Change Your Image
bruce_joffe
Reviews
The Book of Henry (2017)
harder and harder to suspend disbelief
Stevepat99's review, listing the many logical flaws in the movie is spot-on. As the movie progressed, it became harder and harder to suspend disbelief. Finally, at the climax, when mom Susan decides not to kill the abuser-neighbor, she has no other plan, no other way to bring him to justice. But then ... just in time ... the cavalry suddenly appears and justice is restored. Roll the credits. Other than the non-logic of the story, the film was well made, the story was well-told.
Beatriz at Dinner (2017)
a dues ex machina without the machina
{Spoiler alert: this review is written for people who have seen the movie}
The elevator speech for the movie seemed really inviting: a send-up of Trump-like self-absorbed elites encountering a fully-vested spiritual healer. The send-up didn't disappoint as we see a realistic portrayal of the "nice" people who live in world where the unwritten rule is never to see, speak, or hear anything that questions the actions, or consequences of the actions, from which their luxury derives.
Sadly, however, the movie disappointed my expectation that Beatriz' encounter with these people, particularly with the primary perpetrator, Doug, would somehow initiate a change of his life's tragic trajectory, or at least give the audience something to ponder after the credits rolled. The film didn't deliver. Instead, Beatriz gets bollixed up in her anger, fueled by uncharacteristic over-drinking, and does not effectively represent the deeply-centered, life-affirming compassionate healer that we see in the first part of the movie.
Beatriz fails to build on the surprising connection she makes with Doug when massaging his shoulders, and also when acknowledging what it was that he liked about hunting. That connection could have expanded into a real dialog. Instead, she has a violent fantasy, does nothing, and walks into ocean. Fade to black. It was a dues ex machina without the machina.
The problem, of course, is not with Beatriz, it is with the script writer, Mike White, and the director, Miguel Arteta. It wouldn't have mattered if Beatriz' encounter with Doug had succeeded in getting him to reconsider the destructive impact of his life, or if she failed. But in this movie, in spite of its exquisite setup, she doesn't even try.
I am left with this question to ponder: What could Beatriz have said to open up Doug's blinders on himself and his life?
1 - The film's director should have had her translate the song, or sing a verse in English, so the audience, as well as the people she was singing to, would know what she was singing/saying. I got only a bit of it
about enjoying the little things in life.
And then, she could have encountered Doug with something like, "What really brings you satisfaction? You have so many houses and vacation houses that it is causing rifts in your family. Can you see that more money, more business deals will still leave you feeling empty? But, you do like a challenge - a challenge in the face of danger. Consider what a challenge it would be if you worked to reverse the destructive impact of your, and your colleagues' developments."
2 - In the driveway, late in the movie, when Doug comes out of the house to have a conversation with her, and he says, "I'm dying, we're dying, the Earth is dying, so we just got to take and enjoy what we can."
Beatriz could have said something like, "and what will you leave for your grandchildren?" Or, "and where would you be today if your grandfather had lived by those words?"
Or, she could have connected to the shoulder massage saying, "Yes, Doug, you are dying. I felt it when I touched you. You haven't long. What do you want to leave as your contribution? Dead animals? Displaced people? Or, a renewal of life, and healing for some part of the Earth."
Those are two answers I've come up with, I hope others will come up with some better ideas, because there are lots of "Dougs" in the world outside the cinema theater.
By the way, I searched IMDb.com and many other websites looking for the name of her song, and the words in Spanish or English. I couldn't find anything. Where can I find this information?
Interstellar (2014)
Not quite the Worst Movie of All Time
Interstellar is Christopher Nolan's big, BigBudget homage to Kubrick's 2001. Except it is not. Where 2001, Robert Zemeckis' Contact (which also cast Matthew McConaughey), and Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity used solid science as a launch for deeper philosophical musings, Interstellar begins with ersatz science and degenerates from there. The premise that a planet orbiting a black hole would be a suitable place to relocate Earth's population (after Earth's environmental collapse) is a fatal flaw. Black holes radiate powerful, deadly radiation, and everything circling around them are inevitably sucked closer and closer into the black hole's crushing gravity. Somehow, the hero ("Cooper") gets himself inside the black hole unharmed, where he sees myriad display screens of himself at various times in his life. And somehow he sends his past self a message. The illogic of that circular logic (ignores first cause) breaks the entire arc of the storyline, such as it is.
Then there are illogical subplots like the crew rescues an abandoned astronaut, "Dr. Mann," from death and he repays them by trying to kill all of them for no expressed reason. The fight scene between Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) and Cooper (McConaughey) is intercut with something happening back on Earth (setting fire to a cornfield) that doesn't have any apparent connection. The sound balance raises sappy music, designed to portray emotions like heroism, way above the volume of the actors' voices. The audience can't hear much of what they are saying. I thought at first this was a flaw because I assumed that what they were saying would clarify some of the meaningless actions. But now I believe that it was just as it was supposed to be: gibberish.
Although Nolan spent many, many millions, and some reviewers think this movie rates their highest number of stars, I say it is close, but not quite the Worst Movie of All Time. Giving it the title of Worst would confer too much attention to this sorry waste.