Give It to Me Straight Doc

"50/50"

I remember actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt from his role on NBC's Third Rock from the Sun back in 1996.  He was fourteen at the start of the show.  Third Rock from the Sun ended its run in 2001.  Since then Gordon-Levitt has grown and matured as an actor and has made the transition from television to the films quite well.  Some of his credits include Brick, 500 Days of Summer, and Inception.  For his latest project Gordon-Levitt again shows us his acting chops as a character that has been diagnosed with cancer.

Twenty something year old Adam (Gordon-Levitt) doesn't have just typical, everyday movie cancer though.  No, he has "Back Cancer" as his friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) so eloquently puts it.  Adam is flabbergasted when his doctor tells him the bad news and furthermore the odds of him actually beating the disease.  There's nothing else Adam can due but endure the harsh chemotherapy, deal with his overbearing mother (Angelica Huston,) and live with the fact that he has a 50/50 chance at staying alive.  As a way of coping with his sickness, it's recommend that Adam go see a therapist, Katherine, (Anna Kendrick) who's still in the process of earning her degree.  Adam is stressed out, to say the least.  He is so tired of everyone treating him differently, feeling overly sympathetic to everything he says and does.  Whatever happened to his old life?  Adam just wants to be "normal" again.

50/50 was marketed as a comedy and a drama.  And to its credit the film lives up to its name.  The film splits the two genres about 50/50 but unfortunately the screenplay does an unsatisfactory job of balancing the comedy and drama together evenly.  The first half of the film does have some very funny lines but Adam’s feelings and emotions are nothing new to the cancer plot device.  It's only when his situation changes that the laughs almost all together stop.  Then the characters have to actually deal with the life and death scenario.  This disproportionate shift in tone does not work for 50/50's characters or plot.  The film realizes that its joking manner might have gone on too long and then has to play catch up by addressing the issue that Adam doesn't want to talk about.

I'm not a huge fan of Seth Rogen. His range as an actor is quite limited and I don't get his shtick.  Rogen just comes off as playing himself.  He plays his usual whacky, loud mouthed, best friend who is always is looking to get laid character.  Kyle is boring, uninteresting, and has way too many scenes in the film.  Rogen's character needed to take more of back seat and the other characters should have had more scenes with Adam.  Instead we are treated another ordinary "performance" from Mr. Rogen.

Everyone else in the film gives fine performances, particularly Kendrick.   All the scenes with Gordon-Levitt and whoever else he is acting aside are good and do carry some emotional weight.  I just wish the screenplay would have done a better job of making clear what its intentions were.  Was this film supposed to present some different take on the character battling cancer plot or offer a more realistic approach to the situation?  50/50’s uneven tone does not answer this question.  Gordon-Levitt is another one of Hollywood’s young elite that I will continue to follow.  In 50/50 his character could have been more interesting had the conflict that he was facing be something other than cancer.          

A Real Raw Deal

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a made for HBO original film that tells the sorrowful tale of what happened to the Native American Indians after the battle at Little Big Horn (aka Custer's Last Stand.)  The subject matter of this film is one of the few dark periods of American history that are actually taught in schools.  To my relief, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee does not come off as a film that would only be shown in classrooms.

Ohiyesa "Charles" Eastman (Adam Beach,) Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg,) and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) are the three central characters of the picture.  Each of them wants something.  A new dawn is rising on the relationship the United States government has with the Native Americans.  Senator Dawes appears to have good intentions for the natives.  He draws up a plan that he believes is a fair deal in ensuring the survival of the Native American people, their wildlife and crops, and most importantly their land which they seem to hold so dear.  The deal also reserves big chunks of land for the Indians to live on as well as sets aside other portions of land that they can then be sold to the white man.  It's a win win for both sides right?  Right?  Sitting Bull and Eastman are no dummies to what is actually happening to their people in this new age of acquisition and ownership.

Even if you're unfamiliar with this period of American history the film makes it very clear that the Native Americans got a really raw deal from government.  I hate to break it to you folks but the United States did a lot of despicable deeds to get to where it is now as a country.  It's not even that the film paints the United States in a poor light.  This is straight up fact.  There's no way around it, sorry.  The villain of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the United States government.  

I think this film is important in that it deals with an ugly era that happened right here on the home front.  This isn't about something that happened in another country like the Holocaust.  There have been plenty of films on that subject matter.  Don't get me wrong I am not trying to down play the importance and tragedy of the Holocaust.  All I am saying is that there have been other vile matters that should be brought to light through the means of cinema.  Hotel Rwanda and The Last King of Scotland which both deal with the genocide that occurred over in Africa were important stories that needed to be told.

“What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money?  Yet they say that I am the thief.”  “If we must die, we die defending our rights.”  These are two quotes from real Sitting Bull that accurately represent the thematic nature of this film.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a beautifully photographed, powerfully acted, brutally honest portrayal of the assimilation and extermination of the Native American people.  The film touches on the broader scope of the situation but gives us more of an intimate portrait of how our government's actions affected two particular individuals.  You don’t have to be a history buff to understand the gravity of just how important the subject matter of this film is.  Director Yves Simoneau has put to together an absolutely meaningful and substantial piece of work without ever coming across as preachy or full of itself. 

One Foot in Front of the Other

"My Left Foot"

The first film I had seen actor Daniel Day-Lewis in was Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York.  I was in complete awe of the actor's methodology, craftsmanship, and overall quality of acting this guy was able to bring to the silver screen.  Every scene he was in beemed with such a commanding presence; it was hard to take my eyes off of him.  The intensity he brought to the character of Bill the Butcher was quite the spectacle to behold.  I wanted to see more of his films.  Earlier in his career, Day-Lewis worked on a couple films with Irish director Jim Sheriden.  Those films were My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father.  Deservedly so Day-Lewis earned his first Oscar win from the former film.

Conflict in films can take on many different forms:  man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself (just to name a few.)  In My Left Foot the conflict lies within Christy Brown (Day-Lewis.)  Christy's mind and body act as a prison.  He was born with cerebral palsy.  And in the 1930's there was still much to be discovered about the disability.  The film is told through a series of flashbacks as described in Brown's autobiography.  It's very apparent that Christy had a strong, loving relationship with his mother (Brenda Fricker.)  Despite having received the cold shoulder from his father (Ray McAnally) for much of his childhood, the rest of Christy's family and his doctor, Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw) gave him great encouragement in overcoming his disability to become an accomplished writer and painter.

Day-Lewis and Fricker give incredibly strong performances.  The mother, son bond the two of them have on screen is quite touching and poignant.  We don't feel sorry for Christy because he rarely feels sorry for himself.  Despite his physical appearance he is amazingly able-bodied.  There is no question the believability of Day-Lewis' performance.  You can just tell that he takes his job seriously.  There have always been reports of the actor going to great lengths to embody whatever role takes on.   Also Fricker provides this beautifully warm and nurturing quality to her portrayal of Mrs. Brown.  She’s everything that we’d expect from a mother.  Ms. Fricker went on to win a Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film.

This may sound cliché to say but My Left Foot truly does show us the triumph of the human spirit.  Sheriden’s direction appears effortless in bringing Christy’s story to big screen.  He is able to capture not only the physical but more importantly the emotional struggle that resides within Christy’s body and mind.  The collaboration between Day-Lewis and Sheriden is quite an accomplishment.  There is such control and discipline from both parties that allow us to see this intimate view of an extraordinary man.  Just about every performance Day-Lewis gives I’m in admiration of.  He is more than just a celebrity or a movie star.  He is an actor.  His portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in the upcoming Steven Speilberg project, Lincoln should be one of 2012’s best.  Will a third Oscar statue make its way on to Day-Lewis’ mantle?  We’ll just have to wait and see.              

Star Spangled Man

"Captain America: The First Avenger"

I'm sure that ever since the first X-Men film grossed over 150 million dollars domestically back in the year 2000 a sigh of relief swept over the film industry.  Studios now figured that any comic book was open for adaptation.  This also meant they would not have to spend tons of money for some "original" idea franchise.  Comic book adaptations were going to be a huge success at the box office.  

Now here we are in the year 2012 and there have been countless comic book franchises made.  Some of them have been failures and others have soared as high as their central protagonists.  It was announced several years ago that Marvel Studios wanted do an adaptation of their Avengers series. The Avengers is a geek's ultimate dream come true.  All the favorite Marvel superheroes (Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, and Captain America) come together to fight super villains.  What more could you ask for?    Putting together this cinematic marvel was not going to be an easy task.  

As the tag line for The Avengers says, "Some assembly required."  Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk already had their day in sun, but there were still a couple major players that were part of the team that had their stories yet to be told.  Last year Marvel knocked off heroes Thor and last but not least Captain America.  I'll say this about Marvel; the films that involved the first three characters they needed to put together their Avengers initiative flick are all good but not great films.  Captain America: The First Avenger is also on par with these films.

Chris Evans plays the hero of the film.  Evans is no stranger to the Marvel universe as he was seen in The Fantastic Four and its sequel.  While Evans was the best thing about those films as Johnny Storm: The Human Torch, the role of Captain America is far more interesting superhero to take on.  Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) sees something in the short and scrawny Steve Rogers, determination.  Rogers gets his powers from an experiment that Dr. Erskine and the U.S. government developed in hopes of creating a new breed of soldier, a super soldier if you will.  The U.S. needs something to combat Hitler and his Nazi thugs.  The Nazi's also have a science division of their own known as HYDRA; which they are quickly losing control of.  HYDRA's fearless leader is Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) aka Red Skull, whose facial appearance suggests he is suffering from the ultimate sun burn.

Is there anything else you really need to know?  Keep in mind that the film is adapted from a comic book.  This particular mind set helps rather than hurts Mr. America's cause.  He’s living out every American's dream at the time, beating the crap out of Nazi soldiers.  You can bet those were the highlights on the news reels from the footage that was being sent back home.  Who wouldn't want to root for this guy?  Evans embodies this gung ho attitude quite well.  His character was bound and determined to get into the army unwilling to take "no" as an answer from Uncle Sam, despite being rejected four previous times.

The screenplay holds together well enough as you'd expect from something like this.  Although Red Skull's master plan of harnessing some sort of über source of power stemming from the gods is written rather thinly and never really explained.  This in turn doesn't make him out to be a very evil, wicked, or menacing foe for Captain America which is real shame.  In fact Red Skull is the film’s weakest component.  He just isn’t much of a villain.  His motivations are boring and uninspired.  Weaving tries the best with the material he is given but the intrigue and complexity that should be there from a bad guy clearly is absent. 

Captain America: The First Avenger is exactly what an audience should expect from a summer blockbuster.  It's a big, loud, unrealistic, piece of fun entertainment without ever being completely brainless, dull, or dumb.  Director Joe Johnston swiftly recovers from his Wolfman debacle and knows exactly what this film is and doesn't try to make it out to be anything more than that.  Captain America: The First Avenger is an enjoyable popcorn cruncher.  The action scenes are well done and the story has its faults but by no means falls apart.  Evans understands the responsibility of playing such an iconic superhero and knows his role for upcoming Avengers film.  Let’s hope that in The Avengers and any Captain America sequels we’ll see our hero fight some better, more fleshed out evildoers.