Review: "Zero Dark Thirty"

"Zero Dark Thirty" plays out like a TV crime procedural with a bigger budget and loftier aspirations. It almost has the tone of a documentary film, depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden with little prejudice or embellishment.

What we end up with is something boasting an almost journalistic feel, portraying American national security personnel not as we'd to think they would be, but as they actually are. Which is to say: focused, fallible, and capable of both amazing heroism and gut-churning brutality.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal started to make a movie about the early search for bin Laden after 9/11, but then the terrorist leader was assassinated by U.S. troops in 2011, acting on information painstakingly gathered by the CIA. They quickly retooled to bring a more comprehensive tale, culminating in the high-tension raid on the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden had been living for several years.

I was very impressed with the attention to detail in "Zero Dark Thirty," and its lessons about the sort of warfare our country wages in the 21st century. It's one based not on nuclear missiles or big metal hardware, but tiny slivers of data gathered from thousands of sources. The challenge is less like finding a needle in a haystack than reassembling a mirror smashed into a million shards, without knowing the shape it had before being broken.

The film is not as emotionally engaging as I'd wished. Jessica Chastain does yeoman's work in portraying Maya, the one CIA investigator who does nothing for a decade but hunt bin Laden. The character has no internal motivations or external life beyond getting her man. It's not surprising that Maya is a composite of several real figures, since she has no real identity beyond her mission.

The story skips around in time and place, the first half depicting the early clues to bin Laden's disappearance from Afghanistan, taking us up to 2004. Then the trail goes cold, and the film picks up again four years later, when Maya stumbles across evidence of a high-level bin Laden courier who most of the other intelligence forces believe is already dead. She proves he's alive, and follows him straight to that dusty Pakistani compound.

In fictional movies about spycraft, the agents shown searching for evidence are also the ones who go out into the field and nab the bad guys. Here, it's clearly revealed that the snoops stay mostly behind their desks and have an uneasy relationship with the troops on the front lines. At one point, Maya has to practically beg a field commander to set up a surveillance net on the courier.

In the film's most controversial section, which is right at the beginning, a CIA interrogator named Dan (Jason Clarke, in a chilling performance) is shown employing "enhanced" methods against detainees, including waterboarding.

For a film that was accused of being controversial before it even finished production, "Zero Dark Thirty" is steadfastly neutral on the subject of torture. The interrogations are clearly depicted as brutal and dehumanizing, and it's hard to watch Americans carrying out these sorts of depraved actions. But the movie is also quite clear in showing how the information obtained in this way was critical to identifying the courier who led us to bin Laden.

Bigelow and Boal do not go in for big ethical quandaries and principled dilemmas, though. Maya, who is present but does not partake in the brutality, is repulsed by it but also does not hesitate to make use of the fruits it produces.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is an effective and expertly made film, but a more character-driven story would've added some flesh to the bones of a great, true story.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Frankenweenie"

As a filmmaker, Tim Burton's mostly been working on reanimation projects lately -- taking old movies and making them rise from the dead as remakes crammed with computer-generated imagery. The results have been up and down, generally scoring at the box office but leaving lovers of his earlier work (I count myself) feeling disappointed.

If "Frankenweenie" has a fresher feel than most of his recent movies, that's because it's a remake of his own short film.

The original was live action, a black comedy about a boy who zombifies his pet pooch using Frankenstein-esque science. The spiffy new version is stop-motion animation, which suits the material well -- a mix of heartfelt pathos and creepy-crawly horror movie elements.

Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan) is crushed when his beloved dog Sparky is, er, crushed in a car accident. Indirectly inspired by his eccentric science teacher, Victor jolts the canine alive with electricity. But then the other kids in the neighborhood discover the trick, and soon the whole town is overrun with zombie pets.

The animation is truly spectacular, dark in palette but joyful in its intricacy and attention to detail. I loved how many of the individual children resemble horror-flick denizens, like the blonde girl who looks like she stepped out of "Village of the Damned."

Despite the subject matter, "Frankenweenie" is sweet-natured and should be suitable for all but the smallest children. And adults will enjoy the references to classic horror creatures, especially the classic Universal Studios menagerie.

The film comes with a decent array of video extras, though you'll have to shell out for a higher price point Blu-ray edition to get the best stuff. The DVD comes only with one featurette, a "Touring Exhibit" of the Frankenweenie world, plus a music video.

Upgrade to the two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and you add Burton's original "Frankenweenie" live-action short, the making-of doc "Miniatures in Motion: Bringing 'Frankenweenie' To Life" and an original animated short, "Captain Sparky vs. The Flying Saucers."

The four-disc combo pack also includes 3-D and digital copies of the film.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Gym etiquette for newbies

In the spirit of both encouraging and educating all the New Year's Resolution folks now swarming the gyms, I thought I’d offer some unsolicited but appropriate tips on etiquette and behavior. This will hopefully make them better gym users and increase their enjoyment of the experience.

But I’ll confess, mostly I’m just hoping to make their presence more tolerable to the rest of us. I speak as someone who started working out 22 years ago, and in that time hasn’t missed more than a week of going to the gym (and even then nearly always due to illness or travel).

1.    If you’re going to rest more than 45 seconds between sets, don’t just sit on the station. Get up, walk around, stretch, and let someone else work in. No one should hog a station for 10+ minutes. Three or four people can easily rotate on a single piece of equipment between sets.

2.    The spaces in between the exercise equipment are for egress. Do not grab dumbbells or other mobile equipment and stand there performing your exercises. Don’t make others walk around you.

3.    In many gyms there are clipboards on the cardio machines (treadmills, elliptical, etc.) for people to sign up for certain times. About 98% of the time, nobody pays any attention to these. When a machine is free, grab it. Don’t actually expect someone to get off because it’s “your time.”

4.    The locker room is where you’re supposed to change clothes. If you’re removing more than one article of clothing (winter coat, etc.), please don’t do it in front of the rest of us. We’re not impressed.

5.    Please wear appropriate workout clothing. If you’re a gym newbie and don’t want to invest in new duds because you think they will soon be too big for you, at least make sure everything that needs to be covered, is. Hint: Try Goodwill stores for good, cheap gym clothes.

6.    If you’re not sure how a piece of equipment works, feel free to ask someone who looks like they know what they’re doing. Most gym vets are glad to help. If you do some stations wrong, you could injure yourself.

7.    Unless you’re a member of a weightlifting team, you’re not in competition with anybody but yourself. Don’t worry about how much weight someone else can lift. Focus on making yourself stronger, not “beating” another person.

8.    If you need to make a loud grunt or exclamation when you’re lifting, you’ve got too much weight on.

9.    The operative part of the phrase “working out” is “work.” Most of us are here to perform exercise and leave. It’s not social hour. Confine extended conversations to outside the gym floor.

10.    Please don’t think we’re too cynical, but those of us who are here year-round know from past experience that most of you will be gone by Valentine’s Day. We’re happy to tolerate the January crowds, and applaud your newfound motivation. Those of you who transform into regulars are especially to be applauded. Next year, you can write this guide for the newcomers.

Reeling Backward: "Hell's Angels" (1930)

"Hell's Angels" may just be the first action-movie spectacular in cinematic history. Produced and directed by Howard Hughes, it was a big-budget extravaganza featuring amazing special effects for the aerial dogfights, a star-making turn by Jean Harlow and an epic war story backdrop.

Also like a lot of action movies, it's less successful when the explosions stop and the characters have to talk to each other. Often, it's downright embarassing.

But the action scenes more than compensate. They're just amazing for their time, combining live-action shots of multiple World War I fighter planes tearing about the sky, models seamlessly blended into the fray and even some early progenitors of the modern green screen effects.

If I were grading this movie in its parts, it would be four stars for the aerial sequences and one-and-a-half stars for everything else.

 I first learned about "Hell's Angels" from the Howard Hughes biopic "The Aviator," which features a long sequence about Hughes' feverish devotion to making the film. Production started in 1927 as a silent picture with another actress in the female lead role. Hughes switched it over to a sound film on the fly, and found 18-year-old Harlow to take over the role of vamp vixen Helen (reputedly because the original actress had a heavy accent).

The talkie sequences still are hampered by technological restrictions of the era, though not as bad as some other early sound films where the dialogue fades in and out. Hughes also uses some irises that turn the frame into a circle, which is an antiquated look associated with silent films. The scenes with Germans feature the actors actually speaking German, cutting away to title cards for the important dialogue, just as you might see in a silent movie.

A word on those Germans -- the truly bad ones are invariably depicted as physically ugly or disfigured in some way, with scars and mustachios they practically twirl. Nonetheless, the "enemy" gets a fairly evenhanded portrayal all around, with one of the German lads who had been friends with the two main characters shown as decent and kind. After he is conscripted by his homeland for the war, he intentionally drops the bombs from his zeppelin harmlessly into a lake. In that same sequence, when the airship must be lightened in order to escape altitude and escape, most of the crew volunteers to jump out of the bomb bay doors and sacrifice themselves -- though a few have to be pushed.

The cinematography by Tony Gaudio and Harry Perry is simply a revelation, and even contains a couple of colorized sequences. Their work garnered the movie's sole Academy Award nomination.

The story's fairly straightforward. Brothers Monte (Ben Lyon) and Roy Rutledge (James Hall) are young college rascals who sign up for the Royal Flying Corp when the war breaks out. Roy is upstanding and idealistic, and believes that his girl Helen (Harlow) is true and virtuous. She's anything but, seducing Monte before they ship out. Monte is a cad and a serial womanizer, but he still can't stand to see Roy misled so, and feels crushing shame for the part he played.

Before the war, Monte is caught canoodling with a German baron's wife, and he demands the satisfaction of a duel with pistols. Monte, who has a long yellow streak in him, flees for England, but the righteous Roy takes his place and is wounded in the arm. (Since the duel took place before daybreak, the baron never even knew he was firing at the wrong man.)

Once the war starts, Roy unsurprisingly distinguishes himself, while Monte gains a reputation as a malingerer and coward. This despite the fact he fought bravely during the zeppelin battle, the action centerpiece of the film. The shots of gunners stationed atop the dirigible firing at planes as they whiz by is still thrilling even today -- one wonders how Hughes got them.

Eventually Roy learns what a cheating tramp Helen is, which inspires him to volunteer for a near-suicidal mission to pilot a captured German bomber on a sneak attack right before a major offensive on the ground. Monte goes along out of loyalty to his brother. Their mission is a success, but then they're shot down by the Red Baron himself.

In the final sequence, the captured brothers encounter the same German baron they tangled with before, who offers them a cushy POW existence if they'll give up the details of the offensive. Roy refuses, but Monte's cowardly streak reasserts itself. To save the lives of thousands of their comrades, Roy shoots his brother in the back with a pistol supplied by the baron.

The weapon was given under a ruse to attempt escape, but the German is too clever and only supplies one bullet. In his dying throes, Monte thanks Roy for preventing him from giving up the battle plan, and saving the honor of both of them in the process. Roy is then marched out and executed as the artillery barrage of the Allied offensive is heard in the distance.

It's pretty hokey stuff, and the transparency of Helen is such that we start to lower our regard for Roy since he's so obtuse about it. Harlow is a terrific screen presence, though, sexy and playful with a nasty bite of steel underneath. Her career was intense but brief, dying suddenly of renal failure at age 26.

What makes "Hell's Angels" a memorable cinematic experience is those amazing dogfight scenes. I can only imagine what audiences of the time thought of them -- they might have even been too intense for folks back then.

Perhaps that's why the film was only modestly successful at the box office. Howard Hughes was soon on to other obsessions involving aircraft and other things, and the man who might have been the George Lucas of his era only dabbled in filmmaking thereafter.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Promised land"

“Promised Land” is the sort of movie that is so gratingly earnest, so righteous in its mission and so unwavering in its message that it undercuts the storytelling.

This drama about the issue of hydraulic fracturing drilling for natural gas, or “fracking,” contains some powerful moments and a few nice performances, particularly Matt Damon as a conflicted gas company rep. But the screenplay, co-written by Damon and John Krasinski (who also co-stars), sets up the conflict in such stark shades of black and white, we know exactly how the characters’ journeys will turn out.

To wit: I do not think I am giving anything away by stating that this film ends with Damon’s character, Steve Butler, undergoing a major change of heart, making a big speech in front of the townspeople in which he confesses his sins. This is because, given everything that has transpired, this movie could not have ended any other way.

Steve is the hotshot top salesman for Global Gas. His job is to go into rural communities where natural gas is lying in beds of shale rock deep below the earth and buy up the leasing rights to farms. Steve, along with his partner Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), have a track record of signing more land at a fraction of the price compared to other teams.

Now he’s up for a big promotion, as soon as he closes the deal on the tiny town of Miller Falls. There he encounters a stubborn old farmer (Hal Holbrook) who used to be a big shot scientist. He warns people about the environmental dangers of fracking, and convinces them to hold an election in three weeks’ time to decide the issue.

This represents a nightmare scenario for Steve and Sue, who are used to descending on a small community, swooping up all the lease contracts and getting out before any opposition has time to coalesce. Even worse, a smarmy young environmentalist from some group called Superior Athena named Dustin Noble (Krasinski) shows up with dire warnings and horrifying photographs of dead cows after his family’s dairy farm was ruined by fracking.

The contrast between Dustin and Steve could not be more puzzling. For a fellow who is supposed to be the best there is at schmoozing and selling, Steve seems absolutely flummoxed by the tall, blithely charming environmentalist. As a result, the farmers keep getting sullener, transitioning from get-off-my-land rebuffs to fisticuffs in bars.

“I’m not a bad guy,” he keeps telling people, until you suspect it’s not them he’s trying to convince.

Damon gives one of his best performances as a guy who’s plowed all of his energy into his job at the detriment of nourishing his soul. Steve came from a small town himself that was devastated by layoffs at the local Caterpillar factory, and was one of only two people in his high school who went to college.

Now he’s successful, and goes around the country writing big checks to dirt-poor farmers who he genuinely believes he’s helping. There’s a sense of altruism there, but also contempt.

Steve sees these fracking contracts as their one chance to cash in and get ahead. He can’t believe it when people turn him down. They’re just perpetuating a “delusional self-mythology” about rural America, he says.

Steve made it out, and thinks everyone else wants to, too.

This dynamic would have worked better if the movie’s internal logic wasn’t all bunched up in knots. For example, we keep getting reminders of how big Global Gas is – “We’re a $9 billion company!” is the phrase that’s repeated several times. Yet they seem to have the resources of a mom-and-pop.

As near as we can figure, Steve and Sue in their beaten-up rental truck and recently store-bought flannels – deliberately downscale accoutrements meant to help them blend in – represent Global’s entire presence. At one point, Steve gets the idea to hold a town fair to generate goodwill, and he has to set up all the tents, hay bales and fencing himself. Huh?

Director Gus Van Sant has a nice eye for the beautiful landscapes depicted – the film was shot lovingly by cinematographer Linus Sandgren outside of Pittsburgh. But his pacing is a little off at times, and characters disappear for long stretches or behave erratically.

For instance, the (inevitable) local love interest is played by Rosemarie DeWitt. Alice, a winsome schoolteacher brushing up against spinsterhood, shares immediate sparks with Steve, then starts flirting around with Dustin. As written, the character seems to have no motivations or opinions about fracking, as long as she’s got two gorgeous guys squabbling over her.

“Promised Land” may have its heart in the right place, but too often it sacrifices believability.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "The Impossible"

“The Impossible” is an impressive and deeply troubling picture, both for intentional and unintentional reasons.

As a harrowing depiction of the 2004 tsunami that swept over much of southeast Asia, it’s a top-drawer portrait of humans struggling to survive and help one another. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor are brilliant as parents whose family is sundered by the massive tidal wave hitting their Thai beach resort, each valiantly struggling to keep their sons alive while not knowing if the other is dead or not.

I do question the filmmakers’ purposes in choosing to focus on the plight of five Westerners amidst a disaster that claimed more than 230,000 lives – most of those native people, and with only a small sliver of the victims in Thailand. The tale is based on a real Spanish family, but director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez – both Spaniards – choose to make the people British.

The answers to those sorts of questions are not hard to guess. People from English-speaking countries are more likely to identify with the plight their own, rather than a bunch of brown folks yammering in another language. It's understandable, since it’s an effective storytelling device that makes the main characters more identifiable with their target audience.

In focusing on how the disaster impacted a bunch of well-to-do Europeans, though, the filmmakers simultaneously make the horror more immediate and decouple the audience from its broader impacts.

Still, these sorts of concerns to not present themselves during the film, which unfolds with a riveting portrayal of the tidal wave and immediate aftermath. Terrific computer-generated effects bring the colossal onslaught of the tsunami right into our faces.

Maria (Watts) is a doctor who’s not currently practicing, while Henry (McGregor) is an engineer for a Japanese company. Their base is Tokyo, but they’ve adopted a jet-setting lifestyle that has grown comfortable to them.

Certainly their three boys seem to be typical lads. Simon (Oaklee Pendergast), 5, and 7-year-old Thomas (Samuel Joslin) are scrappy and stubborn. The eldest, Lucas (a marvelous Tom Holland), is about 12 and in full-blown preteen rebellion mode.

But when Lucas and Maria are separated from the rest of the family and she is seriously injured, he’s forced to grow up fast. As a doctor, she knows how badly she needs medical help, which only amplifies her plight. Watching the power balance shift, as son gradually becomes caretaker to mother, is the film’s high point.

Henry is a passive type, not your prototypical alpha-male movie hero. But his determination to see his entire family reunited is a sight to behold. Even when the survivors from their hotel are being shipped to safer ground, he stays behind to continue the search. Lacking even a shirt or shoes – they were swimming in the pool when the wave hit – Henry sets off bravely like a knight on a noble, if seemingly fruitless search.

“The Impossible” exists on only a single level of emotion and peril. The characters aren’t really defined other than by their reaction to a deadly challenge. But watching them rise to it is a compelling journey, as their incredible experience stands in for many others who did not make it to tell their tale.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Not Fade Away"

There's a moment of unintentional hilarity in "Not Fade Away," the semi-autobiographical account by "Sopranos" creator David Chase about his yearning to break into the music business during the 1960s.

The main character, Douglas, a stand-in for Chase himself, has been dragged to the cinema by his artistically inclined girlfriend. Astute film lovers will recognize the main feature as Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up," one of the most seminal films of the era. But Douglas is clearly not impressed -- he wonders why there isn't a musical score telling him when to feel happy or sad.

"Nothing ever happens in this movie," he complains.

Turns out, nothing much ever happened with Chase's rock 'n' roll aspirations, either. And the film he wrote and directed about those times and tribulations is desperately short on narrative momentum, too.

Granted, movies like this are more about mood and character than gobs of storytelling. But after awhile we feel like "Not Fade Away" is just as excuse to play a lot of really cool music and set a bunch of good-looking young actors in the foreground to pout and fret in time to the tunes.

This downbeat drama is unfocused and languid, almost to the point of being inert.

Douglas (John Magaro) is the drummer who's content to stay in the background, until the one night the cocky lead singer Eugene (Jack Huston) is out sick and he's forced to step behind the microphone, and finds out he's a more soulful crooner than anyone knew. Wells (Will Brill), the lead guitarist and somewhat loopy creative driving force, backs Douglas' move to headliner, which leads to predictable sparks amongst the group.

Things play out from late 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, up to 1968 or '69. The boys are all New Jersey sons of immigrants who change superficially as the music scene does, graduating from bowl haircuts and Cuban-heeled boots to long hippie locks and bell-bottoms. They drink booze, smoke a lot of weed and get into moderate amounts of trouble.

The older generation frowns disapprovingly at their kids' commotions, led by James Gandolfini as Doug's dad. The character as written by Chase is more an archetype than a person, the sort of man who works hard, scrounges and worries, and continually seethes when his efforts aren't rewarded with success.

"Nobody gave the Italians anything when we had nothing," one of his buddies complains, summing up their generation's lament.

Supporting characters are wafer-thin. Doug's mother (Molly Price) is a shrieking harridan whose only method of control over her family is threatening suicide. Kid sister Evelyn (Meg Guzulescu) is the narrator and eyes and ears of the audience.

Perhaps the character who best encapsulates this film's problems is Doug's erstwhile girlfriend Grace Dietz (Bella Heathcote). It's a classic popular-girl-chooses-nobody scenario, and while we never really understand what Doug sees in her beyond her delicate beauty, the audience gains even lesser insight into what she cherishes about him.

The band plays some gigs, wanders apart and back together again, seems to get close to signing a record deal with a big-label honcho (Brad Garrett), but circumstances intervene with more obstacles and delays.

It's notable that the band this movie is ostensibly about never gains a permanent name. Maybe that's appropriate, since "Don't Fade Away" seems more like a concept for a film than a coherent story.

1.5 stars out of four