Ides of March

I first saw note of this film in the 26 Sept 2011 "Movies - Fall Preview" column in the New Yorker. IMDb has the plot summary as "An idealistic staffer for a new presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail." Critics in Rotten Tomatoes give it 85%, the public a lesser 73%. Its summary: The Ides of March takes place during the frantic last days before a heavily contested Ohio presidential primary, when an up-and-coming campaign press secretary (Ryan Gosling) finds himself involved in a political scandal that threatens to upend his candidate's shot at the presidency.

With heartthrobs George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, one might expect that the movie did well at the box office, but its $41 million take is not, in relative terms, very good. Why? The subject matter? Perhaps.

Ironically, one ends up feeling both skeptical and cynical about this movie that wants to have it both ways but, instead, ends up just as deeply cynical and flawed as its characters and the system it seeks to expose.
January 13, 2012 Full Review
This critis has it about right. Anthony Lane in the New Yorker also demurs from singing its praises: The result, slimy with unfeasible plotting, will gratify those who sniff out all politics as a conspiratorial murk. On the other hand, viewers who treasure Clooney, both as actor and director, for the deftness of his comic touch, or who remain alert to the grinding farce of the electoral machine, may prove harder to woo.

I agree. It seemed too cynical, too pat, and lacked spark.

In the electric mist

Violent, yes, but a good film. Well told story, good acting, great pace.

The Yards

I’d seen a one-column-wide item about it in the 19& 26 December 2011 issue of the New Yorker magazine. Richard Brody wrote that dierctor James Gray “returned to his native Queens” to film “a blend of operatic drama and documentary veracity.” he states there was “an ending imposed on the film by the producers, with grave results for the film and Gray’s career.”

Not sure how far back the ending in question goes, but I can guess that the very last scene might be it.


Wahlberg plays Leo, who has just come out of prison, serving a couple of year for car theft. He got caught, friends of his did not, and he did not give them up. Street credibility plays an important role in their lives. Phoenix is his best friend, Willie, who is having a serious romance with Leo's cousin, Erica (Theron, who looks great in her Goth colors, dark nail polish, heavy black eye makeup, leather wristband). Caan plays Erica's father, a corrupt owner of a subway car repair company, neck deep in payoffs and sweetheart deals. Steve Lawrence play sthe Queens borough president.


Good acting, and a good story well told.

Silver City

Cooper fairly well executes a W. Bush satire; he excels at such roles. His character's name is Pilager (as in pillage). Ebert (who gave the film 3½ stars): The movie centers on the campaign of Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper), who is running for governor of Colorado with the backing of his father (Michael Murphy), the state's senior senator. Dickie is the creature of industrial interests who want to roll back pollution controls and penalties, but as the movie opens, he's dressed like an L.L. Bean model as he stands in front of a lake and repeats, or tries to repeat, platitudes about the environment. Cooper deliberately makes him sound as much like George II as possible.

George the 2nd; cute. Anyway ... Pillager's campaign manager is Chuck Raven (get it? Raven)  (Richard Dreyfuss), a Karl Rove type who tells him what to say and how to say it. There's not always time to explain why to say it. 

The best of the supporting characters is Madeleine Pilager, Dickie's renegade sister, played by Daryl Hannah with audacious boldness. She likes to shock, she likes to upset people, she detests Dickie, and she provides an unexpected connection between the private eye and the campaign manager. Those connections beneath the surface, between people whose lives in theory should not cross, is the organizing principle of Sayles' screenplay; one of the reasons his film is more sad than indignant is that it recognizes how people may be ideologically opposed and yet share unworthy common interests.

I didn't much care for the character; thought her superfluous.

Sayles' wisdom of linking a murder mystery to a political satire seems questionable at first, until we see how Sayles uses it, and why. One of his strengths as a writer-director is his willingness to allow uncertainties into his plots. A Sayles movie is not a well-oiled machine rolling inexorably toward its conclusion, but a series of dashes in various directions, as if the plot is trying to find a way to escape a preordained conclusion.

Precisely so: the movie seems to meander, to make parenthetical remarks, to take turns where a straightaway is expected.


The movie's strength, then, is not in its outrage, but in its cynicism and resignation. There is something honest and a little brave about the way Sayles refuses to provide closure at the end of his movie. Virtue is not rewarded, crime is not punished, morality lies outside the rules of the game, and because the system is rotten, no one who plays in it can be entirely untouched. Some characters are better than others, some are not positively bad, but their options are limited, and their will is fading. Thackeray described Vanity Fair as "a novel without a hero." Sayles has made this film in the same spirit -- so much so, that I'm reminded of the title of another Victorian novel, The Way We Live Now.

It is not a typical Hollywood film, for sure, which is a strength, and, concurrently, a weakness. Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it 48%, and its audience 33%, reminding me of H.L. Mencken aphorism.

Fun with Dick & Jane

Pretty good. Entertaining.

In the year 2000, Dick gets a plum promotion as a mega-corporate communications director. His boss is preparing to bail out of the company just before stock prices plummet. Dick's wife Jane has quit her job as a travel agent, so when the corporate stocks hit rock bottom, Dick and Jane are left penniless and desperate. They decide to resort to petty thievery and this eventually gets them plotting high-stakes revenge against the greedy executives who ruined their lives.

Alec Baldwin does a good job of playing the sleazeball corporate mogul. Jim Carrey does good work with the role of the put-upon Dick Harper, a corporate wannabe who gets a VP slot as the corporation implodes. Téa Leoni does good work as Jane Harper, breathing life into a lackluster role. A 2005 slapstick film that works nicely. Great ending line: Harper sees ex-Globodyne colleague in his car, and the latter says, got a job with this great company, Enron."

On the waterfront

Last Wednesday a book review appeared in the Journal about a book entitled On the Irish Waterfront; the 1954 film was discussed. That prompted me to get the film. Watched it Friday night. Quite good: the acting is really good, and not just Brando (who is excellent): Steiger does a very nice job playing the older Malloy brother, a lawyer who works for, and is controlled by, the longshoremen's union; and Lee Cobb does an excellent turn as the bastard corrupt union leader. Eva Marie Saint also does a nice job (her first big screen role; the film credits have it "and introducing").