Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich 

Movie Monday - Lions for Lambs, the message movie

I bet DH $100 that Hurricane Sandy will not be as bad as predicted. Now we're trying to figure out just what we mean by "not as bad." I'm thinking that to mean NJ, or where we are in NJ, will not experience serious flooding or a long power outage. Of course, he's very forgetful because I don't think I pay up on these bets. Then, I don't think he does either, so we seem to break even.

I had my first storm mishap since DH also said: Be sure we have enough coffee if the power goes off. In the middle of the night (2 am) I awakened and got the coffee all ready to go so that when I awakened at 4 am all I had to do was push the switch............. and walk back into the kitchen area five minutes later to see coffee dripping down the sides of the pot onto the floor. Which made me think the filter had clogged as infrequently happens. But it was only my own stupidity since I had forgotten that when I shook the carafe at 2 am, I felt at least other cup still in it. Which, of course, was now dripping and pooling on the floor. Oh well!

I'm hoping no one gets seriously damaged during Sandy but shit happens with hurricanes, unfortunately.

The message movie. If you want to watch a refreshing, witty, message movie you can travel back to 1941 and watch Sullivan's Travels starring two competent, but lightweight actors, Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake who assisted by the direction and a screenplay by Preston Sturges, to use that hackneyed sport's metaphor: hits one right out of the park.

Sturges is known for his humorously witty satire, (Hail the Conquering Hero), but, in many of his classics, he's sending you his message, just not with a sledgehammer. 

Sullivan's Travels best shows this with the plot concerning a successful Hollywood director of fluff who wants to finally make his message film.  It's his travels that the title refers to and it ultimately becomes a philosophic journey of his soul. How dull does that sound? But it isn't. It has a Southern labor camp, a black pastor's church, a conniving ex-wife, Hollywood lackeys, and Mickey Mouse! And all the time you're watching, sharp dialogue is zinging past you.

Sullivan's Travels has an 8.2 rating out of 10 on IMDb and on Rotten Tomatoes its 100% approval with professional critics and 90% approval among us, mere mortals. So it looks like message films, done right, can be critically successful.

Which brings me to Lions for Lambs. Director and star, Robert Redford, was going for a response to the build-up to our illegal invasion of Iraq and our subsequent foray into Afghanistan. He minimalistically lays out three scenarios for the viewer and says: Well, what do you think?

These disparate, yet connected plots, in no order, are: Part I: Two poli-sci students in an elite college take their professor's urge to get committed to their world much too literally and enlist in the Army and are sent to Afghanistan for an ill-fated mission. Part II: A Republican senator, Tom Cruise, gives a long interview to an aging, but respected  reporter, Meryl Streep. because he wants her to favorably report on his new "war plan" which will probably propel him into the White House. Part III: The same professor from Part I, Robert Redford, is trying to inspire a brilliant, but lazy student (Andrew Garfield) to recommit to society. (Here, the story from the Part I is discussed.)

OK, so basically you have a movie about decisions, good and bad ones. The two students in Plot I are inspired by their professor (take a look at the 1930 All's Quiet on the Western Front for another professor who inspires his students into battle) to take an active role in society but you can see that Redford is appalled at the decision they make. Plot II with the Senator and the reporter, would have been a very good take on the fourth estate being pressed into carrying water for politicians' ambitions but I felt Streep was weak against the character Cruise plays so well: brash, assured, cocky. (In such a role, no one can out-Cruise, Cruise.) Streep plays a 57 year old reporter with a paper (or is it a TV show, can't remember, don't care) which is part of a conglomerate so the ratings Cruise's support will bring in for them are more important than journalistic integrity (she knows she's being used.) And finally, Plot III with Redford, Garfield and flashbacks. Why did I get the deja vu feeling of Redford and Brad Pitt in Spy Game? Possibly because Redford was playing the same mentor role, this time with Garfield.

 If you look back at the last paragraph, you can see a lot of promise there; but it just doesn't work. It doesn't work with message and it doesn't work with plot. Taking plot first; the movie just ends. It made me think: Wow! Now, I'm falling asleep without knowing it. A a quick internet search told me I didn't fall asleep; the movie does just end. So, I guess the director wanted to lay out the thematic points and then, treating us like adults, stepped back so we could mull them over.

And that's where you get into trouble with message movies because it's very tough to find the balance between message and tune-out boredom in such movies. It's easier with the written medium since there you can read, walk away, then come back to re-read and re-interpret. Not so with movies since the majority of them are one-shot viewings. You have to engage your audience from the get-go; no backsies.

Perhaps this task was just too large for Redford. He's a competent but rather pedestrian  director. Take a look at his directorial credits. They're solid films with good casts but never innovative, cutting edge. Even his directorial Oscar was for a good, "steady" film, Ordinary People, which probably got the hype more for Mary Tyler Moore playing against type than anything else.

But don't give up on message movies. Take a look at ones such as Sullivan's Travels, All's Quiet on the Western Front, Fail Safe, Dogville, Manderlay and Melancholia by von Trier, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises by Cronenberg, even The Americanization of Emily. This list is off the top of my head and I'm sure you can add to it.

Lions for Lambs has so much good material there. It just doesn't work. Of course, it brought in double its budget according to Box Office Mojo with the usual 75+% of this coming from foreign markets. Which to me is unusual this time since Lions for Lambs is basically a talking, non-action film and it's trying to hold the mirror of American policy up for Americans to evaluate; but it's other countries which are most  interested.

That's it for today. I hope I'll be blogging on Website Wednesday but Hurricane Sandy is holding all the cards right now. Back soon.........I hope. 

Postscript: Just before I could post this, our electricity went out two times. The storm is not even here; not even close. This could be a very long haul.