Review: "Greyhound"

"Greyhound" yearns for the big screen. What better illustration of the majesty and power of cinema than a top-drawer war adventure I had to watch on my laptop with earbuds instead of a huge canvas and surround sound. This is film you need to be enveloped by to properly experience.

How much we have given up, 'going to the movies' being nowhere near the most important -- but also not the least.

Tom Hanks stars and, for just the second time in his career, wrote the screenplay based on the novel "The Good Shepherd" by C.S. Forester. This film was supposed to hit theaters on June 12, but instead of pushing it back to the fall or next year like so many other big-ticket movies, Sony opted to sell it to Apple TV+. So that's where you'll see it if you want to.

And you will want to, if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned, magnificent war story about sacrifice, vigilance and humility. These virtues, once so universally embraced as not needing to be voiced, seem positively quaint these days or even, if you're so inclined, reactionary.

Directed skillfully by Aaron Schneider, "Greyhound" is one of those fictional tales with the weight of authenticity in its bones. Set in early 1942 as America's entry into World War II mostly consisted of picking up the pieces in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, it's the tale of Ernest Krause, a freshly minted destroyer commander escorting a group of 37 ships to England. These badly needed troops and supplies make up the very lifeblood of the sputtering fight against Hitler's horde.

Yes, Hanks is a bit old for this role, though there's some hint in an early scene with his would-be fiancee (Elisabeth Shue) that he's a Navy career man who's been continually passed over for command. There's a sense of a man whose life has passed him by, finally given a chance to prove his mettle in the final minutes of a long game.

At a taut 91 minutes, "Greyhound" is like the titular wiry canines, all leaned out and built for speed. It jumps right into the action and never lets up as the convoy is hunted by a pack of German U-boats over the course of several days. This takes place in the "Black Pit" of the Atlantic where American air support has turned back and the British planes are still too far away.

The Germans know it, too, patiently waiting at a distance for the night to fall, just like the wolves from which they take their names. At several points the enemy commander breaks into their comms line, taunting them with their impending deaths and literally howling with bloodlust.

And there is Hanks, a stolid presence every step of the way. His Krause refuses to leave the bridge, even when his feet swell up and start bleeding, daring hardly even to take a bit of food. There's a nearly silent understanding between him and the head chef (the always terrific Rob Morgan), the latter bringing meals he knows will not be eaten, yet always sharing a quick prayer to bless the untasted sustenance.

Stephen Graham plays the XO, the captain's right-hand man, who spends most of his time in the bowels of the weapons room, yet always figuratively at his side. The rest of the cast are mostly younger men whose characters' names we barely catch, greenhorns looking to their leader for reassurance and stability. Among them are Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Devin Druid, Lee Norris, Karl Glusman, Tom Brittney and Joseph Poliquin.

There's the sonar technician, always in his own little bubble of headphones, listening to the sounds of the sea and trying to pick out the plinks and tremors that indicate an enemy. Or the ever-present radio man whose job is to follow the captain around like a herald, relaying his orders to whatever station needs to hear them.

The sea battles are largely accomplished with CGI, and while you can see the artifice if you look for it, I soon stopped doing so as we're swept up in the story. Most of the action takes place during frigid, stormy seas, the skies a nightmare swirl of monochrome and the ocean a frightening, ever-shifting landscape of potential threats just below the surface.

Torpedoes are dodged, depth charges dropped, submarines forced to the surface and thundering deck guns barking at each other. Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

Despite watching "Greyhound" on a crimped platform, I still was completely swept away by it. Here is a movie that transports us back to a time of quiet heroism, when the line between good and bad seemed starker and our collective duty was clear.

What the Golden Globes mean for the Oscars

I don't watch the Golden Globes because the organization that hosts it is a complete joke and their picks are rarely adventurous and often ludicrous. However, it's become a staple of the movie awards season and all the big stars turn out for it.

It is, officially, an "event."

Receiving a GG is now considered second only to the Oscars in terms of a career boost, with probably a Screen Actors Guild award coming in third. So although the awards themselves are imho just this side of a joke, they undoubtedly have an influence on the Oscar race.

The Globes can solidify a film or performance that is already seen as a frontrunner. More notably, it can also shore up someone who's on the bubble and put them over the line of getting an Academy Award nomination.

Here's how I see the impact of this year's Globes:

• A lot of people were surprised by "1917" winning best drama and Sam Mendes taking director, but I said right after I saw it that it would be a leading Best Picture contender. It has all the ingredients of a classic Oscar pedigree: period picture, wonderful production values, antiwar, previous winners on the creative team or cast, etc.

• Renee Zellweger is now the frontrunner for Best Actress. It's a very competitive category with lots of terrific performances. But nostalgia for a Hollywood icon wins the day.

• Ditto for Brad Pitt for best supporting actor. I disagree strongly with this win because I don't see his performance as much of a stretch for him. He's just playing himself: coolest mother-effer in the room.

• I feel the same for Jennifer Lopez, who has been lobbying hard for awards. Laura Dern's wins looks like a career capper for her. A real pro who's been around a long time doing good work.

• Joaquin Phoenix seems to have a solid lead in the Best Actor race. I don't see Taron Egerton, who won the award in the comedy/musical category, as a serious threat. (I would've rather seen that award go to Eddie Murphy.) Adam Driver is the main competition, though I think Christian Bale is the best of the lot.

• Speaking of "Marriage Story," its failure to win a single award doesn't bode well. It even lost the original screenplay award to "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood," which must be cringe-worthy to every screenwriter who can actually string scenes together. Its win in the best musical or comedy (a real stretch of the definition) means "Hollywood" is also among the frontrunners now for best pic.

• REALLY surprised by the best animated film win for "Missing Link." I've been a big Laika fan but this was the weakest film they've produced. If this finally wins the Oscar for them after "Kubo and the Two Strings" failed to, it'll be like Martin Scorsese getting the Oscar for "The Color of Money."

• I liked "The Farewell" even though it's not terribly ambitious. Awkwafina winning best actress in the comedy/musical race probably ensures her a spot on the Oscar nominees list. My girl Emma Thompson, who I think gave the best performance in any category this year, male or female, will probably be shut out.

• There's been a lot of talk about "Parasite" becoming the first foreign language film to win the Best Picture Oscar, so I find it richly ironic that it couldn't even accomplish that in an awards given out by foreign journalists. (It wasn't even nominated, so maybe their rules are different.) Personally I think it's a fine film but nowhere near the best of the year, even among the foreign movies. Its win in the foreign language race would seem to seal its chances at the Oscars, though.

• "The Irishman" is not going to be the awards juggernaut people thought a few months ago. Ditto for "Marriage Story." Netflix had a really good year this year -- "Dolemite Is My Name" is also quite swell-- but as the industry disruptor they're experiencing pushback from traditional Hollywood powers. Giving "Irishman" a BS theatrical run -- handful of big cities for a month, medium cities for a week -- ruffled feathers. Also, more people are recognizing it as an overlong rehash of Marty's 50 years of gangster flicks.

• I did happen to flip on the TV just in time to see Tom Hank's speech, which was touching and nice. He's officially Hollywood's elder statesman now, protector of its mythology.

• I read negative stuff about Ricky Gervais' scorched-earth monologue. Personally I'm all in favor of forcing showbiz types to be confronted with a mirror of their own arrogance. Now do D.C. 

Review: "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"

If you’re expecting a biopic of Fred Rogers, then “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is not it.

You will leave the theater not knowing much more about Rogers than you did going in, assuming you watched the iconic “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” show as a child, or even just saw the solid documentary about him from last year, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

No, this is more movie-making as therapy. Director Marielle Heller (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”) and screenwriters Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster are aiming to summon Rogers’ spirit and spread his ethos, that each and every person is precious, across the globe.

Tom Hanks gives a superlative performance that makes a conscious choice not to do an impersonation of Rogers. Physically there’s not much resemblance, and Hanks eschews that reedy little country priest voice Rogers used to speak to generations of children over the decades his show was on PBS.

Rogers isn’t even the protagonist in his own movie, that role being delegated to Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), the journalist charged with profiling him circa 1998. It’s a fairly common trope for modern movies to include a storyteller character as a stand-in for the audience, asking the questions they’d like to ask and acting as an avatar for their emotional reactions.

But in this case, Lloyd isn’t just telling Rogers’ story; he’s the receptacle of his ministrations. This is a movie about a writer who had his life changed by the person he was writing about. If this film were a sentence, Lloyd is the subject and Rogers is the object.

Essentially, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is an extended cinematic group session. We are collectively blessed by Mr. Rogers to accept his wisdom, go forth and be neighborly.

This isn’t necessarily meant as criticism, though I suspect I didn’t love “Neighborhood” as much as most people will. This is the ultimate laughter-and-tears sort of filmmaking that tends to be very successful at the box office and during the awards season.

It’s just that this is the kind of movie that sets out to do a certain thing, and it does that thing very well, and people will leave it grateful for the thing they were expecting it to do. I felt fulfilled and utterly unsurprised.

Lloyd works at Esquire magazine as an investigative reporter. Professionally he’s riding high but has earned a reputation as a hard-to-get-along jerk; personally he is married and recently became a father late in life. Susan Kelechi Watson plays his wife, Andrea, who deeply loves Lloyd but also recognizes in him fault lines, a physical and emotional absence, that could threaten their nascent family’s stability.

Lloyd is assigned to write a 400-word piece on Rogers for the magazine’s issue on heroes, which is the sort of thing a newspaper reporter would be expected to crank out in half a day but here becomes a weeks-long odyssey with multiple trips to Pittsburgh to interview Rogers.

Rogers instantly treats him with kindness and familiarity, turning the conversation around to focus on the journalist rather than the interviewee. It seems most of Lloyd’s trauma involves Jerry (Chris Cooper), his father, though Lloyd stubbornly refuses to use this label. Jerry ran out on the family a long time ago and now seeks some kind of reconciliation.

The background is filled with many lovely bit parts. I especially liked Christine Lahti as Lloyd’s supportive-yet-demanding editor; Wendy Makkena as Dorothy, Jerry’s girlfriend who helped him put the pieces back together; and Enrico Colantoni as Bill, the right-hand man who’s always at Rogers’ side, part gofer and part watchdog.

I found interesting the film’s depiction of the production of Rogers’ show, which is like a carefully oiled machine of well-worn parts. The Pittsburgh crew is old-timers who love Fred while also being slightly exasperated by his ambling, schedule-be-damned ways. They know they’re not breaking any new ground but are focused on doing what they do as well as it can be done.

Much the same can be said of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

I admit part of my reaction may be colored by the TV show itself, which ran from 1968 to 2001 (with a short, unremembered break in the ‘70s.) Though it’s now sacrilege to say such things, the truth is that, even as a small child who most needed to hear the message of self-love that Mr. Rogers spun so earnestly, I found his show terribly boring.

I know, I know…

A Generation X-er saying you didn’t like “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” is like being a Baby Boomer who found Woodstock to be just a concert, or the Beatles a great band but a trifle overrated. (Stage whisper: both are true.)

So you can hate me, and love this movie, but I will remain deeply in like with you both.

Video review: "Toy Story 4"

I enjoyed “Toy Story 4,” though I’m not terribly happy they made it.

That may sound strange, but here’s why: “Toy Story 3” was a very conscious end to the animated franchise. In it the child Andy, now all grown into a young man, gave away his toys to little Bonnie, and quite literally rode off into the sunset.

Cowboy Woody (voice of Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest of the toys, who come to life when humans aren’t around, had completed their life’s journey and started anew.

Watching them come back for another romp that’s fun but hardly up to the standards of the other movies is like going to see a favorite singer who’s now aged and can’t hold the notes anymore. You enjoy being around him, but can’t help thinking it would’ve been better for everyone if he’d hung it up.

In this story the toy gang finds themselves in a remote mountain village, where Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) is the evil/warped toy du jour. She’s of roughly the same vintage as Woody, and resents that she never got a child of her own.

The big twist is the return of Bo Peep (Annie Potts), Woody’s former girlfriend who disappeared long ago. She’s now a free-living, adventure-seeking “lost toy” who embraces her independence.

As I said, I doubt anyone who likes these movies will fail to be entertained by “Toy Story 4.” But let’s put it this way: I had to look up my review of the movie from just three months ago, because the story and details had already faded from my memory.

That never happened with the other “Toy Story” movies. They stick in the mind and the heart.

Bonus features are pretty good. There’s an audio commentary track, six deleted scenes and the following documentary shorts: “Toy Stories,” “Woody & Buzz,” “Bo Rebooted,” “Toy Box” and “Let’s Ride With Ally Maki.”

Digital-only material includes one additional deleted scene and another featurette, “Anatomy of a Scene: Prologue.”

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Review: "Toy Story 4"

“Toy Story 4” is like one last rodeo with the old gang, an unexpected revival long after we thought they’d retired. It doesn’t have the energy or emotionality of any of the others, but it’s nice to see the old-timers back up to their old tricks.

A fourth feature for the cornerstone Pixar Animation franchise seems unnecessary. After all, the third one from nine years ago felt like a very conspicuous wrapping of the bow, as the little family of toys who come to life when people aren’t around were passed on from Andy, now all grown up, to adorable pre-K Bonnie.

And yet, here we are.

Not much time has passed since Bonnie became “their kid,” although a flashback to nine years earlier shows us how Bo Peep (Annie Potts), the love interest of Woody the cowboy sheriff (Tom Hanks), disappeared between the second and third movies. It seems she didn’t share Woody’s enthusiasm for “always being there” for their kid, so when Andy’s sister decided to pass Bo on to another child, she was ready to go.

She returns triumphantly, in a much more athletic iteration than we remember. Eschewing her modest shepherdess’ cape and laughing off a broken arm kept attached with tape, Bo swings and swoops all around using her hooked staff and a bottomless reserve of guts. She embraces her status as a “lost toy” free of human constraints.

She’s practically a toy superhero.

When Bonnie’s family goes on a road trip in an RV, it reveals fractures in the toy universe. Woody chafes at no longer being the head toy calling the shots. Even worse, he’s fallen out of Bonnie’s rotation of favored toys, often relegated to the back of the closet during playtime.

Still, his sense of loyalty remains true when Bonnie goes off to kindergarten and creates a toy of her own from a plastic spork and pipe cleaners. Woody and the gang are surprised when the creature springs to life, raising all sorts of metaphysical questions about the Toy Story universe.

Dubbed Forky (voice of Tony Hale), the new tribe member at first is very confused and self-endangering. Since he was made out of spare parts, he insists that he’s trash and keeps trying to escape to the nearest garbage bin, requiring repeated rescuing from Woody.

At first I thought this was an attempt to introduce a mentally challenged toy, which would’ve been an interesting development. But Forky gets wiser with time, and eventually grows to embrace the toy ethos.

Part of his tutelage comes at the knee of Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a vintage toy stuck in an antique shop in the mountain town of Grand Basin. She’s seemingly benevolent, but resents that she’s never had a kid to call her own. She blames it on her malfunctioning voice box, and sets her designs on claiming Woody’s.

Gabby is portrayed as more misguided than evil, though she employs a force of identical ventriloquist dolls who act as her muscle, and are as creepy as all get out.

Other new characters include Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves), a Canadian motorcycle daredevil who’s lost his nerve; Giggle McDimples (Ally Maki), a pint-sized police officer who acts as Bo’s shoulder-riding sidekick; and Bunny and Ducky (Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key), a pair of long-suffering plush toys stitched together hand-to-hand who’ve spent an eternity as the top prize at a malfunctioning carnival duck hunt arcade.

Directed by Josh Cooley from a screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom, “Toy Story 4” is easily the weakest of the series, but it’s still a fun ride. It seems the sendoff was not their final bow, and they’re destined to keep collecting nostalgia curtain calls.

Video review: "The Post"

In a time when journalism in general and newspapers in particular are under so much attack -- both from economic tidal forces within the industry and political assaults from the White House --- here is a good old-fashioned drama very much in the vein of “All the President’s Men” that extols those who risk much for the simple reward of telling the truth.

“The Post” is Steven Spielberg’s ode to an era when journalists and newspapers risked all to inform the public, and also a summoning of that same spirit in a time when it’s needed more than ever.

“This is who we were,” the film practically chants, and exhorts. “This is what we can be again.”

Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks play Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, the owner/publisher and editor of The Washington Post, respectively. In 1972 their rival, the New York Times, first published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers, a damning recitation of the nation’s failures in Vietnam, before a court injunction slammed down on them.

The Post team -- which also includes Bob Odenkirk, Carrie Coon and David Cross -- got hold of the papers and had a choice to make: publish, and face the quite literal possibility of putting the Post out of business, or press on. We all know the choice they made, but “The Post” is the story of what went on behind that agonizing decision.

Hanks is great -- he always is -- but Streep is the pivotal figure in the story. We learn about her own insecurities, a rich debutante inheriting the Post from her late husband; about what it takes to be a female leader in a time when women were routinely not listened to; and about the financial crisis that coincided with the decision, in which Graham took the company public on the stock exchange.

Part legal procedural, part historical drama, but most of all a portrait of the power -- and risks -- of journalism, “The Post” is director Steven Spielberg’s best film since “Lincoln.”

Bonus features are quite good. In a clever twist, they’re divided into sections like a newspaper would be. The DVD has:

• “The Style Section: Re-Creating of an Era,” which explores the look and feel of the Washington Post newsroom in the 1970s.
• “Arts and Entertainment: Music for the Post,” about the 44-year partnership between Spielberg and composer John Williams.
• “Stop the Presses: Filming The Post,” an on-set visit with Spielberg and crew during production.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition, and you add:

• “Layout: Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee & The Washington Post,” a look at the real-life personalities behind the legend.
• “Editorial: The Cast and Characters of The Post,” about putting together the cast of performers.

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Review: "The Post"

“The Post” is both rose-colored hagiography and a bracing call to arms. It summons up the days of our hallowed past, in which crusading newspapers took on the most powerful and risked their very enterprises to tell people the truth.

And it’s a not-at-all bashful reminder that this sort of thing is more needed now than ever before.

The film, directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, tells the tale of how the Washington Post in 1971 faced off with the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret review that captured the depth of the lies and depravity behind our nation’s tragic involvement in Vietnam.

It’s at once a terrific character study, with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks playing Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, respectively, the publisher and editor of the Post. Hanks is very good -- he’s always very good -- but ultimately Streep carries the picture as an accidental leader who reaches inside herself to find strength and resolve.

The movie is also an excellent procedural drama, taking place over the course of just a few days as the Post reporting team first races to obtain the papers, which their rivals at the New York Times already had, and then Graham agonizes over whether to publish them in defiance of a federal injunction.

All of this was happening at the exact moment the Graham family was taking the company public on the stock exchange, in an effort to transform the Post from a “regional paper” into a titan to rival the Times on a national stage. This little-recognized bit of history, in which Graham had to make her decision knowing it could literally doom the newspaper, adds an extra layer of weight to the film.

Co-screenwriter Singer is fresh off an Oscar win for “Spotlight,” so we again see the painstaking attention to detail of how reporters dig up information, and editors/publishers decide what to do with it. “The Post” is an unsentimental portrait that underscores Bradlee’s rampant ambition; at one point he dispatches an intern to take a train to New York City and spy on the doings at the Times.

Graham and Bradlee are depicted as antagonists rather than allies, at least at first. He sees her as little more than a rich debutante who was handed the reins of a great newspaper after her husband killed himself -- a woman more concerned with society events and friendships with the elite than running a newsroom.

It’s perhaps unkind, but it’s also true: that’s how Graham sees herself. But again: only at first.

“Kathryn, keep your finger out of my eye,” he snarls at her at one point, in an engagement between boss and employee that seems very alien in today’s top-down times.

The rest of the cast is magnificent, and also expansive: Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian, the lead reporter on the story; Carrie Coon as Meg Greenfield and David Cross as Howard Simons, other top scribes; Bruce Greenwood as Bob McNamara, former Defense Secretary and personal friend of Graham; Tracy Letts as Fritz Beebe, Graham’s right-hand man and rock; Bradley Whitford as the (overly) timid voice of caution; Matthew Rhys as Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the papers; Jesse Plemons as the young lawyer brought into defend the Post; and Michael Stuhlbarg as Abe Rosenthal, fierce competitor at the Times, and another Graham friend.

Spielberg’s direction shows the flair of a master who, at age 70, hasn’t lost anything off his fastball. I love the film’s tactile feel -- the dank grayness of the newsroom, the clanky busyness of the typesetters assembling the metal linotype for the next day’s front page. Longtime collaborator John Williams’ musical score paces the movie with energy and solidity.

“The Post” is a lot of things, and certainly a magnificent film is one of them. It’s about getting and running the truth, no matter the consequences. About how those in power use knowledge as something to withhold, distort or wield as a cudgel.

The thing I’ll take away the most from the movie is it’s a woman’s story. Katharine Graham, rich and renowned, suffered from imposter syndrome just as most of us do. She stood up in a world made by men and put her own mark on it.

There’s a terrific moment near the end, where they’re standing on the steps of the Supreme Court after having won a decision against the injunction. Rosenthal and the other men talk into the microphones, pronouncing for posterity. Kay Graham savors the victory for herself, striding down silently past a small sea of women who smile upon her with open admiration and gratitude.

Lovers of free speech, stand up: Your mother’s passing.

Review: "Inferno"

The Robert Langdon movies have been an undeniable buttress for the careers of author Dan Brown, director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks.

I don’t know anyone who considers “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons” great movies, but they were energetic and got people to go to the theater to check out the hubbub. And maybe along the way a few became interested in a tidbit of history or a religious artifact contained in the movie and decided to explore their world further. Or maybe they saw a Coming Soon poster for another, better film and came back to see that.

In short, the Langdon flicks are the sort of popular movies that come along, make a ton of money and are then promptly forgotten. For instance, I couldn’t remember how long it had been since the last one: seven years. Their existence is unnecessary but not objectionable.

They’re probably my least favorite Tom Hanks movies, because instead of building a character he’s made to chase a chimera around for two hours while looking pained. It’s like asking LeBron to be the ball boy.

If Indiana Jones was an adventurer who reluctantly deigned to drop in at the university from time to time, then Robert Langdon is a dweeby academic with a penchant for puzzles who keeps getting sucked into dangerous escapades. These always involve clues hidden in ancient works of art and schemes to destroy/upend the world as we know it.

(Are there any other kind of schemes in the movies?)

The newest, “Inferno,” has decidedly less of a religious bent than its predecessors, which caused them to be controversial. “Da Vinci” posited that the Catholic Church covered up that Jesus actually married and had a family, producing modern descendants. (Sorry, after 10 years spoiler warnings become moot.) Maybe Dan Brown grew tired of all the protests, but there’s no Christian conspiracy theories in this one.

This threat comes from Bertrand Zobrist, a billionaire bioengineer played by Ben Foster who thinks overpopulation spells mankind’s doom within the next couple of generations. So he hatches a plot to kill half the world with a nasty virus called Inferno. Langdon spends the movie trying to foil it, traveling to Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

But he’s at a disadvantage. As the story opens, Langdon wakes up in a hospital, groggy and in pain. He’s been shot in the head (grazed) and can’t remember anything that’s happened to him recently. There are horrible visions of rivers of blood, hellfire and damnation, bodies twisted and riddled with pestilence. A helpful ER doctor, Sienna (Felicity Jones), tries to fill in the blanks.

“You won’t be able to trust your own thoughts for a while,” she warns.

But then a slavering assassin dressed as a policewoman shows up firing her pistol willy-nilly, and Langdon and the doc are on the run. The assassin is played by Ana Ularu, who has a great aggressive face, like the pointed muzzle of wolf.

They follow a trail of clues to the virus left by Zobrist because… well, otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie, would there? This includes an alteration of a famous painting contained in a bone flashlight, stealing Dante’s death mask, a beautiful old cistern that’s been turned into a concert hall, and other cool artsy crossovers.

Joining the hunt are Sidse Babette Knudsen and Omar Sy as agents of the World Health Organization, here depicted as indistinguishable from James Bond types in suits and deadly skills. And Irrfan Khan plays the head of a mysterious private agency that pulls lots of global strings from their HQ aboard a seaborne ship.

It’s obvious that Langdon is being played for a sap. The burning question is, by whom?

“Inferno” is about on par with the other Langdon flicks, maybe a tad better. You’ll never be bored, but if quizzed on the story the next day I bet most people would score a grade of D or lower.

Review: "Sully"

Every cinematic story, especially those based on real life, can be seen as a string. Lives and events are spun out long before and after the couple of hours we see, into the infinite horizon. So the first and most important decision the director and screenwriter make is where to cut that string -- determining what forms the movie's beginning, middle and end.

I'm not sure if I agree with where Clint Eastwood and Todd Komarnicki placed their cuts in relaying the tale of Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who ditched US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River on a frigid January day in 2009 after double engine failure, saving everyone onboard. But I still admired and enjoyed their version of what has now become legend.

I think the filmmakers felt the need to invent some villains to create dramatic tension, overplaying the investigation of the incident into some kind of Salem witch hunt that did not really amount to much at all. Sully and his co-pilot, Jeffrey Skiles (an excellent Aaron Eckhart), were quickly lauded as heroes for their actions -- national media appearances, awards ceremonies, a White House visit, the whole kielbasa. 

Sure, the National Transportation Safety Board members asked some hard questions; that's their job. But, as portrayed by Anna Gunn, Mike O'Malley and Jamey Sheridan, they form the triumvirate of bad guys the story didn't really need, jumping to conclusions and issuing threatening statements that we know they're going to eventually have to eat. 

(Needless to say, their real-life counterparts are none too happy.)

It ends up too much resembling "Flight," a 2012 film starring Denzel Washington as a fictional pilot who is initially lauded as a hero, then excoriated for recklessness. (A friend dubs this new film "White Flight.")

Despite the Hollywood-izing of the events, it's still a grand tale. The main challenge comes in Tom Hanks playing a guy who is, by any objective measure, ill-suited for the role of film protagonist. His Sully is mild-mannered, duty-bound and courteous, diffident to the point of often coming across as a bit of a stiff. 

Hanks pulls it off by showing us a man who is outwardly brave and stoic, but inwardly reels from nightmares and doubts about his actions that day. 

Indeed, I think that is what makes the story of Sullenberger so compelling, in real life and onscreen: here is an unremarkable man, who plied his trade in virtual anonymity for four decades. In his golden hour, months before forced retirement at age 60, he used his skill and experience to pull off something extraordinary.

The universality of this theme is obvious: Sully became a hero, and you could, too.

After a flock of Canada geese pummeled the aircraft shortly after takeoff, destroying both engines, Sully had 208 seconds of glide time before hitting the ground. After he and Skiles exhausted all their options, trying to restart the engines and communicating with ground control on possible emergency landing sites, Sully quickly determined they wouldn't make it. "I eyeballed it," he tells stunned investigators.

He steered his Airbus A320 toward the Hudson, and history was made.

The film chooses to show us the crash three times. First, a mere glimpse at the very beginning. A more detailed version starts about 30 minutes in. Then, a comprehensive take that forms the final act, showing us the aftermath and rescue by river ferry crews and police scuba divers.

"Sully" hits its emotional peak in the center, when the pilot is scrambling to account for everyone on board, who have been taken by different conveyance to various hospitals and such. We can see the terror in Hanks' eyes, wondering how many people have died. When he's finally given the total -- 155 souls, everyone onboard safe --  the catharsis is like a swell of pure joy.

It's dangerous for critics to play the "If I was making this movie" game, but I think that was the film's obvious ending point. Instead we get another half-hour to 45 minutes of meetings, tense phone calls between Sully and his wife (Laura Linney), and an odd encounter in a bar where Sully is recognized and offered the drink they have named after him. 

"Grey Goose with a splash of water," the barman smirks.

The narrative is a bit twisted around into unnecessary knots for my taste, but "Sully" still soars when it has to.

Video review: "Bridge of Spies"

In such an outstanding year for movies, "Bridge of Spies" is the sort of film that tends to get overlooked. It doesn't have a flashy subject, or the hot new thing as a star or director, and it's a historical piece about an embarrassing Cold War event that many people would just as soon forget.

It got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, but I don't think anyone considers it a serious contender. Nor should it be, but it's a very good picture that deserves some attention on video.

Tom Hanks plays James B. Donovan, an insurance lawyer from Brooklyn who finds himself thrown into the kettle of geopolitical politics. First it's being selected to represent Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Ryland, in a wry performance that got its own Oscar nod), basically because nobody else wants the job. He tries his hardest -- which annoys some of his colleagues -- and convinces the government not to execute Abel since they might need him someday.

Someday arrives a few years later when American pilot Gary Powers is shot down over the Soviet Union in the infamous U-2 incident and held prisoner. Donovan is sent to Berlin to negotiate an exchange, Abel for Powers, but in the overheated era of nuclear standoff, the government can't officially acknowledge his role as their representative.

He's essentially freelancing it with his rear end exposed, making daily trips across the Berlin Wall with briefcase in hand to haggle with a bizarre array of Russians and Germans. Complicating things, the East Germans have captured an American student on trumped-up spying changes. Donovan takes it upon himself to free him too: "Two for one" is his mantra.

It's a potboiler political thriller, more about the threat of violence and dire consequences than the actual depiction of them. Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriters Matt Charman, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen turn the screws at just the right pressure, with Hanks spectacular as always as the well-meaning everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

Bonus features are OK, though Spielberg shows his typical disregard for filmmaker commentary tracks. There are four making-of mini-documentaries: "Berlin 1961: Re-creating The Divide," "U-2 Spy Plane," "Spy Swap: Looking Back On The Final Act" and "A Case Of The Cold War: Bridge of Spies."

Movie:

Extras: 

Review: "Bridge of Spies"

I've always enjoyed history, and am particularly tickled by the incongruous little stuff that doesn't break into the public consciousness. Like the Fourth Crusade, which set out to retake Jerusalem from the Saracen horde, but instead sacked the allied city of Constantinople to plunder its great wealth. Or the slaves who rose up against their masters aboard the ship "Amistad" and won their freedom before the Supreme Court, some of whom went on to become slave traders themselves.

History buffs, or those who just like a good geopolitical yarn, will probably enjoy "Bridge of Spies" as much as I did. The latest collaboration between director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks, it’s the curious story-behind-the-story of the U-2 incident of 1960, in which the Russians shot down a U.S. spy plane, heating up the Cold War to the point nuclear war seemed possible.

Hanks plays James B. Donovan, a respected but unheralded insurance attorney from Brooklyn who found himself in the unlikely role of negotiating for the return of the American pilot.

He had previously represented a Soviet spy caught by the CIA, Rudolf Abel, and convinced the authorities not to execute him since they might need to use him one day for leverage. Donovan’s prescience was rewarded by being tossed into the cauldron of geopolitical intrigue, making cloak-and-dagger forays across the Berlin Wall as an unofficial negotiator for his country.

The screenplay by young Matt Charman was punched up by Oscar-winning veterans Joel and Ethan Coen, and is essentially divided into two parts. Roughly the first half is about Donovan’s representation of Abel, which causes strain in both his professional and personal lives. He becomes a public pariah for doing more than offering a token defense, even taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The second half is the negotiations in Berlin.

He comes to find a grudging respect for Abel, who is portrayed by Mark Rylance in a strong, restrained performance. Abel is completely guilty, an incongruous figure born in England who speaks with a strong British lilt, raised in Russia and a devoted patriot. Posing as a painter, he refuses to share information or acknowledge he’s a spy, though he does not take great pains to conceal it.

Donovan seems bewildered by the man’s preternatural calm, repeatedly asking him if he’s worried or scared about being put to death for espionage. “Would it help?” is Abel’s stoic reply.

In turn, Donovan’s wife (Amy Ryan), law partner (Alan Alda) and even the judge (Dakin Matthews) are perplexed and bothered by his diligence in defending a traitor who divulged secrets to America’s greatest adversary. He resolutely points out that since Abel is not American he cannot be a traitor, but is an honorable enemy who deserves to be treated as such.

Flash forward a few years. American pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and captured while flying an ultra-secret U-2 plane. It causes great embarrassment to the U.S., as Powers failed to self-destruct his craft or kill himself with poison per orders. The CIA taps Donovan to set up an exchange: Abel for Powers.

The wrinkle is that the East Germans have also captured a young American student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), and are holding him on trumped-up charges. Instructed by his CIA handler (Scott Shepherd) to concentrate on the pilot and forget the student, Donovan takes it upon himself to enter tense three-way negotiations between America, the USSR and its young German satellite country. His goal: two for one.

It’s a typically skillful performance by Hanks, playing a man out of his depth who compensates by rigging the game according to rules he understands.

The film doesn’t really get deep inside Donovan’s head, but “Bridge of Spies” is less character study than political thriller. It’s about spotlighting a key piece of little-known history, and somehow even makes lawyerly negotiations enlivening. That’s a masterful bit of cinematic subterfuge.

Video review: "Captain Phillips"

Director Paul Greengrass is not a man who deals in moral absolutes. In “Captain Phillips” he, along with screenwriter Billy Ray and star Tom Hanks, relate the true story of an American cargo ship captain who was kidnapped at sea by Somali pirates. Rather than making the bad guys faceless, soulless villains, he portrays them as real, thinking individuals who feel pressured to commit acts of piracy.

This is not to say that the film attempts to paint a flattering portrait of the pirates in favor of the American. But by making the guys behind the guns seem full-blooded and human themselves, it only serves to underscore the peril of the title character.

Barkhad Abdi is just terrific as Muse, the head of the pirates. Desperate, but also clever and empathetic, he engages in a war of wills with Phillips, who spends the second half of the movie as his prisoner, crammed into a dingy lifeboat.

The fact that Abdi, an acting novice, manages to hold his own with a powerhouse like Hanks speaks well not only of his own screen presence, but Greengrass’ expert direction.

The scene where Phillips is finally rescued from his ordeal and brought aboard a Navy ship for medical treatment is some of the best acting you will ever see, with Hanks shining as a man who's been through hell and is trying to keep it all together, and failing.

A live-wire act coupled with a deep character study, “Captain Phillips” is the rare drama that doesn’t settle for simple black-and-white answers.

Video extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD versions, and have a certain amount of heft without being particularly ambitious. There are three behind-the-scenes featurettes about various aspects of production, and a feature-length commentary track supplied by Greengrass.

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Extras: B-minus

Review: "Saving Mr. Banks"

Hollywood loves to tell stories about itself, and here’s a movie from Walt Disney Pictures about the making of one of its own iconic films, and starring Walt himself. Or rather, co-starring Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, a supporting role for the main character of author P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson.

The tale is quite simple: the irascible, guarded Mrs. Travers – don’t you dare call her Miss – doesn’t want to sell her novel “Mary Poppins” to Disney and see it turned into a piece of puffy fantasy. But she needs the money, and agrees to come out to California to collaborate with the film’s production team, while Old Walt works his twinkly charm to convince her to sign over the book rights.

The movie is essentially one long dance between Travers and Disney, with the two struggling mightily to understand a person so extravagantly different from themselves. Of course, we know how it all turned out.

(Or, at least we think we do. The film ends with the pair more or less making their peace over their very different conceptions for “Mary Poppins,” but in fact she so reviled what Disney did with her work that she forbade any further adaptations of her books.)

I really wanted to like this movie, but it held so very few surprises for me. We know early on from the flashbacks to Travers’ Australian childhood that she adored her sweet, alcoholic wastrel father (Colin Farrell) and used him as the basis for the father figure, Mr. Banks, in “Mary Poppins.” So it’s all a matter of Disney learning enough about her to puzzle out the truth.

The scene where he finally confronts her about her fears is splendidly acted by Hanks and Thompson, but flat as dry toast. It’s never a good thing when the audience is three steps ahead of the characters.

The early section is mostly about Travers playing the fish-out-of-water role, peevishly negotiating the Hollywood scene. She’s disruptive and contemptuous, treating everyone she meets quite shabbily, especially Disney’s underlings. She even dismisses the songs written for the film by the legendary Sherman Brothers (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman), and regards some animated critters as vile interlopers.

Bradley Whitford turns up as screenwriter Don DaGradi, Kathy Baker is a tough studio exec and Rachel Griffiths plays Travers’ aunt. Paul Giamatti brightens things up as her appointed chauffeur, an obstinately cheerful man who serves absolutely no purpose in the story, but we just like having him around.

Since we’re discussing a film about the creative process, let me tell you a little bit about mine. I prefer to see one movie at a time, write the review within the next 24 hours, more or less be absorbed in that experience, and move on to the next. The crush of late-year screenings made that impossible, and quite frankly, I’m having trouble recalling “Saving Mr. Banks” very well. It’s only been a few days since I’ve seen it, but mentally it’s already slipping through my fingers like sand.

The best movies, and sometimes even the worst, stick with you because they make a strong impression that lingers. There are films I’ve seen only a single time many years ago that I can evoke with great clarity, both the movie itself and how I reacted to it at the time.

I’m afraid “Saving Mr. Banks” is already floating away like Poppins herself, she to her next nanny job and me the next movie review. I just wish there had been a spoonful of magic while we journeyed together.

Review: "Captain Phillips"

“Captain Phillips” is in some ways two separate movies tied together by the same event: the first capture of an American ship by pirates since the 1800s. Both are equally effective at evoking a harrowing sense of tension – even though, since the film is a chronicle of real events, we know the title character makes it out alive.

Based on a book co-written by the actual Captain Richard Phillips, the story starts out as the tale of a group of cargo ship crewmen resisting armed intruders, a classic us-versus-them saga. The audience is encouraged to look upon the Somali pirates as bloodthirsty killers and thieves, while the resolute captain (Tom Hanks) is the noble hero beset by them.

Then a curious thing happens, and the second half of the film shifts to the confines of a stuffy, tiny motorized lifeboat where the four pirates have escaped with Phillips as their abductee.

Screenwriter Billy Ray swings to an intimate character study, where we learn the Somalis are thinking, feeling individuals who capture ships not out of pure greed, but to appease the tyrannical warlord who rules them. They come from a society where men are valued by how much ransom money they bring in. Their desperation in many ways mirrors that of Phillips.

Director Paul Greengrass is a seasoned expert at portraying real, violent events with a clear eye and a steady hand (“United 93,” “Bloody Sunday”). By not overdramatizing the proceedings but letting them play out with organic emotions, Greengrass manages to underline the humanity of the peril without becoming maudlin or manipulative.

And, of course, the movie is a showcase for yet another one of Hanks’ brilliant performances. He’s been so good for so long that we’ve come to expect nothing less than excellence out of his acting roles. In a perverse sort of homage, we tend to under-praise his efforts because of the high standard he has maintained for a quarter-century. I certainly hope the Academy Award voters do not do so.

I was pleased to find Greengrass employed authentic African actors to play the Somalis rather than relying on performers from the U.S. or England or wherever. They all acquit themselves well, especially Barkhad Abdi as Muse, the scrappy, cagey pirate leader, and Faysal Ahmed as Najee, the excitable enforcer who often butts heads with him.

Really, Phillips and Muse are the main characters of the piece, and Greengrass and Ray give us pivotal scenes of each man before, during and after their confrontation. We discover the two “captains” aren’t so very different than we’d imagined – including facing larger pressures from their superiors to carry out policies that won’t endear them to their underlings.

As Phillips himself puts it: “We’ve all got bosses.”

Things build to a fever pitch when a U.S. destroyer arrives on the scene, followed by a team of Navy sharpshooters. You may have already read the astounding account of how SEAL Team Six managed to put an end to the kidnapping, but seeing it rendered in sight and sound is a spellbinding experience.

The film’s version of events does omit some key facts, such as the fact the pirates’ comrades were trying to bring in other captured vessels carrying more than 50 hostages to act as human shields. From a storytelling standpoint it’s a wise move, but it leaves the film open to charges of focusing on the plight of an American to the detriment of foreign-born victims.

The movie does not engage in so much equivocation as to make the Somali pirates seem blameless, or the Americans appear as unflawed. But in treating both the captors and captives as full-blooded human beings, “Captain Phillips” plumbs depths a lesser film would’ve skimmed over.

Video review: "Cloud Atlas"

A grand, brave, often mesmerizing but just as often puzzling cinematic experience, “Cloud Atlas” takes a book generally thought to be unfilmable and delivers something rather astonishing. The Wachowski siblings, best known for the “Matrix” movies, team up again (also joined by co-writer/director Tom Tykwer) to create a sprawling story that encompasses dozens of characters spread over several time spans, with a universal message about the sanctity of the soul.

If that sounds a little full-of-it grandiose, well, that’s because it is. But even as you struggle to understand the accents of Tom Hanks and Halle Berry or even figure out where and when you are, most observers should find the experience thrilling.

Hanks and Berry are joined by a number of other actors, each playing several roles – though it’s often a challenge to recognize them buried under layers of costume and prosthetic makeup. The action jumps from the 19th century Pacific Islands to America in the 1970s, and then to a dystopian future Korea and a post-apocalyptic time in which the Earth is nearly deserted.

Though it may not be up everyone’s alley, “Cloud Atlas” is an innovative and ambitious piece of science fiction drama that’s worth a look.

Extras are rather decent, though you have to upgrade to the Blu-ray edition to get the best stuff. The DVD version only comes with a making-of documentary.

It’s not surprising that the notoriously publicity-shy Wachowskis chose not to record a commentary track, but they make up for it with six more featurettes covering everything from casting to special effects, plus philosophical musings about reincarnation.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Cloud Atlas"

Having not read the novel by David Mitchell, my guess is that "Cloud Atlas" is one of those books that was considered untranslatable to the big screen. The Wachowski siblings, the creative team behind the "Matrix" films, and their writing/directing partner Tom Tykwer, have accomplished about as successful an adaptation as could be hoped.

It's a sprawling, ambitious, troubling, occasionally glorious and often vexing film. A hair under three hours long, it links dozens of characters across a multitude of time settings, with the same set of actors playing multiple parts. These stories do not  unfold in temporal sequence, but instead cut back and forth with no transition for the audience. The abruptness is intentional.

So, one moment you can be watching Tom Hanks playing Zachry, a suspicious but good-hearted hunter in a post-apocalyptic primitive society hundreds of years into the future, and in a blink he has become Dr. Henry Goose, a nefarious physician/charlatan in the Pacific Islands circa 1849.

The theme here is that these actors are not simply inhabiting different roles, but represent different incarnations of the same eternal soul replicated over and over again throughout the eons, but facing much the same challenges in each reincarnation.

For instance, Hanks' character(s) struggle with summoning the courage to do the moral thing. For Dr. Goose that battle was obviously lost some time ago. For Zachry it's an ongoing struggle, with the forces of suspicion and hatred represented by Old Georgie, a devil in a top hat who whispers vile thoughts into his ear.

Zachry's time era is probably the most critical, acting as a framing device for the other stories. Sometimes we see the same person decades apart in their lives, but for the most part it is new incarnations each time around.

In Zachry's time, he is suspicious of Meronym (Halle Berry), a representative of a more technologically advanced alien culture, or possibly the remnants of humanity that survived the "Big Fall" of mankind. Meronym and other people of her ilk seem to have electronic devices implanted under the surface of their skin, while Zachry and his people have extensive facial tattoos.

Meronym has ingratiated herself into the people of the valley's tiny community, where they struggle to survive against wretched tribes of cannibals who raid from time to time. Meronym says she's there to help, and indeed heeds Zachry's plea to save the life of his niece, but it's clear she's there with an unspoken mission.

Other significant settings are the Pacific Islands in the mid-19th century, Cambridge of 1936, 1973 San Francisco, modern-day London and Korea somewhere in the 23rd century.

Jim Broadbent plays Timothy Cavendish, an itinerant publisher who hits the big time when his thuggish author executes the dream of what every writer wants to do to a critic, becoming a celebrity in the process. But money troubles and a hateful big brother leave him incarcerated in a mental hospital, which builds up to a septuagenarian version of "The Great Escape."

Ben Whishaw is Robert Frobisher, a brilliant but poor musical genius who takes on a position as assistant to a once great but now forlorn composer. Jim Sturgess plays Adam Ewing, a young man making a highly profitable business trip for his slavemaster father-in-law, and encounters the unexpected friendship of a runaway slave (David Gyasi).

In 1973 Halle Berry plays Luisa Rey, a crusading young journalist who uncovers a nefarious plot at a Three Mile Island-ish nuclear facility, and finds her life in peril.

Perhaps the most evocative setting is Neo Seoul of the future, a nightmarish landscape that seems to combine the worst elements of "Blade Runner" and "The Matrix." Here Doona Bae plays Sonmi-451, a "fabricant" -- aka synthetically created human slave -- who serves as a waitress  in trendy restaurant. One day she's liberated by a leader of the rebellion against this totalitarian society, and finds herself becoming the image and voice of a movement (and later, in Zachry's time, something much more).

"Our lives are not our own," Somni intones, underscoring the film's message. "From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and each kindness, we build our future."

I will say that time does not drag while watching "Cloud Atlas." I looked at my watch exactly once, and was astonished to see that 2½ hours had already gone by.

But the various actors each playing three, four, five or more roles ended up being distracting, especially as I attempted each time to puzzle out who was who under the heavy layers of prosthetic makeup. I found that the mental energy I expended in this exercise left me unable at time to get emotionally engaged the characters' plight.

I also admit to being uncomfortable with some of the transformations. At various times Caucasian actors are made up to look Asian, and Asians as Caucasians, and African-Americans as whites or Asians or Latinos, and none of it very convincing. I did note that at no time was a non-African-American actor made up to look black. Consciously avoiding that risk of an unpalatable accusation of blackface only serves to make the other cross-racial portrayals seem even more squeamish.

"Cloud Atlas" is a bedazzling cinematic experience, though one that will no doubt leave some audience members confused and frustrated. For me, there was enough enchantment to overcome the head-scratching.

3 stars out of four

Video Review: "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is probably the most disrespected film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

This challenging drama was directed by high-toned director Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot," "The Reader") and adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s best-selling novel by screenwriter Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump"). Despite that prestigious pedigree, and the presence of major stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, "Loud" barely received a theatrical release. And reviews generally ranged from indifferent to openly hostile.

Me? I rushed it into the #3 slot on my Top 10 slot at the last minute.

Those lambasting the film seem to regard it as cynically manipulating the decade-old tragedy of 9/11, as a young boy searches the city of New York for clues to a game he played with his father, who died in the World Trade Center. I think these critics erroneously tried to force the label of "the definitive 9/11 movie" on the film, when really it's more a ruminative tale about a very specific, very unusual child.

As played with devastating effect by newcomer Thomas Horn, Oskar Schell is a brilliant but shy boy, possibly autistic, whose only substantial human relationship was with his dad (Hanks). When he dies, Oskar doggedly pursues the mystery behind one of the puzzle-like adventures his father would concoct for him, mostly as a ruse to force him to interact with other people.

As he traipses all around New York, encountering strangers and learning to come out of his shell, Oskar retraces the steps of his family life, and discovers that the mother he’d always kept at a distance is anything but uncaring. It’s a bracing, sad and joyous journey.

Video extras are pretty good, but not spectacular. The Blu-ray/DVD combo comes with a digital copy of the film and several featurettes.

The heart of the package is a making-of documentary that includes substantial participation by Daldry, his cast and crew. Other mini-documentaries focus on the search for an actor to play Oskar – Horn was, astonishingly, a total novice – and the lasting impact of 9/11 10 years later.

One of the more original pieces is a featurette about Max Von Sydow’s Oscar-nominated turn as a mute stranger who wanders into Oskar’s life, directed by Von Sydow’s own son.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is not the story of a conventional Everyman as a child -- Oskar Schell is no Everyboy.

No, Oskar is an extraordinary lad -- a smart, painfully shy boy. His only really deep human connection is with his father (Tom Hanks), who recognizes the specialness of his child not as a disadvantage to be regretted but an opportunity to draw him closer and nudge Oskar toward a rich life shared with others. Thomas Schell was a failed biochemist who became a jeweler, but whose real occupation was a Biblical sort of shepherd, tending to a flock of one.

But the elder Schell dies in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, and Oskar is left utterly alone. True, his mother (Sandra Bullock) is technically present, but Oskar correctly labels her an absentee parent. That's the sort of kid Oskar is: he knows what an absentee parent is, and he's hurting so badly inside he lashes out at his mother by telling her to her face that she's a failed mom.

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, adapted for the screen by Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump") and directed by Stephen Daldry, who has made four feature films, all of which I've loved ("The Hours," "The Reader" and "Billy Elliot" are the previous three.)

It is not a movie that consciously tries to be "the" film about 9/11 -- what Oskar refers to simply as "The Worst Day." But in its stark exploration of wrenching loss and the capricious way human lives collide with each other, it best captures the emotional vacuum felt by an entire nation more than 11 years ago, and to a lessening degree since.

Oskar's father often assigned adventurous tasks, or "expeditions" to him. Ostensibly scientific undertakings, they were really exercises designed to force Oskar to interact with new people and explore the real world around him. Precocious and earnest, Oskar recognizes the true meaning of these assignments, but still tackles them with enthusiasm because he so adores his father.

Shortly before his death, Oskar's dad set before him the grandest expedition of all: discovering the mythical 6th borough of Manhattan. This mission takes on new meaning when the boy discovers a key hidden inside a vase in his father's untouched closet. Unmarked, with only the cryptic word "Black" printed on a piece of paper, Oskar concludes this clue must unlock the puzzle of Thomas Schell's death.

With great deliberateness, Oskar sets out to the far reaches of New York City, attempting to interview every person named Black to see if they know about the mystery of the key. Since Oskar suffers panic attacks at the mere prospect of mass transit, he will walk everywhere he needs to go on his free Saturdays. He calculates it will take him three years, which in his unadorned narration Oskar recognizes is his way of extending the time he gets to spend with his father, or at least his fading memory.

With such a non-traditional protagonist, I was not surprised to learn that Thomas Horn, the amazing young actor who portrays him, came to this film project in an atypical way. This is his first acting credit of any sort; he was discovered after winning a tournament of "Teen Jeopardy" at the age of 12. Like Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit" or Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense," this is the sort of performance that feels almost ethereal is its ability to tap such emotional depths and complex inner thoughts in one so young.

Other able performers turn up in supporting roles. Viola Davis plays the first woman Oskar encounters in his travels, one who has suffered her own recent loss. Jeffrey Wright plays a businessman mourning the death of his own father. John Goodman is the security guard at Oskar's building who trades good-natured insults with him. Max von Sydow turns up as the mysterious, silent man living as a renter in his grandmother's apartment right across the way, who takes an unexpected role in the boy's quest.

Bullock's role as the distraught mother struggling to come to grips with her son's odd acting out would seem to be a thankless one, but later on she shines a new light on their relationship that shocks even  young Oskar.

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" hasn't been in the conversation of the best films of the year, but it deserves to be. It's a viscerally enthralling story about a singular boy trying to find his place in the world when his only anchor is ripped away. What a journey -- Oskar's, and ours.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Larry Crowne"

Here's a movie for adults that's warm and enjoyable, but has brains and ambition. Because it stars two immensely likeable actors, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, you might think it's about two middle-aged people falling for each other. You'd be wrong.

Although "Larry Crowne" takes the form of a romantic comedy-drama, it is less about the intersection of these two characters than the people they discover themselves to be at this moment in their life's trajectory. Their coupling is a byproduct of their respective journeys, not the purpose behind it.

Hanks directs (and produces, and co-wrote with Nia Vardalos) with a soft touch but not a soft head. "Larry Crowne" is full of life lessons, but is clever about it, and flouts its characters' sense of shared community without going all it-takes-a-village muddle-headed.

It's like fancy French toast -- comfort food with a dollop of aspiration.

Hanks plays the title character, a fortysomething guy happily working as a low-level manager at Umart, meaning he wears a bright red T-shirt with his name on it and is called a "team leader." Unfortunately, Larry does not have a college degree -- he joined the Navy out of high school and retired after 20 years as a cook -- so his bosses decide that since he cannot advance any further, they have to let him go. The fact that Larry is a tireless worker who attacks his job with zeal does not matter. Somehow, the Umart folks think they are doing him a favor.

This may sound unbelievably absurd, but the capacity for ridiculousness of group decisions knows no bounds. I know a guy who got a job at a non-profit straight out of college, loved working there and over the course of 20 years earned his way up to the number two position. During some nasty political squabbles, the board approached him about jettisoning the executive director and moving this fellow up to the top spot. Taking a principled stand, he refused the promotion, saying it was not fair to accept a post currently occupied by someone else. After more deliberations, the board decided to keep the person they'd just  been trying to give the boot, and fired him instead. The nature of the collective mind is inherently schizophrenic.

Larry takes it hard, especially when he finds the job market unwelcoming in the extreme. He's divorced but not bitter about it, and owes the bank a pocketful after buying out his ex-wife's half of the house.

So he decides to enroll at East Valley Community College. At the urging of the dean of students, who has more than a little huckster in him, Larry signs up for classes in speech, economics and composition. Master these three skills, he is told, and he can write his ticket.

The econ class is taught by a comically haughty professor (George Takei) who recites the same dry lessons year in and year out, and smiles because each student crammed into his massive classroom are required to buy his book. We never hear about the writing class, so all hope rests with the speech course.

The professor of Speech 217: The Art of Informal Remarks is one Mercedes Tainot (Roberts), who began bordering on burnout a few years ago, and is medium-crispy now. Her greatest hope is that the minimum 10 students will not show up, and she can cancel the class -- which Larry dashes by showing up late. Mercy's first instruction to her students is to care, but she obviously stopped awhile ago.

Mercy takes an anti-shine to Larry at first, thinking he's an old letch using the mid-life college shtick to hit on impressionable young things like Talia, an effervescent lass played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw in one of those performances that grab you and make you go, "More, please."

Truth is, Talia is more of a teacher to Larry than Mercy is, fixing the feng shui at his crowded home and giving his hair and clothes some zip. Mercy is perhaps biased because her husband (Bryan Cranston) really is an old letch, who gave up writing books to blog but really looks at porn all the time.

I have on occasion been accused of being too much of a literalist as a critic, and I will now demonstrate why.

Larry is very specific about being a 20-year military man, meaning he retired in his late 30s, presumably with a pension. Anyone remotely familiar with a career in the armed forces knows about the 20-years-and-out routine. Having known or read about people in this situation, and with a little research and conjecture, I determined Larry's payments from the Navy would be around 30 grand a year, plus free medical. That's not a ton, but should be enough for him to get by in the short run.

It's persnickety, I know, but I needed a line where Larry says something like, "And my Navy pension will barely cover the mortgage." Otherwise, don't introduce the 20-year thing without acknowledging the reality of it.

And on the question of Mercy's horndog husband, it is not really possible for any man to watch porn literally all day long. He could certainly see a lot of it, maybe even have a psychological addiction to it, but there would be spaces where, shall we say, his desires are at least temporarily diminished. It's just the way things work.

Things go on with Larry and Mercy, but I'll leave that for you to discover. They rotate in each others' orbits, with that gravitational pull always there but not shifting the heavens.

"Larry Crowne" is a romantic movie, but it's less about the familiar, tired tropes of cinematic love than the serendipitous passion we find in our lives when our plans end up in pieces on aisle 12.

3.5 stars out of four