North (1994)

Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day.

North (Rob Reiner, 1994)

"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."  Roger Ebert, reviewing North

"...If you read between the lines, [the review] isn't really that bad."  Rob Reiner, New York Friar's Club Roast

Roger Ebert's little hissy fit—resembling a child's tantrum (interestingly)—about North is probably the most famous thing about it. Ebert described it as "the worst movie he'd ever seen"...and that just can't be right. I've been unable to find a review of Ebert's for Myra Breckinridge—he did, however, write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls—and he had seen Super Mario Brothers the previous year. So, I'm not sure why the particular bile-spewing for Reiner's film. 

It's merely a children's film that desperately wants to be funny...and just isn't.

North (Elijah Wood) is having a bad life. A good kid, all-around student, MVP ball-player, and acting prodigy, he's an over-achiever and under-nourished. Still at an age when he's seeking parental approval, he's getting nothing from his self-involved parents (Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, who are basically playing their self-involved "Seinfeld" characters but at a higher volume and without waiting for studio audience laughter)—he's a pants inspector and she's a travel agent who spend their little family time complaining about their jobs, thus giving North panic attacks.

"I don't get it." says North. "A child is born. He's given a life. But then, he's appreciated by everyone except the folks who gave him that life. It's just not right." It's getting so bad that his GPA, RBI's, and other worth-indicators are starting to take a hit. Best to go to his "Special Place" where he can spend time alone and think. Reiner shows North walking past traditional tree forts, scenic river spots and covered bridges to reveal that North's "Special Place" is an easy chair in a department store floor-model. That's how messed up North is. And it doesn't get any better when the store Easter Bunny (Bruce Willis) shows up to offer observations and perspectives (and, frankly, unnecessary narration). 

Rather than explain that North's life will get better when his self-actualization kicks in, E.B. just tells him that the way the other kids' parents use North to shame their kids to "do the right thing" that "your parents have a gold-mine" and that "under-appreciation is a common childhood lament" and, generally, you're basically stuck with the parents you have—unlike baseball where you can sign for free agency.

That one sticks. In the easy chair, North comes up with a plan where he might resolve his issues: with his friend Winchell (Matthew McCurley) he announces that he will leave his parents and sue them for divorce.* Attorney Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz) takes on the case and the hearing results in Judge Buckle (Alan Arkin) telling North he has two months to find better parents or he has to go back to his biologicals. The decision puts his parents into comas.

North then travels the world looking for better parents—and the trial's publicity gets him several offers—from Texas (Dan Aykroyd and Reba McEntire are the parents), Hawaii (Keone Young, Lauren Tom), Alaska (Graham Greene, Kathy Bates), even from the Amish (Alexander Goudonov and Kelly McGillis from 1985's Witness—a good joke if anybody gets it), in a series of un-PC sequences that "a lot of people" complained about.**

Finally, North ends up with the perfect parents—the Nelsons (John Ritter, Faith Ford and little ScarJo in her film debut)—but, still, something's wrong. They're just not "his" parents, so he decides to make his way back to them, a move complicated by a "child uprising" that wants to kill North (!!) for wanting to un-do the cause of kids' rights.

Bruce Willis serves as "sequence interpeter" in each of North's adventures.

The movie has enough content to throw all sorts of parents' groups into tizzies, but, really, it doesn't do anything that hasn't been done in the past: The Wizard of Oz (Dorothy wants to be someplace else but dull old Kansas but learns "there's no place like home); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (a child in poverty conditions—played comically—interacts with a bunch of horrible children who all meet dire fates); Time Bandits (a boy prefers his fantasy world to his parents' hum-drum consumer-hell and has adventures throughout history with authority figures he might prefer to his parents—who are killed in the end). No one is complaining about those—probably because they are movies about kids with embedded life lessons (or else nobody's noticed). 

Reiner and screenwriters Andrew Scheinman and Allan Zweibel (the movie is based on his "North: The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents") don't so much embed as employ "Shock and Awe." Zweibel was one of the founding writers of "Saturday Night Live," co-created "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and consults on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and his work on those and with Gilda Radner and Billy Crystal (among others) are nice combinations of the twee and the harsh. It's just no one expects them in a kids' movie (except for the very good ones I've mentioned) with the go-for-the-gut sensibility of "SNL".

Movies, when it comes down to it, are miracles of chance when they "work" and connect with audiences, and North has elements of proven past successes, but is so desperate to evoke laughs, that (in the words of Nigel Tufnel) it "goes to 11."

As a result, the movie is hysterical in all meanings of the term except funny. 

But, not so hysterical that it should evoke the over-reaction that it garnered. "The worst movie ever made?" Please. 

* This isn't the first movie to hang on this premise: 1984's Irreconcilable Differences took the contentious consequences of the Peter Bogdanovich-Polly Platt marriage and turned it into a "comedy" with daughter Drew Barrymore suing for her own separation...from them. In reality, kids have sued their parents over various issues...the most unsettling is over abuse. And this might strike very close to the bone in the Hollywood community, where a small percentage of child-stars have sued the parents over managerial/control issues. 

** "A lot of people." Wonder if they're the ones who kvetch about the world being "too PC"—when it's them telling the joke. Anyway, this is an asterisked aside because *SPOILER ALERT* none of this is reality, it's all a concoction in North's head (like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz but without the tornado-caused blunt force trauma). One could excuse the crass stereotype jokes as being the inexperienced kid North's "un-woke" perceptions as story-justification, but the fact that they're over-the-top and kinda not funny have to go to the film-makers.

Molly's Game

Upping Aaron's Ante
or
"Do You Know Who Circe is?"

Aaron Sorkin is one of the better writers in Hollywood and he's had a good number of directors shepherding his screenplays—Rob Reiner, Thomas Schlamme (on "Sports Night" "The West Wing" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"), Mike Nichols, David Fincher, Bennett Miller, and Danny Boyle, an impressive roster—But, with his latest screenplay, Molly's Game, he has decided to take the helm himself.

The results are impressive—very—especially for someone making their first movie behind the camera. He's had some excellent teachers along the way, but their trademarks do not show up in the camera work of Molly's Game, nor does any effort to "show off" behind the camera. Sorkin, quite rightly, is in service to the story, letting it and his actors shine, while he does the necessary prop work and keeps the pace, filling in gaps, and allowing moments to breathe and sink in. At times, his directors have clashed with the material, but Sorkin knows every beat, rhythm and nuance, and, as opposed to say, David Mamet's direction of his own work, it is a perfect match of source and interpretation.

We are introduced to Molly (Jessica Chastain in another remarkable performance that she carries with an outward calm that looks like it could shatter at any moment) with a preamble: "A survey of three hundred individuals asked "what's the worst thing that can happen in sports?" She foes over a list of things—losing in the seventh game, being swept in four, as well as "losing to Argentina"...in anything—but she lands on "Coming in fourth in the Olympics." She then talks about her own experience in fourth place to make the Olympic ski team...if she can just "nail" this one freestyle run, which turns into a disaster that does severe damage to her spine, which had already had surgery done for early onset scoliosis. But, despite the injury, she walked off the ski run, defeated, and probably never to ski again. "Whoever said the worst thing that can happen is fourth in the Olympics? SERIOUSLY. Fuck You!"

Cut to years later. She is on a promotional tour for her book "Molly's Game" which details her years hosting high stakes poker games in Los Angeles and New York when she receives an early morning phone call. It's from the FBI, who are right outside her door and about to arrest her. She gives up without a fight and takes a look at the indictment for running an illegal gambling organization—"United States of America v. Molly Bloom." "I'd lay odds on the favorite." she mutters.

Molly hides the headlines so her potential lawyer's daughter won't see it.

That first sequence is a stunner. A carefully intricate assemblage of anticipatory shots before Molly's big run that ends with a disastrous accident where the million to one odds of what went into the making of it are laid out so that both the chances and the impact of it are made clear to the audience. It's a combination of Molly's special circumstances and just bad luck that contribute to it. It is an editor's nightmare, but a storyteller's dream and both jobs come off smoothly and successfully. A lot of what Sorkin brings to the mix is how to tell us a story and anticipating the "needs-to-know" and placing them where they make the most impact. The viewer becomes part of the storytelling process. It is a strategy—and a talent—that will be utilized in great abundance throughout the entire picture.

Molly is having trouble landing a lawyer—it's a little tough when you've written a book admitting to the crime that you're being charged with. But, Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba—finally, finally, in a part that shows how good the man is) of the law firm of Gage Whitney (Hey! That's Sam Seaborn's law firm!) has an interest in the case. He's been reading Molly's book and finds it more interesting for what she doesn't say than what she does. He's non-committal; he's not sure he wants to be her lawyer—she's said too much in public, she's too high-profile, and there's the more-than-likely suspicion that the prosecution is just using her to crack some bad sorts in Russian organized crime and other high-rollers in international crime sects. No way. No how.

Bloom's first court appearance—Jaffey has arranged bodyguards for her protection,

and hasn't decided to take the case, but, to advise her, he keeps switching with the bodyguards.

That's Graham Greene—"Kicking Bird" from Dances with Wolves—as the judge.

Now...this is "based on a true story" (the title card that makes me the most suspicious these days) and in the End Credits says it's based on Bloom's book, but the main story-line takes place AFTER the book has been written and published. Sorkin is furrowing new ground here, but also reading between lines  of that book and doing his due diligence—he goes way back into Molly's background with little nuggets—like that her father, a psychology professor (played by Kevin Costner—never better) would video-tape his kids in an ongoing questionnaire while they were growing up (Geez, MOST parents just use a ruler and a pencil-mark on the wall) that he uses to great advantage—it may not seem important at the time you first see it, but out of sight/out of mind...and when you come back to it, it's devastating.

It's the book scenes that most people will be preoccupied with and those are outlined as past discussions to fill in Charlie and give a taste of what that high-stakes life style was like. It doesn't matter what anyone is wearing and who's who (Michael Cera plays"Player X" a celebrity named in the book as Tobey Maguire, who basically is in it to destroy people) as Molly enters this world as a personal assistant for a propped-up financier (Jeremy Strong) who runs a weekly game at "The Cobra Club" (The Viper Room) for a select few. She treats the poker game as she does any job and gradually learns enough that she finds a way to better it, stealing away the financier's players in a hostile takeover engineered by "X". 

But, poker is not a game of luck. It's a game of skill. And as Molly's fortunes rise and fall and balloon on the East Coast, she starts to compromise, succumbing to her own gambler's greed and a bit of hubris, even inheriting a bit of Player X's "take-no-prisoners" gambiting. All the while in "Real-Time" land, the stakes of her case are becoming more and more dire.

Doesn't seem like much, does it? But Sorkin makes it fascinating and he has thoroughbreds pulling off the artifice while he keeps all his dishes spinning on sticks, never keeping the audience out of the game by—sparingly—going into quick poker tutorials whenever something gets a bit technical, or runs a danger of seeming inconsequential. You always learn something from a Sorkin script (for instance, that scientists have concluded the center of the galaxy smells like rum and raspberries...the movie says "strawberries," but, hey, Hollywood....). But for all the ruthlessness and cold-heartedness displayed in the thick of a green felt battleground, the film has a soft spot. In fact, I dare you to get through Costner's "three years of therapy" scene with Chastain ("See what you can do when you're not charging by the hour?") without at least throat-lumpage occurring. 

No, it doesn't seem like much. However, if the film was released at any other time, poised at any other cusp of our social fabric evolving, Molly's Game would still resonate—maybe not as much as Spielberg's upcoming The Post does in terms of the role of the press and big "T" Truth—with the issue of the base dynamics of power—between men and women, between bosses and subordinates, between government entities and those of us caught between the gears of them—of the high-stakes games of bluff and threats that make up the dark matter of our everyday Universe. And the Evil that can be done in the atmosphere of it. Molly's Game hits it. And hits it hard.

Now, it may be too early to say that Molly's Game is the movie of the year—there's a lot of good things that haven't even opened in my area yet—but, so far, it's one of my favorites if not THE favorite, and I'd lay serious odds on it.

Casino Jack

"The Be$t Government Money Can Buy"
or
"Jack Abramoff (and for my money you can leave out the Abram)"

Despite what "The Last Word" at the bottom of the page says, I don't find bad reviews fun to write or to read.  It pains me to admit failure...even if it's someone else's. This one pains me a lot, because it seems like such a slam-dunk—a comedy on the rise and downfall of Washington's most powerful lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, played here by Kevin Spacey in a tour de force of excessive grand-standing. That the film-maker who made it died just before it opened (and that he previously made some things I admire) makes a bad notice that much more greivous to write. That I'm sympathetic with the political views espoused makes it more so.

But to these eager liberal eyes Casino Jack is a hack-job, rather than, say, a sure bet.  Frankly, if you want the story told better, turn to the documentary Casino Jack and The United States of Money, which is a more thorough, even-handed and truthful account (because it's all real footage of these beasts proudly exhorting their dirty deeds) of the shameless fleecing of America and the flagrant influence-peddling of an all-too-willing Congress.*

Film-maker George Hickenlooper—who died in 2010 before the film premiered—and his screenwriter Norman Snider want to make a Dr. Strangelove-type condemnation of the black-as-pitch corruption that Abramoff and his cronies espoused in the name of idealism, but it comes across as a loud, crass, unfunny version of events with the film-maker pushing our faces into scenes and hectoring "this is funny, right?  Funny?  It's funny!" with all the smug self-satisfaction of a preacher cooking marshmallows over a witch-burning...or a politician taking a bribe. Everything is played brooooooooooad, making Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World seem subdued and tasteful in comparison.

There may be some joy in the pilloring, but the style of film-making and the general volume of the acting makes everything seem obvious and crass (with a capitol "K" street) that the feeling of contempt comes early and stays long past the party is over. Barry Pepper is all caricature as Abramoff's right hand-biter, and Spacey does enough bad impressions of his good impressions that the habit becomes tiresome and annoying. I'll bet he and Jon Lovitz yelled "Act-ing!!" after each one of their takes—there can't have been many from the looks of it—and then giggled like it was actually amusing. It's easy to make fun of wretched excess, and especially hypocritical wretched excess, but the film-makers went overboard with the caricaturish, smirking portrayals of everything and it sinks the picture. They could have played it absolutely straight, and the high-handed antics of these high-ideal crooks would have provided plenty of  spit-takes and sputtering indignation.

But, they had to have "fun" with it, beating any subtlety into the tarmac or marble-flooring. The result is not fun, and only marginally frown-cracking at times.  Good satire has to have an element of cold-blooded revenge to it, with an element of horror in the subject matter, rather than in how it is presented.  Casino Jack goes for the easy-sucker bet, and still comes up craps.  

* Interestingly, the film-maker's earliest credit was the great "making of" documentary Hearts of Darkness, about the ordeal of filming Apocalypse Now...in a reverse of the "truth is stranger than fiction" aspect of the Abramoff story, the true story of Francis Ford Coppola's VietNam epic has more of the tone and feel of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" than any of the adaptations (Coppola's and Nicolas Roeg's) made from the source—a lesson this film-maker might have heeded.  Hickenlooper also made such interesting films as the original short of Sling Blade, The Man from Elysian Fields, Mayor of the Sunset Strip, Factory Girl, and was the only one in Hollywood with balls enough to make a film of Orson Welles' last screenplay, the political satire The Big Brass Ring.  Sad to go out on this which such past work as his legacy.