Ocean's Thirteen

The Plot Thickens.... 

Oceans Eleven was an enjoyable, breezy updating of a not-very-good "Rat Pack" movie with a nicely eclectic cast from many walks of the entertainment industry. It was a lark, with no real sense of any danger or risk. It just seemed like director Steve Soderbergh and star George Clooney (partners in the production company, Section 8)were getting free rein of Vegas and dragging along a bunch of pals along with them.
Oceans Twelve, however, showed signs of fatigue. Instead of Vegas, it was filmed in Europe. The large majority of the cast was arranged to "rot in jail" for most of its running time, while Matt Damon and Julia Roberts carried the weight of the plot, storyline and ad-libbed dialogue to sometimes excruciating effect (Okay, so Roberts played Tess Ocean, the wife of George Clooney's character, and when he gets way-laid, she flies to Europe where she's recruited to pass herself off as...Julia Roberts, and hilarity ensues when *gasp* Bruce Willis "cameos in" to complicate matters!!) Not much worthwhile there, but Clooney got to write off his Lake Como estate, so I guess that's something.

So, now it's the third go-'round, the unlucky Thirteen and to "play it safe" and "cover all bets," the crew goes back to Vegas to avenge another hoodwinking of deep-pockets gang member Reuben (Elliott Gould) by another puffed-ego Vegas properties owner, one Willie Bank, played by Al Pacino on cruise control. Once again, it's a con of "Mission: Impossible" proportions involving false identities and accoutrements, loaded dice, coins and roulette balls and the use of not one, but two large tunnellers (that were used to dig the Chunnel we're told) to carry out the various schemes. While it's true you have to spend money to make money this movie takes it to new extremes. 

Along the way there are pleasant cameos by Julian Sands and Eddie Izzard (Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones' absences are explained away quickly--"it's not their fight"), Vincent Cassel (from 12) and even Exec. Producer Jerry Weintraub. Everything's in place--everybody's a wise-acre, Clooney makers a tuxedo look like casual wear, Pitt's wardrobe is still horrendous, and they even manage to work in Andy Garcia's rival casino owner in on the plot--though fortunately, they don't turn him into a suddenly reformed "good guy." 

Ellen Barkin and Matt Damon

(with the nose he wasn't allowed to wear in The Brothers Grimm)

Because Pacino's on board, there's a couple sneaky Godfather references in the dialog--one to Pacino's face, but like most of the in-jokes (right down to the last lines) they're so "inside" that they'll probably go over a large portion of heads. But despite these minute differences, it's the first movie all over again--like Return of the Jedi, the third in the "Star Wars" series and Last Crusade, in the "Indiana Jones" cycle--but as with those films, the ingredients making up Ocean's Thirteen have been left out to curdle a bit. It's fun and all, with a couple of laugh-out-loud moments involving Oprah Winfrey, and Soderbergh directed, shot and edited the thing himself, but is it too much to ask for something a bit more original? One gets the impression that if not for the perks to cast and crew, they would have done well to have left the table and cashed out a little earlier.

The Mule (2018)

Mr. Day-lily
or
"Regrets I've Had a Few, But, Then Again, I Made The Rookie"

Glenn Close: This is Cameron's first nomination and he's in extremely good company. Tonight he joins fellow best actor nominee Paul Newman for "Coot", Clint Eastwood for "Codger", Michael Douglas for "Primary Urges" and Steven Seagal for "Snowball in Hell".

In & Out, 1997

It's a bit of a shock to see Clint Eastwood return to acting, his first appearance since 2012's Trouble with the Curve, at the age of 88. Then you relaize: who else could play The Mule, based on the New York Times article "The Sinaloa Cartel's 90-Year Old Drug Mule"? Who else would an insurance company bet on any other actor, other than Eastwood, to complete the film? After all, he has continued to direct films during his hiatus. As budgets bloom and special effects extravaganzas mushroom through the multi-plexes, Eastwood continues to make simple movies, under budget and under schedule. It is also an opportunity to work again with screenwriter Nick Schenk who wrote Eastwood's first "swan song" Gran Torino in 2008, ten years ago.

But, Eastwood is definitely looking his age: he's frailer, the skin on his arms—which one would have referred to as "guns" back in the day—has turned crepey, and a certain careful feebleness has crept into his movements. But, the crooked smile is still there and the enthusiasm is never less than present.

Never seen the fear, though.

Eastwood plays Earl Stone*, a commercial horticulturist with a specialty in day-lilies, those plants that flower one bloom at a time lasting 24 hours. He's done it for the last few years, carefully tending his wares, then traveling to horti-conventions where he likes to mingle and sell his starters, usually be sheer personality. He's always the life of the party and he makes a good living at it.

But, not a good life.

His time on the road makes him an absent father and grandfather, estranged from his wife Mary (Dianne Wiest) and daughter Iris (Alison Eastwood, appropriately, who played Eastwood's daughter in Tightrope), but still viewed with hope by granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga). Stone would rather be schmoozing in the bar than walk Iris down the aisle for her second wedding. Perhaps it's his age, but more than likely it's that he can't stop pursuing the bright shiny objects that he's afraid he'll miss. He's not into The Big Picture, or making a five-year plan, and he only looks down the road far enough to make his destination. He's lived far longer than is practical, given his short sight. 

For instance, his business. His nursery is a humble arrangement, but the business model gets changed by the internet. Pretty soon, his orders start to wither due to competing online sales. He loses the nursery and is left with his battered old truck and no visible means.

As he says, "I'm not a Plan-B kind of guy."

But, at his granddaughter's pre-wedding dinner—which deigns to attend, causing his wife and daughter to walk out in disgust—he gets an offer: how would he like to drive transport for "some guys?" His money situation is critical, so he takes the given address and drives to a nondescript garage, no questions asked.

He's looked at with suspicion by the guys at the garage, one of whom totes an automatic weapon. The job is simple; drive up to Illinois to a certain hotel, park the truck, leave the keys in the glove-box, and then...walk away. For an hour. Go get something to eat. When he comes back, the keys will still be there, but so will his payment. Then, just drive back.

Stone makes the first run, and is amazed to find an envelope with a stack of "benjamins" inside when he returns. His contact on that end makes an unprecedented appearance outside his window, saying he did good and that there is more work if he wants it.

Stone is flush—the pay for these drug runs is a thousand per kilo of cocaine delivered—and he buys a new tricked-out truck to replace the old one, and he is able to indulge. But, then some "need" will come along—his VFW hall is shutting down, his granddaughter is going to a cosmetology college—there's always something, and despite his years, Stone is well-regarded by his handlers, even friendly to him. Stone knows how to schmooze, when to play the fool, when to stand his ground, and he's respected. Sure, he's an ornery SOB at times, but he soon becomes known as "Grandfather" and "Tata."

Even Laton (Andy Garcia), who runs the whole operation from his sumptuous villa, thinks highly of Stone, because he's agreeable, somewhat efficient, and easily plied. It doesn't make any difference to him what he's traffiking. Nobody's going to suspect a friendly octogenarian.

Not even the DEA? The head of a local chapter (Laurence Fishburne) has just welcomed new recruit Colin Bates (Bradley Cooper) to his squad to be working with another agent (Michael Peña) in trying to stop the wide-spread illegal transport within the borders. He has one instruction—make a splash. This Bates does by putting pressure on a local contact who knows the routes, the people and the routine. Running parallel to Stone's story is their deliberate uncovering of the network pipeline and their planning to bust it wide open, the inevitable result of which being that, at some point, given twists in the road, the stories will merge, making Stone, once again, the center of attention, but the kind of notice that has consequences.

Eastwood's direction is simple, efficient, and not showy—as it usually is—and the performances are good throughout, with Wiest and Alison Eastwood being the stand-outs. Cooper and Peña are not given much to do other than act professional. It's Eastwood's show and a cautionary tale on the price of selfishness, hubris, and getting rick too quick—and of stubbornness without conscience.

* "The names have been changed." "The Mule" was actually Leo Sharp (pictured below). He died December 12, 2016 at the age of 92. The Mule was released on December 14, 2018.

The Godfather Part III/The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

The Godfather, Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) Francis Ford Coppola defied the Rule of Thumb when his The Godfather, Part II turned out better than the (at the time) all-time box-office champ, The Godfather. But, flush with the success of those two films, Coppola moved on to chart his own course, famously saying that mobsters bored him and that he had said everything that he wanted to say on the subject.

Time and pressure, though. It's not mere coincidence that at one point in The Godfather, Part III Michael Corleone says of his mobster ties: "Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in." Coppola was tempted by Paramount Pictures to come back for one more go for the same reasons he took on the first film—he was in financial trouble and needed the money. Al Pacino's star was again on the ascendant (after expensive flops like Cruising and Revolution) and Coppola was the one man who could pull the original talent together and make a "legitimate" "Godfather" sequel, with no compromises.* The story takes place with Michael Corleone, now 60, with all the appearances of economic legitimacy although still with long ties to his family's Mafia roots. The old Corleone business is in the hands of Joe Zaza (Joe Mantegna—a rare chance to see Mantegna being "florid"). Now the aging Don, debilitated with diabetes, in the twilight of his life, must come to terms with what he lost in his battle to protect his Family: his family.

"Family" portrait

All the "Godfather" films start with ceremony and end with blood-baths, and Part III begins with Michael Corleone accepting a papal honor for his charity work (actually a quid pro quo for bailing out the Vatican Bank, which is in financial trouble, as always in "The Godfather" films, money is the root of all evil). That theme must have hit close to home for Coppola, having to compromise for cash. Money corrupts everything here, even the Church, and doing deals with God's representatives on Earth may be as close to heaven as Michael thinks he'll ever get. And that is the major theme of this movie: what Michael will do to save his soul.

How many movies are about that?

As a recovering Catholic, I may be a bit more sensitive to it, knowing the arcana of the Church, but I found myself watching Godfather III ticking off the moments that Michael might be in a state of Grace to go to Heaven. For the length of the "Godfather" series, Coppola distilled Mario Puzo's original best-selling novel to core themes: the immigrant's American experience and the role crime plays in it; how business is brokered so similarly between criminal organizations and Big Business; how a steadfast paternalism can descend into destruction; how good intentions can be corrupted.

But there is one theme that never made it from the cutting room floor in the theater released films, but is apparent if you've ever seen some of the expanded "Godfather" films, and that is the efficacy of the corrupted soul and how it still can be redeemed. That's Catholic Catechism 101, but in the real world of movie audiences (and mafia hoods) it may not have seemed pragmatic (and perhaps too hard to explain or fathom for non-Catholics). The evidence has always been there, however, from the first film's unused footage of Mama Corleone going to church to light candles for the soul of Vito (Marlon Brando) and the accompanying original End-Titles which featured Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) lighting them for his son Michael's.**

Pragmatism might have been the reason, but the characters had moved on from the original movie and Puzo's book. The scene of Kay lighting candles for her husband added an element to her character of still loving the new Don even while knowing he was a monster, complicit in his crimes. And it was particularly weird when Coppola put it at the end of the more complete television presentation of "The Godfather Saga" after all the heinous crimes committed by Michael in Part II (including the one he finds the most unforgivable—the ultimate negation of his mission to save his family—as he says in "Part III" "I killed my mother's son. I killed my father's son.").

But the Church, which presided over Connie's wedding and Anthony's first communion and Michael's papal decree at the beginning of each of the three films, as an instrument of God's Will on Earth, can forgive all sins and cleanse all souls, no matter the crime, no matter the evil. So, half-way through the film, when Michael Corleone is forgiven his sins by the cardinal (Raf Vallone) who will become Pope John Paul I (they needed a VERY holy man to forgive Michael), suddenly...in the eyes of God—or at least the Church—Michael's soul is clean. The marionette strings of the Corleone Family have been handed to his bastard nephew Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia) who has the quicksilver temper of his father Sonny (James Caan), but is taught a Don's pragmatism under Michael's tutelage.

Big themes. Operatic themes. And The Godfather, Part III reaches its climax at an opera—"Cavalleria Rusticana" by Mascagni, a tale of a Sicilian soldier who comes home from war to find that his life has changed and seeks to corrupt the relationships of his past—where Michael's son Anthony who has rejected his father's path is debuting as a singer. It is a cause for celebration, but behind the curtain of happiness, vendettas are carried out, and the sprawling story-line comes to a tragedy's finale. Although Michael's soul is clean and pure in God's eyes, he can't escape Fate, and he pays...dearly.

Much was made at the time of Coppola casting his daughter Sofia Coppola in the role of Michael's beloved daughter Mary (Winona Ryder was originally cast, but bowed out pleading exhaustion). It must have seemed natural for Coppola to do so, having cast sister Talia Shire as Michael's sister Connie (Shire has a much bigger role to play in Part III), and Sofia has always been a part of the "Godfather" films.*** The critics were cruelly savage in their denunciation of her performance, and, admittedly, it is a little weak. But, critics seemed to blame the daughter for any weaknesses in the father's work.

That the third film does not meet the impossibly-high bar of the first two is not her fault. Blame Coppola's artistic ambitions, and forgetting that "The Godfather" has its true origin in crime-novels and gangster movies, not the opera house. But the daughter bore the brunt. As Michael says sagely in the film "When they come... they come at what you love." Sofia Coppola has more than had her own revenge by becoming a gifted director and Oscar-winning screenwriter, she has also won the critic's respect.

Her triumph, and the grace with which she achieved it, is the true ending of "The Godfather" story.

But, it's never REALLY the end, is it? Not in the digital realm of film...with "Special Editions," "Director's Cuts," and the perpetual re-mastering of movies in ever-increasing bit-rates to negligible ends. They give those directors who are lucky enough to survive their films to forego the pressures they were under to meet a release date to have another "go" at the edit, to touch things up, maybe tweak an effect here and there, even change the color timing of their films—now, film-makers make two edits of the theatrical cut and their preferred edit for the digital release.

 

And so it is with The Godfather, Part III, which, when Coppola was given the chance on the 30th Anniversary of its release, he re-edited and re-titled the film as The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. The title, which distances the film from the first two films, making it it an epilogue, rather than a part of the story, is a good, if cosmetic choice.

 

He pared down some sequences, put in some alternate takes, re-tooled the images to be sharper with more color to them. But these are small cuts to the bulk of the movie.

But, it is quite different in two specific places. Rather than begin—as Part III does—with shots of the abandoned Lake Tahoe compound while Michael reaches out to his two children to attend his papal order induction, The Coda begins immediately with Michael dealing with Archbishop Gilday of the Vatican Bank to relieve a massive short-fall and receive controlling interest in the massive real estate firm Internazionale Immobiliare,**** and beginning with the words "Don Corleone, I need your help." This cut quite a few minutes from the film, and established the stakes at the beginning, and making Michael's papal honor more of a quid pro quo than it originally was.

And the ending is different. In the theatrical cut, the elderly Michael is alone in Italy (holding an orange, naturally), a shell of his former self and dies, slumping to the ground. In The Coda, Coppola leaves him alive...and suffering...an alone, irrelevant invalid...with the memories of the women he betrayed in his head. As the Archbishop who will become Pope John Paul I tells him in the garden "It is just that you suffer." 

On the fade to black before the credits, Coppola inserts his own epitaph: "When the Sicilians wish you 'Cent'anni', it means 'to a long life'. And a Sicilian never forgets."

* Well, there are always compromises: Robert Duvall did not reprise his role as consigliere Tom Hagen, citing the difference in salaries between himself and Pacino. But Coppola has always been adept at writing around such problems.

**That scene is used as the End Credits for "The Godfather Saga"—Coppola's "too much information" re-shuffling of the first two films into a strict chronology. There are lots of little interesting tidbits in that one, including the hospital visit with Don Vito's old consigliere Genco ("You blashpheme. Resign yourself."), more scenes with the undertaker from the first film, and the Corleone family paying a visit to...the Coppola family.

*** Mantegna remembers during a scene prep, of Coppola pointing to Sofia and telling him that she was the baby being christened at the end of the first film.

**** In the book, "Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather" (by Mark Seal), Coppola revealed that the inspiration for this conspiracy came from Paramount studio head Charlie Bluhdorn who, during the making of the first Godfather, confessed to the young director that he leveraged part of Paramount land interests to the Immobiliare organization to resolve studio debts. Coppola was privately shocked but...filed the information for later use.