and
remain major film-world touchstones in my life, Williams as performer and Ebert
as critic and writer. They died far too soon, Williams from suicide after a
life of depression, addiction, and finally disease, and Ebert after a long,
public and astoundingly courageous battle cancer.
Also note this: Ebert hated
“Dead Poets,” and I had no idea until I Googled his review after “Dead” was
watched, before “Life” was viewed.
I wondered what made a guy tick who would
hate that film, and then learned just that as “Life” –- directed by Steve James
–- lays out not just Ebert’s bio details, but his way of thinking, what he
wanted from a film, or life, or finally love at age 50 when he married. And,
damn it, to hear Ebert’s words spoken aloud, and his one film, “Beyond the
Valley of the Dolls,” detailed to the extreme, the man was a poet, genius,
demanding, argumentative, and cold, too.
Especially to fellow critic and TV partner,
Gene Siskel, another man taken too soon. I digress because I still wrap my head
around these two films seen so close together. (Pure timing, but what timing.) “Society”
– in my book -- is a classic not from my youth when it came out, but even now.
(I know current college students who are fans, teary eyed as they talk about
it.)
Williams is John Keaton, a 40-ish English teacher who arrives at his New
England alma mater prep high school, taking over for one of the ancient
teachers who has died. All of the teachers are ancient, guardians of the white
master class that was once American capitalism. This is the 1950s. Keating
insists his students destroy the intro of their poetry textbooks, and not to
learn poetry, but to experience it, live it.
Keating further proclaims the
glory of Carpe Diem -– Seize the Day -– to his charges. His energy of course
rattles the boys -– among them Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Josh
Charles –- and they take that energy to every waking decision, bucking their
strict unloving parents obsessed with tradition, money, and name.
None of these
boys had ever *thought* to question their elders. Now they are. One to a tragic
end. But is that Keating’s fault? Weir certainly stacks the deck: Keating is a
saint, yes, a flat angelic saint, even if we as the audience love him and boo
the cruel, unsparing fathers (Kurtwood Smith among them).
So, yes, “Poets” may
be simple -– Ebert hated its simple approach –- but need every coming of age
story be complicated? It’s a simply tale, beautifully told. I love the students
sneaking out in winter and the finale that once left the viewer bursting with
pride, but now carries a devastating coda: Out inspirations, our captains, all die,
some of them because life’s hardships can even overwhelm them. How do we carry
on?
As with Keating’s roar to seize the day and break free, Ebert went by his
own instinct and his own drum and could never be pinned down. This is the man
who famously trashed Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” in the face of universal praise.
Respect had to be paid. Debate was out. Ebert was a master of argument. “Life”
is based on the short-story memoir by Ebert.
Here’s the thing about “Life
Itself” – it’s no lightweight love letter about a film critic served up to
please like-minded film critics and fanatics. Geeks such as myself.
Early on
Ebert -– in a hospital bed and clearly weeks away from succumbing –- acknowledges
he is dying to the camera, alone, and then later before his wife, Chazz, who
refuses to believe this “scene” played out live in a hospital room, cameras on.
She insists Roger can fight on. He knows he cannot.
That’s one of the
beautiful, shocking emotionally scalding punches in this movie, Ebert upfront
says this is *his* film and though he won’t live to see it, he will tell it as
he sees fit. He shuts James down. James complies.
The hospital scenes are
grueling, Ebert’s brief return home a clash of wills as he refuses to attempt
stairs, and his last typed public words –- “I can’t” –- are heartbreaking. Those
are words he seemed never to utter before, a fat kid from suburban Illinois who
was no arm chair critic, but a man who loved film, and got into the business,
and helped champion the likes of Scorsese, and as the “Raging Bull” director
tells, once dissuaded him from suicide with a phone call.
More so, “Life” is
about Ebert’s finding of familial love, marrying into a large family of children
and grandchildren, and seeing Roger out of the theater and walking a grade
schooler around London, wow, that’s life. Perfect.
Dead: A- Life: A
Labels:
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The Boxtrolls and Mr. Peabody & Sherman (both 2014)
What an odd time for animation.
Even if we watch a film where the plot only ever hums and characters never pop,
we can still marvel at the onscreen techno wonder. Everything looks amazing! “The
Boxtrolls” and “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” – the former stop motion mixed with
CGI, the latter all CGI – are prime examples. Hum. No pop. “Boxtrolls” comes
from studio Laika, who made “Coraline,” an edgy horror tale for cool kids. But
“Trolls” misfires with title characters -- tiny ogres live under a
Victorian-era city and dress in discarded cardboard -- that fail to spark or
overcome their human counterparts, including a status-hungry villain (Ben
Kingsley) with a penchant for cabaret. Bummer. Only a fourth-wall-crashing
Monty Pythonesque riff on “free will” fired my brain, during the end credits. A
remake of the old cartoon shorts about a time-traveling dog and his
not-so-bright human boy, “Peabody” is full of a breezy slapstick, bad puns, and
warped histories of the Trojan War, Mona Lisa, and more. It relies on poop
jokes and greatly underserves a female companion, but it gets in a Mel Brooks cameo
as Einstein, and I love Mel Brooks. Boxtrolls: C+ Peabody: B
Labels:
2014,
animation,
Ben Kingsley,
Boxtrolls,
CGI,
children,
comedy,
Coraline,
Laika,
Mel Brooks,
stop-motion
Nightcrawler (2014)
Imagine a dead serious
“Network” written in the darkest pit of humanity, all humor strangled by an utter
lack of empathy, with the journalism game run by any dick with a camera. That’s
“Nightcrawler.” Jake Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a petty thief who one night
finds his calling: Filming accidents, murders, house fires, and drive-bys, the
fresher the gore the better for a top TV news slot. His “employer” is LA’s
lowest-rated station, a bottom feeder with the mantra of fear sells. His “boss”
is the vampire-hour editor (Renee Russo) who knows her middle age means job
death. Bloom speaks in Internet PR babble, product comments, and tweets, using a
deflated voice and spouting his love of accounting. He vibes Leo Bloom from
“The Producers,” if Bloom had no soul. (Not Joyce Bloom.) Looking starved with bulging eyes,
Gyllenhaal is a monster of success as he places civilians and police in
harm’s way for a sell. Director/writer Dan Gilroy never judges, he
shows us a mirror of journalism endlessly sinking in its race to hit ratings
and print money, where cameras are as dangerous as guns. This is the world
“Network” warned us about. A-
Labels:
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Nightwork,
Renee Russo,
soul,
TV
The Patriot (2000)
“Braveheart” goes Tea
Party in “The Patriot,” a three-hour drama/revenge flick starring Mel Gibson as
a Very Angry Man that only pretends
it’s aghast at the terrible effects of war on one man’s soul and family, but
really it’s jerk-off gun worship as every battle and death ups our blood and demand for Gibson to kill and
maim. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin is a veteran turned Southern plantation owner – the
blacks on his field are (cough) free, not slave – who gets sucked into the
Revolutionary War after Brits kill his middle child. Director Rolland Emmerich needs
his movie Red Coats -- led by Jason Issacs as a sniveling colonel – to be as
evil as possible and commit atrocities that would make Nazis shudder to justify
Martin’s blood lust. I get it, it’s a movie and we moviegoers love our Mel in
seething Mad Max mode, but the flag-waving propaganda crosses into perversion. More
aching is the depiction of slaves. The scene where a black man is
conscripted by his cruel master, only to be followed by a comedic ginger
6-year-old boy asking to sign up for battle? Who the fuck thought that was a
good idea? Patriotism with no insight. C-
Labels:
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Non-Stop (2014)
“Non-Stop” is not a
comedy. I laughed my ass off. Not a good sign for a thriller that stars Liam
Neeson in Angry Action Figure Mode and plays on 9/11 fears of hijackings and
police state surveillance. Neeson is Bill Marks, suicidal fuck-up air cop with a
booze problem and a tragic life who should never hold a gun, much less be issued
one by Uncle Sam for work at 30,000 feet. But here Bill is anyway, sweating
buckets as he texts back and forth with a psycho who threatens to down the plane
unless $1.5M is delivered to a Swiss bank account. One in Bill’s name. Cue
drama! Cue the scenes where Neeson’s hero types. And types. And types. And
calls his boss. Bill also kills a man, beats random passengers, screams, and waves
and fires his gun like a madman. Why? This is “Taken” in the air. A cell phone
and a gun, if those are in a script does Neeson just sign on? As stewardesses,
Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey” and Lupito Nyong’o of “12 Years a Slave” do
just about nothing. I’d watch a movie with them as the heroes. C-
Labels:
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unintended comedy
Calvary (2014)
Brendan Gleeson plays
an Irish village priest who receives a death threat in the confessional box at
the start of “Calvary.” “I was 7 when I first tasted semen,” the instigator says,
proclaiming that he wants to slay a good priest in the name of revenge as the
abuser priest has died. Refusing police help, James seeks out the man in secret
among the locals, including a bartender, a butcher, the mayor, the mayor’s gay
trick, a pathologist, an American writer, and a wealthy, lonely Londoner. Near
all angry at life for its cruelty, or the Church, longtime protector of child rapists.
James’ soul is righteous, he having lived as husband and father, his wife now dead,
his grown daughter (Kelly Reilly) troubled and haunted. Writer/director John
Michael McDonagh’s drama focuses on the trouble and glory of faith, even lost.
James’ spirit bends as his week turns to violence, from the same man, others?
Rarely is religion treated with such somberness. Alas McDonagh serves up
blatant, ugly stereotypes. The trick is a Fox News cartoon. That
said, the end broke me as James insists on grace over damnation. That, not the stereotypes,
is a notion to live by. B
Labels:
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Trance (2013)
Gotchya films that spin
on corkscrew narratives –- “Manchurian Candidate” is my favorite -– succeed only
if we care about the characters and only if we dig the deep pit the screenwriters
have tossed them into. Danny Boyle’s “Trance” is all crazy turns, pulled rugs,
blown loyalties, and bad guys still gabbing after their skull has been shot off.
The shocks and surprises hit so often and so outlandishly OTT, it passes
suspense and becomes a comedic parade of drunken one-uppers. Numbness sets in. James
McAvoy works at an auction house that falls prey to a heist just as a Renoir goes
to sale. The work is seemingly lost and our hero is cracked on the skull, leading
to memory loss. The heist master (Seymor Cassell) won’t have that and when
torture fails, he hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to peer inside McAvoy’s
brain. So to speak. The headachy flash edits are frantic and too hip. The flat
characters don’t help. I really could have lived without ever hearing surround
sound of vaginal hair being shaved. Boyle, it appears, could not. And if you
can get past the firestorm finale without laughing to excess, I salute you. C
Labels:
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Heist,
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Rosario Dawson,
Seymor Cassell,
shcoking,
thriller,
Trance
Broken City (2013)
An ex-cop PI with a dirty
past gets marooned in a FUBAR infidelity case among city elites that results in
murder and corrupted land deals. Forget it, Jake, this isn’t sharp dagger
classic “Chinatown.” It’s dull spoon thriller “Broken City” with Mark Wahlberg
as the dick working for a NYC mayor (Russell Crowe) who’s up for reelection. Mayor’s
demand: “Find my wife’s lover,” but he has more in play. Money. The plot is threadbare.
Jake Gittes worked for his info. Suffered.
Wahlberg’s hero *finds* the bad guy’s plans printed on giant poster board with bold
font at a Dumpster. Good actors have saved worse, right? Not this. Crowe plays
the mayor in a cartoon mashup of 1970s’ Lex Luther and Donald Trump, with
spray-on can orange skin and a dippy toupee. Wahlberg? Autopilot. Director
Albert Hughes smart, too a tone for Wahlberg, too brave for the sorry studio? C
Labels:
2013,
Broken City,
Chinatown,
election,
infidelity,
Mark Wahlberg,
mystery,
New York City,
police,
politics,
Russell Crowe
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