We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (2013)

Timing can make or break a film. The documentary “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks” is superior in every way to “Fifth Estate,” the overcooked dramatization of anarchist/hacker “journalist” Julian Assange. I saw the fictional film before this, a reversal of their respective cinema rollouts. This is akin to fresh air. Director/writer Alex Gibney compiles deft footage of an uncooperative Assange and his empire of nerds to portray a group of rebels out to crash all-powerful, secret-obsessed corporations and governments. But with fame comes power, and corruption. Assange falls to paranoia and his own secrets, damn the costs. As well, we see painful chat-room quotes from Private Bradley/Chelsea Manning, whose story also figures heavily here. His tale is a film onto itself, a true whistleblower hero to Assange’s loud bullhorn. As talking heads, U.S. spy chiefs and military honchos alternately damn and dismiss Assange and Manning as blips on the NSA’s endless, all-powerful eye of Sauron. Gibney lets us decide who is more trustworthy, even if there are no “good guys,” and he -- thankfully -– does not need hyperbolic lines or fake CGI desk-burning to let us know this is not history, but a new, never-to-end struggle of truth. A-

Iron Sky (2012)

“Iron Sky” has the greatest story pitch ever: Nazis from the dark side of the moon attack Earth using flying saucers. How crazy cool is that? Much of this Finnish-German-Austrian B-flick -– special effects, political satire aimed at American bravado and U.N. incompetence -- is hilarious fun, but there’s so much more that falls flat like a bad sci-fi version of “Springtime for Hitler” from “Producers.” Put bluntly, the trailer is better than the movie, the latter fumbled by flat acting and ugly stereotypes, as in all black youth pack Glocks. The gravest error: Great actor Udo Kier (“Suspiria”) plays the Fuhrer II, does nothing but die halfway in, replaced by a C-grade henchman. Why!?! The lead characters are a Nazi schoolmarm with clue zero; a black astronaut turned white by drugs; and a Sarah Palin clone as president who decorates the Oval Office with dead polar bears. Palin jokes were funny in 2009. Never funny: A Nazi scientist made to look like Einstein, a Jew who fled Hitler’s grip. “Sky” thinks its guns are as big as Tarantino’s “Basterds” and “Django” history remixes, but these barrels fire blanks. So much promise wasted. C+

Lincoln (2012)

“I could write shorter sermons, but when I get started I’m too lazy to stop,” said Abraham Lincoln, 150 years ago and quoting a rhetorical preacher.  

What better motive to be brief: Working from a screenplay by Tony Kushner (“Angles in America”), Steven Spielberg’s near-miraculous masterpiece “Lincoln” isn’t a full-life bio-pic of the 16^th president, but a careful, smart study of the man’s final months in office as he tried to end the Civil War and pass the 13^th amendment fully abolishing slavery, fearful his Emancipation Proclamation will fall useless once the nation re-unites. 

“Lincoln” –- at its most basic -- may be about legislation, yet it plays out as the most nail-biting, and, yes, funny thriller of our time, for no reason more so than this is about the true, ugly birth of America, where all men are created equal. (Women waited longer for equality; the gay population still waits its turn, Kushner makes apparent.) 

Leaving behind old tricks and sentimental streaks found even in “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg has made a time-capsule story where the fights inside smoky rooms seem like found-footage from 1865. With our nation again deeply divided over everything from budgets to gun control, “Lincoln” almost seems a warped, darkly ironic mirror and wake-up call for today.  

His own miracle maker, Daniel Day-Lewis brings Lincoln to life in astonishing detail –- high voice, striking bouts of anger and compassion, an endless tenacity for jokes and asides that charm some men and drive others mad. Day-Lewis again has topped himself, even with his volcanic performance in “There Will Be Blood.” 

This is no liberal party, though: There’s a scene where Day-Lweis as Lincoln is placed across from famed abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), and the latter barks, “It’s called leadership, you should try it for a change.” That is a blistering order to Obama. (And, yes, the movie nails that it was Democrats in the oh-so-wrong here, reluctant to see slavery fall, whilst Republicans -- liberal ones -- fought to end it. Dems were conservatives back then. Irony.)

The acting all around is the best of the year, the cast inspired by the script, the ideals on screen by Kushner? Who knows. Enjoy it. This good a cast is rare. Jones and Sally Field (as Mary Todd) are equal to Day-Lewis at every turn to the point when husband and wife rip each other over son Willie’s death, the audience -– I –- felt as if I were a eavesdropper. 

Even 10 minutes too long past a poignant stopping point, this is -- for now -- the Best Film of 2012, worthy of a long sermon and national viewing and consideration. And here I stop, not too lazy. A

J. Edgar (2011)

John Edgar Hoover was one of our nation’s most powerful guardians, who created the FBI, championed fingerprinting as a form of identification, and launched the very notion of criminal forensics. He remains the Holy Trinity of U.S. law enforcement. He did great things. He also was a control freak who drove his patriotic cop zeal so far up the flagpole, it turned from love of country to illegal and immoral bludgeon tactics not out of place in the Communist Russia that Hoover so loathed. His hunch or mood was law, the law be damned. He did terrible things. He kept files on and blackmailed presidents, Hollywood stars and corporate tycoons. How the hell can a movie about him be boring?!? This is it.

“J. Edgar,” the latest cinematic effort from Clint Eastwood, is a dead-eyed, soulless, filmed in shit-colored browns biopic unworthy of the man in the title. Directed by Eastwood and written by Dustin Lance Black – a gay leftist who penned “Milk” – this film should explode off the screen, polarize, and burn our conceptions. Recall “Nixon” or “Malcolm X.” They had balls. No balls here. Tackling Hoover is a tall order. No film could ever get it all. I could not do it. That anyone could try is surely of respect. But no love.

Black goes bust from the start as old Hoover is dictating the narrative of his life to various underlings, for a book of some sort, spilling his secrets… Wait, what? Hoover spill secrets? No. Worse, the agents question Hoover’s accuracy. Bullshit. No one questioned him. Still worse, the story jumps timelines throughout, Hoover at 70 at 19 at 35 at Gate 6F, and the edits kill all momentum. The scene of JFK’s assassination carries the impact of a burned pizza. As does the Lindbergh baby murder. That case is sliced and diced throughout the film. All the history and fascinating crime talk sinks. More bullshit: When Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover dons a dress as his dead mother – yes, we go there – it’s a cheap potshot of a rumor long disproved. And also hilarious, a contender for worse scene of the year. No joke.

And, yes, the film eyes Hoover’s debated sexuality, and as much as “J” tries to tackle the homosexuality slant as tippy-toes as possible, it’s undone by Armie Hammer (“Social Network”) who plays Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s confidant and reported lover as a wide-eyed swish. A cruel word, but it fits. It is not all bad. Black writes some beautiful bits about the absolute forbidden gay life of the time, a period all of our GOP presidential candidates long to bring back, and tells of a boy Hoover knew who committed suicide because he was bullied. As a gay. Judi Dench is Hoover's Bible-thumper bigot mom who says better dead than queer. Great performance, her psychologically whipping her boy because he dislikes girls. But, damn, does he have to dress like her? Is that not counter-productive, for gays, for Black? Such stereotype?

DiCaprio plays Hoover with all the Oscar Nomination power he can muster, and for that I never forgot I was watching a performance. (Dig Penn as Harvey Milk. Effortless.) DiCaprio is a fine actor -- he is -- but he does not have the gravitas, the sheer power that Hoover must have exulted, the fear factor. Not here. That said, Leo nails one scene where he declares his love for Tolson to himself. No sex, though, as Hoover is too repressed, or is it Eastwood? Whatever. Does not matter. When our two stars play old, they toddle around like drama majors doing “Odd Couple,” each smothered in terrible makeup. All the drama, gay and straight, seeps away.

It all ends with Hoover dead and the files – the thousands of files Hoover kept – shredded. There is no substance to right now, the sheer horror of what a guy like Hoover could do with cell phones and the Internet. (Hey, with Gingrich as president, we may find out.) Eastwood, Black and DiCaprio would be better if the screenplay were shredded. Hoover, too. Check out the 1950s Hoover/Hollywood propaganda flick “The FBI Story.” It’s so hilariously opportunistic and blindly in love with Hoover’s ego, and the America is God, I consider it a comedy classic. It tells more about J. Edgar than “J. Edgar.” Our nation, too. Always right. Eastwood -- a favorite of my life and forever, no matter his faults -- is just sagging of late. C