Tag: John Lithgow

Bombshell

Rated: MBombshell

Directed by: Jay Roach

Written by: Charles Randolph

Produced by: Aaron L. Gilbert, Jay Roach, p.g.a., Robert Graf, Michelle Graham, Charles Randolph, p.g.a., Margaret Riley, Charlize Theron, p.g.a., Beth Kono, A.J. Dix

Starring: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, John Lithgow, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, with Malcolm McDowell, with Allison Janney, and Margot Robbie.

When a young ambitious woman looking for a promotion asks whether her humiliation of showing a little more than just her legs because, ‘Television is a visual medium’, will go further than the office of Fox News’ founder Roger Ailes, he replies, ‘I’m discreet but unforgiving’.

With lines stated like this and quotes from Donald Trump like, ‘You can’t rape your spouse’, there was plenty of real-life material here to make an uncomfortable story come to life.

Bombshell is the true story surrounding Fox & Friends co-host, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) accusation and lawsuit in 2016 (that recent people!) against Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.

Rather than an expose style of film, director, Jay Roach uses an understated telling from the two protagonists, Gretchen Carlson and what really shocked the world, Fox News correspondent, Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron).

Gretchen and Megyn talk through the camera to the audience to feel their struggle, of whether it’s worth risking everything to stop the abuse.

Multiple women are shown in still-picture with their stories noted underneath, all with the similar tale of being asked to, ‘prove their loyalty’ to Roger (and friends) through-out their careers

We hear the thought going through the mind of Fox News correspondent Rudi Baktitar when propositioned back in 2006, where sleeping with the boss is expected to get a promotion, each thought heard before she carefully choses her response, to be kind, to say no, only to get fired.

This was the expectation.  This is the revelation of the film.

The third yet fictional character, Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) is a representation of all those women put into an impossible situation of choosing between a dream career and humiliation, or losing that one chance at opportunity with dignity.

The drama of this unnerving story is in the performance – there’s nothing violent here.  Just the destruction of being bullied by those not afraid to use their power, and the mentality that powerplay over others weaker is the normal way of things.

Nothing more needs to be said than seeing the fear in a woman’s eyes before a door is closed.

I’m not sure I can say this is an entertaining film, but Bombshell is a gripping story with a particularly impressive performance from Charlize Theron as her character struggles with the decision to stand up to a bully who has ultimately been the making of her career, or to stand and voice her story of sexual pressure and to help finally put a stop to the humiliation of other women.

Without having to be too tricky with the presentation, this is a linear telling of each milestone towards Gretchen’s ultimate success, each moment fought with every last bit of strength and determination because it’s enough.

An important film, because it really is ENOUGH.

Late Night

Rated: MLate Night

Directed by: Nisha Ganatra

Written by: Mindy Kaling

Produced by: Mindy Kaling, Howard Klein, Jillian Apfelbaum, Ben Browning

Starring: Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, John Lithgow, Amy Ryan, Hugh Dancy, Denis O’Hare, Ike Barinholtz.

They say that the 1970s was the decade that fashion forgot, but I’ve always thought it was the ’80s.

With her big padded shoulders and power dressing suits Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson), television’s first ever female late show host and comedian, has become sewn into an image she should have abandoned long ago, and her show has morphed into an outfit that is gradually making its way to the back of your wardrobe. You know the one, it has to go but you can’t quite bear to part with it.

With the axe swinging and credible rumours that she is about to be replaced with a younger male comedian, Katherine is forced into crisis mode. That means sitting down with the writers of her show for the first time ever, as she tries to work out a way to reinvent herself. Despite a steady decline in the ratings over the previous decade, Katherine’s writing team are equally wedded to their worn out methods and lame humour. That is, until their cosy boys’ club is disrupted by newcomer Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), token female writer and woman who is not afraid to take her place on an upturned bin.

To appease the head of the network, Katherine eventually accepts that her approval rating might improve if the guests she interviews were less august. Accordingly, YouTube sensation Mimi is booked and Katherine’s steady decline is brought to a spectacular halt, when the interview goes viral:  ‘For all the wrong reasons.’ Overnight Katherine is dubbed, ‘America’s least favourite aunt’.

But Katherine has even further to fall.

After a brief stint performing stand-up where she manages to raise a laugh for claiming that she is losing her show because she’s, ‘a little bit old and little bit white’, Katherine becomes convinced that the way to save herself is to find a way to address her own white privilege. Appointing herself ‘White Saviour’ is a move in the right direction, and a very funny one, but it’s not enough to quell the forces ranged against her. They’re still gunning for her show.

And they are about to pull out the big artillery.

Unless she can uncover the real reason for her failing popularity, Katherine stands to lose everything, and maybe she should. She has already skipped out on telling a socially relevant joke that Molly wrote for her, baulking at the last minute when a well-meaning colleague whispered, ‘Be careful of showing who you are, once you turn that tap on you can never turn it off again.’ Katherine’s struggle between her desire to conceal herself behind the façade of her power suits and her need to reveal her authentic self is a dilemma many of us face.

In a movie without a laugh track, I found my laughter bubbling up in an unforced way to join with the rest of the audience, even though I had expected the humour to fall flat after watching the trailer. While Mindy Kaling was a delight, it says a lot about Emma Thompson’s performance that she was able to play such a prickly, unsympathetic character, with just the tiniest glimmer of vulnerability. Without that, I might have been cheering for the other side.

Pet Sematary

Rated: MA15+Pet Sematary

Directed by: Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch

Based on the Novel by: Stephen King

Screen Story by: Matt Greenberg

Screenplay by: Jeff Buhler

Produced by: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Steven Schneider, Mark Vahradian

Starring: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz and John Lithgow.

Opening on a scene above the trees, it’s like looking above to shed light on the below, on the woods that surround the new home of the Creed family.

When Dr. Creed (Jason Clarke) and his family, wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two children, Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and Gage (Hugo Lavoie) move to Maine, all they want is peace and quiet.

The next-door neighbour, Jud (John Lithgow) seems like a well-natured old codger.  But the kids who bury their dead pets in the so named, ‘Pet Sematary’, included in the Creed’s newly acquired land, not so much.

Kids wearing animal masks, beating a tin drum while wheeling a dead dog towards a woodland cemetery can be intimidating to a mother still grieving, processing, terrified of her dead sister – remember her?  The one with spina bifida who hated her sister?  Who still haunts her?

I found these bits scarier than the other more supernatural moments.

So, there’s a cemetery and an old codger who knows of an ancient Native American burial ground that brings back those buried there.  Like a dead cat named Church, for example.  Dead things get buried there.  They comeback.  But not the same.

Pet Sematary is a remake of a familiar story.

While watching, I was reminded of the original, Pet Sematary (1989), an, ‘oh that’s right, that happens…’

But also, ‘that’s different. I don’t remember that bit…’

I watched the original film during the day, about thirteen years old, and had to sit outside on the swings till someone came home after.  Didn’t think I’d get that scared.  Then, I read the book, and that was much better, much scarier.

I’m so glad the transfer of the mind of Stephen King and his stories – the telepathy of stories, he might even say – is becoming more successful.

I still don’t think the films get that creeping suspense of the characters slowly losing their mind.  There’s just not enough space to get the build.

The novels are slow, subtle and ultimately terrifying because of the creep.

Here, the film has character, setting and story; the film more story than character.  But the condensing is successful, covered in the dialogue.  Not the same effect, but with a different perspective from screenwriters, Matt Greenberg and Jeff Buhler; the story remains solid.

It’s a push at times with throwaway remarks like: ‘How far back is the acreage?’

‘Further back than you’d like to go.’

And there were moments where I wondered why you’d bury the dead somewhere you know they’re going to come back?  Bad?  Which is where we get the dialogue to explain the call of the Windego.

This is where the film glosses over character and where the novel digs deep.

What I like about this re-make is how visceral the scenes get when it matters.

And there’s some great devices used here, the montages of dripping blood, the movement of feet while compressing the heart to the flashing of red lights to entice the unsuspecting in front of an oncoming grill of a runaway truck – the red flashing because the ground is sour and woods are calling.

Look, I wasn’t completely blown away, probably because if felt familiar; yet directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch have taken this known tale and refreshed the storyline.  A solid storyline with enough scares to satisfy this horror fan.

Miss Sloane

Rated: MMiss Sloane

Directed by: John Madden

Written By: Jonathan Perera

Produced by: Ben Browning, Kris Thykier

Executive Producers: Claude Leger, Jonathan Vanger, Patrick Chu

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alison Pill, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jake Lacy, Sam Waterston and John Lithgow.

A perfectly layered political drama/thriller that plays out like an intricate game of chess.

As the character, Miss Sloane (Jessica Chastain, two-time Academy Award nominee) says, ‘Lobbying is about foresight, about anticipating your opponent’s moves and devising countermeasures. The winner plots one step ahead of the opposition. It’s about making sure you surprise them and they don’t surprise you’.

Miss Sloane

Miss Sloane is a fast-paced film as the audience is taken along with the calculating mind of Sloane. And what an amazing complicated character to watch: her ambition, misdirection, suspicion, lack of moral code; she’s portrayed as a sociopath and to watch this brilliant relentless mind at work is fascinating.

The film opens as Sloane’s held to account in front of a congressional hearing regarding her code of conduct and ethical standards.  Then flashes back to what led her to the ultimate confrontation: pushing to pass a Bill requiring the background check of those wanting to buy firearms.  Translating to: Miss Sloane versus the Gun Lobbyists.

In the supporting cast, there’s the well-known faces of Mark Strong as the CEO of the boutique firm she joins to fight for the Bill, and Sam Waterston as George Dupont: head of an old-school lobbying firm where she earned her name as one of the most cutthroat lobbyists around, willing to do anything to win.Miss Sloane

It’s hard not to think back to Law & Order when seeing Sam Waterston.  He plays the lobbyist so well but as a twist, he’s the bad guy here.

Screenwriter Jonathan Perera has had his first script translated to the big screen by director John Madden.  And what a pleasure it must have been pulling so many layers together into the glorious satisfying end.  When I say layers, there’s a lot going on here but the delicate touch of Madden let the story keep its own pace, with each move a further step towards a reveal you don’t see coming.

Perera was a U.K.-educated attorney who left his practice to write, his background adding an authenticity and edge to those cat-and-mouse games shown so well in this film.  But there’s also the revelation of how the whole lobbying business works in American politics.  And what it means to take on the power that is the gun lobby group, self-portrayed as the protectors of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. 

Madden and Perera went to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of how lobbying works, consulting a lobbying firm: Glover Park Group. 

I admit I was a little lost at the beginning of the film.  The character, Miss Sloane’s mind works fast and the audience is expected to keep up with the jargon.  My advice is if you don’t follow, let it go.  It’s worth keeping up with the film as it runs, and well worth the journey.

What makes the film truly successful is the complicated nature of the character that is Miss Sloane.  She’s certainly not the most empathetic woman, but the obsession to win at any cost was somehow relatable: I wanted to be as smart and sophisticated as her.  But the film also shows the cost of her success making Miss Sloane strangely likeable.

This is a thoroughly absorbing film because its cleverness is combined with an undercurrent of emotion that’s felt without needing explanation.

Classy and smart all the way – brilliant.

https://youtu.be/TOrsh-D35vg

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