Clint Eastwood largely returns to top form with this tale of the security guard who saved lives at the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996, is hailed as a hero and then thanks to FBI and media zealousness becomes the prime suspect. After 88 days of hell, the family are told that he is no longer a suspect.
As so often is the case these days, the media frenzy to crucify someone (here a not very smart overweight man whose social limits are not the best), ends up detouring the real details work and investigation needed.
The real bomber confessed some years later.
So far so good, a story of injustice, well told by Eastwood with a clear message for today’s world. The problem is that in bending over backwards for Jewell, Eastwood tends to blast the FBI and one reporter, Kathy Scruggs in particular basically suggesting that they cooked up the accusations together.
Which is probably true but suggesting that Scruggs got the tip off in exchange for sex is not something you can throw lightly into films today. It is said to be unfounded but since Scruggs has died we will never know. This is a black mark against the movie but reviewers have made a little too much of this point. Notably the public rate the film quite a lot more highly than do the critics.
Back to the film. Eastwood gives space to his actors to construct good performances and this is no exception. Relative unknown Paul Walter Hauser
is first rate as the complex Jewell, often immature, fixated on obeying the law, free of guile and frustratingly disobedient for his lawyer (the excellent Sam Rockwell).
Kathy Bates
deserves her awards nominations as the mother and Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde
do what they can with the roles of the nasties. Sound photography and music recreating the times.
Not a classic but a decent movie about a man treated unjustly – more of the US shadow side coming out.
♦♦♦♦
It’s a strange film with some very strong features and the rest a bit of a flat paint by numbers type of work.
but here he moderates his tics and delivers a subtle and profound performance of a man struggling in the world.
The second feature of this film is the photography by Pierre Cottereau, which is really quite beautiful and depicts the Tahiti islands well.
The film also gives us something of the artistic process and the creative impulse that drives top artists.
Another feature of the movie is the looks on people’s faces which often replace dialogue.
are fine without being anything special and music is adequate.
Then there is much more that could have been explored with the intercultural relationship.
I know that this was only a brief period of his life but he was a much more interesting man and had a very varied life, more so than what we see here.
on a farm in central Italy and magic realism, I found that the movie had some good scenes but failed to convince me overall. The magic realism jump occurs
when the time of the film changes and moves forward a number of years into the future, with some characters ageing a lot and others less so. It also introduces a contrast of the two time periods in terms of the fate of the poor in society; our enslaved peasants become hawkers eking out living on the outskirts of a big city. There is clearly a political message here about the lack of freedom among the masses, once it was a feudal landowner controlling them
, now the yoke is the capitalist economy.
He is a peasant boy who ages little during the whole movie, has not a single bad bone in his body and is used by everyone, even his peasant “family”. Like a Forrest Gump, he moves through the movie in a state of beatification, accepting all that comes but upholding certain basic values. His being so angelic
and “good” is seen as something people can’t tolerate so he is frequently bullied and abused. He has a resurrection in the film and the sense is that he has magic powers of some sort. The other repeated symbol throughout the movie is that of a wolf, seemingly helpful but you never know.
as the son of the Marquess, Nicoletta Braschi
as the evil marquess and Alba Rohrwacher as Antonia,
one of the peasants as an adult. Helene Louvart captures the two worlds well with her cinematography.
Actress Olivia Wilde debuts here as director with a more than competent and slick film,
which has some great moments and is among the leaders of this generation’s teen coming-of-age comedies.
I would not call it a masterpiece at all but it has plenty to laugh at and one or two scenes such as a fantasy scene involving Barbies are hilarious.
run by the school thespians to the real cool boy’s shebang. Dever plays Amy, a lesbian
who has been out for two years yet never been with a girl. Here is her big chance. Feldstein’s character has the hots for Nick (Mason, son of Cuba, Gooding) but he’s a perpetual two timer.
The odd adult like Jason Sudeikis as the principal and Lisa Kudrow as Amy’s mother add their moments. A good update with today’s language and concerns of a fairly well-trod genre.
over the lives of many,
the hippie movement, the cults and even adds in constant references to American culture: Connie Stevens on a horse, a Natalie Wood like death at sea and the rise of Bruce Lee. For all this content and for all the red herrings or pieces of slow pace, which is one of the few negative features, we get a smorgasbord of US culture and a kaleidoscopic movie of colours and sounds from the era.
If only for that it is a remarkable film. Maybe not the best of the year but one that stands out for its reach and for the memories you will have of the way Tarantino sets up scenes
and the way he weaves in references to popular culture from Pan Am to spaghetti westerns.
are the core of the movie. TV star and his stuntman cum gofer, we get to see what they are up to day to day: Di Caprio as Ray Dalton is having an existentialist crisis about his talent
and his future feeling like a cog chewed and spat out in the Hollywood machine but able to just stay ahead of things through some lucky breaks. I’m not a number one fan of Di Caprio but here he does a complete and convincing job and knows how to really put it on for the big scenes. Likewise Brad Pitt.
A more laconic figure, he has some excellent scenes including a fight with Bruce Lee
and an interesting conversation with a hippie girl. Margot Robbie is a nice counterbalance as Tate
, a young actress savouring the new success she is having and Andie McDowell’s daughter Margaret Qualley
is a fresh convincing hippie girl.
and sets a fine standard for Hollywood style movies this year.
and leader of the Liberal Party
is accused of incitement and conspiracy to murder of one Norman Scott. Scott (Ben Whishaw, excellent)
had been his lover and once he was cast aside by Thorpe, proceeded to pursue him over the years, partly because he still loved him, partly because of a promised National Insurance Card and partly as revenge.
Scott is on the crazy side of the ledger but attracts people who take care of him like landlady Edna Friendship (Michele Dotrice)
and his insistence eventually attracts the attention of the law and the press. Hugh Grant is very convincing as Thorpe
, a lying politician whose main concern is to protect his parliamentary seat and the adoration of his voters.
A vain insincere man who later lost all he wanted except for a second wife who stood by him for years and a child from a first marriage.
and clearly showing the highlights of the story. The tone is somewhat jocular even if the events were serious in their time. Good recreation of the era
and it has some pertinent comments to make about the acceptance of homosexuality in society,
not just in the 60s and 70s but even today.
and testimonies from those present including one officer of the regime.
An occasional intervention from the director when questioning and plenty of talking heads.
So, no great innovation there. The merit of the movie comes from this exploration of a little publicized feature of the coup – that the Italian embassy opened its grounds
to communist and leftist sympathisers who faced capture by the regime and gave them asylum in Italy. As several of the interviewees say,
it would be unlikely to do the same today.
Not surprisingly then that last year’s disturbances have their roots in the inequality that has existed for decades and which Allende wanted to address but was not allowed to.
This suit eventually led to his departure after dozens of women came out against him and meant that the owners, Rupert Murdoch and family had to pay out fortunes in damages. Set against the rise of Donald Trump as Republican candidate and his own misogynist snipes at Fox Anchor Megyn Kelly, this film is very much a sign of the times what with Harvey Weinstein’s trial about to start.
and herald it as a first for women to bring down someone so powerful. This is one of its assets as is the portrayal of the channel as a competitive place where women would not stand together to defend each other.
The dubious morals of corporate America are certainly clear and mention is made of political and legal manouevring to avoid greater scandal. Another claim was that it is tonally all over the place. Am not so sure about this either. It is all fairly low-key
and non-grandstanding and this is also a decision made to avoid turning it into a triumph of the underdog story or a rant against mainstream TV. I think the complexities are well handled.
against shines and her depiction of Kelly is both exact and layered with nuance. Margot Robbie
as a new intern is excellent, John Lithgow
as the repulsive Ailes is padded up with prosthetics but does very well also and Nicole Kidman is very convincing as Carlson in a less fleshed out role. Allison Janney has a nice cameo.
no direct testimony being allowed. Spearheading the research was Daniel Jones (Adam Driver)
who obsessively worked to produce the report which reached over 6000 pages. He was employed by Senator Dianne Feinstein who then had to see how best to release the report and met with many obstacles in the way.
The full report was never released but a 575-page summary was, even though many people were reluctant to hear it, implicitly Obama himself. Apart from the terrible excesses of the CIA for which no one has ever been charged, the difficulty the US administration
has to admit its errors is clearly spelled out here and Feinstein and John McCain and the brave others did promote the report so that the nation could learn from its mistakes and show it was big enough to admit them. A clear lesson here for the current Trump era.
Her portrayal of Fienstein is first rate. Maura Tierney shines among the lesser lights as a CIA agent.
and a slick pace but lacks a little subtlety and tightness in key moments as we hurtle towards a denouement. More could certainly have been made of more of the characters and the red herrings and the ending is somewhat tame.
anchors the crime by playing writer Harlan Thrombey dying on his 85th birthday. At first it seems like suicide but then it emerges that several people have clear motivations to kill him. The family itself is played by Jamie-Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette
, Chris Evans
and others, while the investigations are quickly taken over by Benoit Blanc, a Poirot style private detective from Louisiana played with much glee by Daniel Craig.
Both a suspect and a help to him is Harlan’s nurse (Ana de Armas) who has a key role.
Everyone gives a good show and although some aspects could be better explored this is a generally satisfying rebirth of a genre.
passionfilm 