Bridge of Spies (*****)

From Steven Spielberg, I don't think anyone ever expects a film less than stellar, and yet my urgency to see BRIDGE OF SPIES was on the back burner at most. A story of cold war, prison cells, and prisoner exchanges surprisingly didn't tickle my curiosity, and yet here I am convinced that it is one of the better films of the year and surely alongside 'Lincoln' as the director's best work in quite some time.

The intrigue of the Cold War was, I suppose, the lack of guns and the prevalence of quick wit. This wasn't a war of bloodshed but rather the need for information about the enemy. Espionage, as it were, stocked the front lines with men hidden in plain sight, both in America and Russia.

Enter Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance), a quiet Brooklyn dweller who paints landscapes in the park and self-portraits in the quiet of his apartment. In fact, the front half of the film is dedicated to just that; the portrait of a spy living amongst us. He is arrested, searched, hated, and yet his first thoughts are to tidy up the apartment before being hauled to prison. As a Russian spy, he is even more unassuming given his vague Scottish accent. His birth records indicate he was born in England, but how can we be sure he isn't just making it all up?

As it's America, Abel is given due process of the law, and he is introduced to James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer tasked with defending the man. "If Abel is the most hated man in America, then I'm #2," Donovan remarks during the case. Indeed, his entry into the story isn't one of passion, but as the case grows and evidence is assembled, Donovan can't help but see two things: that were it not for the high publicity of the case the trial would be thrown out, and that Abel is indeed a dignified man of honor.

The relationship between these two men is one of the more intriguing relationships I can remember in a movie. From distrust grows mutual respect, and though they part ways in the end, can the bond they share truly be considered a friendship? Tom Hanks is truly the man for the part, and in every way he bleeds a sense of urgency and dignity to his performance as a man only seeking to do the right thing. Same for Mr Rylance, sure to be an Oscar nominee within a month or two. His quiet and yet memorable turn as the Russian spy is constantly full of surprises and humor. When asked why he doesn't appear scared to be sentenced to death, he plainly remarks "will it help?"

The story is full of depth  and proceeds much further than the Supreme Court hearing (wouldn't any other movie make that the climax as opposed to the midway mark?). We see Donovan cross into Germany during the time of the Berlin Wall's construction. In the search for justice, it seems, he realizes that the importance of saving the life of a spy would benefit America if ever a prisoner exchange were to occur. What follows is a battle of wits and integrity between Donovan and American policy and Germany and Russia.

What's most surprising is the lack of John Williams in the production, nearly unprecedented in Spielberg's nearly 50 year career. The composer instead is Thomas Newman, one of the most established and recognizable musicians in movies today. Following in the vein of a true Williams' score and weaving in a tapestry of his personal style, Newman's work is truly memorable and perhaps could win him his first Oscar after a record 12 losses.

It's easy to take Steven Spielberg for granted. His name has come to represent excellence in movie-making, and yet his films are typically given a quiet ovation. 'Bridge of Spies' is a beautiful story of large proportions that is also an intimate, heartwarming account of a narrow sliver of global history. Here is continued proof why this is a director who will never be matched.

Brooklyn (****1/2)

BROOKLYN is a better film than I was led to believe by the trailer, proving yet again that you should never judge a book by its cover. What I thought would be a standard romantic drama involving various social and economic issues instead turned out to be a truthful story of immigration and hope.

Saoirse Ronan (SIR-shuh) plays our heroine, Eilis, a young girl who travels the Atlantic with the reference of a priest and a new job opportunity. In her mind, there are no more opportunities for her aside from living under the shadow of her mother or with financial aid from her sister. In Brooklyn, she is set up as a shop clerk. She takes night classes. She even meets a boy, a gentle yet passionate Italian-American named Tony (a believable and likeable Emory Cohen). Let's not hold back. As we know from the trailer, she even falls in love.

I am not well-versed in Ronan's films following her Oscar-nominated debut in Atonement. In that film, she played a clever young girl who's dishonesty ruins the lives of those around her. Here, she is an optimistic woman who curiously lives a life that stumbles into deceit. Again, we have seen the trailer: she makes a return to Ireland and is introduced to another suitor. Who will she pick, and where does her home lie??

Back to Ronan. She is in every scene of this movie, and golly does she deliver one of the year's better performances. From heartbreak to young love, every moment is absolutely brilliant, and even more amazing considering she is an actress all of 21 years old. Look at her first scene in the movie, and look at her last. Even here, she matures before our eyes and transforms into a woman with real emotional weight and incredible depth.

The story overall does occasionally fall into bouts of the cliche, but considering the source material and the incredible direction and writing (Nick Hornby with a beautiful adaptation), it's easy enough to look past it and see a movie of pure entertainment and joy. The film could be seen as a topical piece considering the state of immigration in our country today. I think it's more a portrait of a time we my never see again. Where hope was tangible and opportunities were readily available to those who worked for it. In a way, it's a depiction of the American Dream; the reason so many come to our country to begin with. After the film ended, I almost wished I could keep dreaming...

Spotlight (****1/2)

The final credits begin at a pinnacle of emotion and fulfillment, when a story of massive implications is finally published after years of research. The outcry and support and anger is channeled through an endless barrage of phone calls- one after the other - until the screen goes black and a list is displayed: a list of other cities where a sex abuse scandal arose in the Catholic Church after the infamous story written at the Boston Globe. And the list goes on and on and on... To say I got chills is of the most mild implications- to see a list including my home town quite literally took my breath away.

In a lot of ways SPOTLIGHT builds to that final list, shown after hours of growing suspense and involvement. The story, written by the 'Spotlight' team of journalists, began as little more than curiosity surrounding the story of a priest who was relocated to a different parish after molesting several children. A bit more digging and they found another priest. And another. If I told you they found 13 priest would you be shocked? If you realized there were 87 in Boston alone, how can you come to terms with it?

Like many of the great films regarding journalism, Tom McCarthy's film is both reserved and thrilling, with nothing more than a sharp script with razor dialogue to create an excitement that is rare in movies. There are so many moments that pay homage to some of the greats, from "All The President's Men," to "Network," from "Michael Clayton" to "Doubt." Sometimes the most powerful thing is nothing more than a real conversation.

"Spotlight" is building a lot of buzz and for good reason. In a year that has been marked with so many genres of story, this is a pure drama that unfolds as only a real-life story can. The characters are truly an ensemble that are portrayed with so much realism that believing it to be a documentary is not hard to imagine. 

We can give credit to Michael Keaton, who I would assume would be the leading role but only because he is the main editor of his division. His is a man of convictions yet smarts, one who plays his cards close and is believable as a charismatic leader. Same for Rachel McAdams, a confident and beautiful woman who must deal with the realization that the church her grandmother loves so much has betrayed so many. Or Mark Ruffalo as a the man with a nervous tick and a flair for spontaneity. 

Movies like this are interesting mostly because they show how the workings of a large organization function. In this case we have an insider look into the dealings of a newspaper grappling with a horrendous story of child abuse and yet trying to keep one step ahead of the rival publishers. The story was published in early 2002, and even in the midst of research the events of 9/11 nearly pushed the story to the back burner indefinitely. Who knew?

The pieces of the puzzle were always there, and in fact the Globe comes to realize nearly every piece of information they published was already given to them in years past. One case of abuse is sad, but we soon forget. What 'Spotlight' did (and what we realize in the final few scene) was to shake humanity to the core. As an editor says before publishing the story in a final scene, "sometimes we get lost in the dark, it's only when a light is turned on that we realize the mistakes we have made." I'm paraphrasing, of course, but what a whopper. 

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (McAdams), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber, Brian d'Arcy James), Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Editing)

Spectre (***1/2)

SPECTRE had perhaps a bit too much anticipation built up before its release, and in that way maybe it was always doomed to fail. The return of director Sam Mendes after perhaps the best Bond film, "Skyfall," had many eager to screen the latest Daniel Craig flick. I'm not upset that the movie wasn't as incredible as its predecessor. Few action films are (and after all, I thought Skyfall was one of the 10 best movies of 2012). What we got instead was a return to form for the James Bond story: a bit camp, a bit over the top, lots of guns and lots of fun along the way.

In penning a screenplay for a new James Bond adventure, it's obvious that the screenwriters felt a need to "up the ante." The opening action scene (a particularly long-take that is sure to catch the eye of vigilant film buffs) centers around a Mexican Day of the Dead festival, with costumes and bodies squeezed to the horizon. Bond, emerging from under a skull mask, tails the actions of a man he was sent to investigate by our late, great M (Judi Dench, may she rest in peace). He's on a trail to solve a mystery surrounding a ring with an octopus embedded on it, and perhaps unlock clues to his own upbringing and the past 3 or 4 movies.

I'll admit, much of the story drifted over my head and looped around near the ceiling in a very confused way. Here is a movie weighted down by dialogue and plot in a way we know is needed but in reality no one really cares about. Audiences want to see car chases (wait for this one) and impossibly accurate marksmanship, not ramblings about what someone said or why. In a nearly 3 hour movie, there were some opportunities to trim the fat.

The throwbacks to earlier Bond films is at times nostalgic but overall a bit of a stretch, especially when a character lists every villain by name from the past few films and basically says "they're all connected by this one thing!" Okay we get it, but do we really care whether or not Silva from the previous film was working for a worser, baderer villain?

Christoph Waltz, speaking of, is of course an unsettlingly calm man for his performance as the villain. Absent as he is from the bulk of the story, his few scenes of torture and exposition are some of the more memorable in a film full of endless locations and scenery. Likewise with Daniel Craig, our Bond, who for once is portrayed as a lethal assassin more so than a martini-sipping womanizer. Even more than in films past, here we recognize that Bond is trained for one purpose only: to kill, and boy is he good at it.

Will most people like this movie? I'm sure they will. The action scenes are well-staged and the story is gripping in ways that a more traditional action flick should be. Is it a great film? No, but I think that's okay, especially when we remember the fact that James Bond isn't meant to be a high-art experience. However, coming from Sam Mendes (the man who truly breathed life into the franchise and has helmed some great American movies), I still get the feeling that he was phoning this one in. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I would like to think we could have expected a bit more from a director of such talent and skill.

(Awards potential: Best Art Direction, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing)

Victoria (****1/2)

There's a lot to dissect and think about with a movie like VICTORIA, a little German film with a story as powerful as it is absurd. Told in real time during the sunrise over a small metropolitan setting, here is one of the real cinematic treats of the year, a movie that is as real as it is honest.

Victoria is a carefree and somewhat desperate girl, one we first meet dancing alone in an after hours club. She is energetic, full of life, and yet in a failed attempt to buy the bartender a drink, we learn she is alone. As a city girl she is foreign in more ways than one. She is a recent transplant from Madrid, and in her 3 months of living in the city she has yet to make friends.

Leaving the bar, she runs into three young men, carefree and in a way the sort of people Victoria has been looking for. They roam the city, talking, wandering aimlessly in a city that is silent and deserted. They steal beer from a sleeping store clerk. They climb to the roof of their apartment building to get a better view. Sonne, the man who seems to be oldest and wisest, takes Victoria across the street to her cafe where she works (she opens at 7am, so the night has a time frame).

For the first third of the film, I recalled several movies that have found success in the conversation of strangers, mainly "Before Sunrise." The candid way these 5 characters address each other and interact was real to the point of being a documentary. In small ticks and one-liners, we learn so much about these nomads: where they've been, where they're going...

This is not to say the film is a slow-paced drama. In fact the conflict of the story (which I won't spoil even though the film has a more limited release than anything I have yet to see this year) propels Victoria down a labyrinth of mystery and growing suspense. From the beginning to the end, the arc is so wide and vast that to compare the front of the film to the end is almost like watching a different movie, altogether.

I can't figure why a movie as accomplished as this is receiving little to no attention. The performance of Laia Costa as Victoria is nothing short of astounding. As a worry-free and timid girl, she undergoes a change so revolutionary that it's next to impossible to imagine how it was done all in one single take.

Yes, the other accomplishment of the movie: it's filmed without a single cut and spans nearly 140 minutes. This makes it without a doubt the longest single-take movie ever made by a mile, and surely the most elaborate (remember "Russian Ark," the single-take movie that took place entirely in a museum?). From bars to rooftops to cars and everything in between, this is stuff of movie magic that I cannot even begin to comprehend the technicalities behind the making of it. The accuracy of every actor and cameraman involved is so watertight that is makes the wizardry behind "Birdman" look like a walk in the park.

It's easy to praise a film for being a "gimmick," but with 'Victoria' the accomplishments span more than just the camerawork. Here is a story that is exciting, emotional, and completely immersive. The use of no cuts only adds to the suspense, and the actual run time in relation to the faultless camerawork is something that perhaps can never be surpassed. This is one I won't soon be forgetting.


*the film was deemed ineligible for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars last year due to it's large concentration of English spoken. Too bad...

(Awards potential: Best Foreign Film, Best Actress (Costa), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography)

Room (*****)

The Allegory of the Cave was a parable I often heard about in school and lectures but could barely grasp a way to picture it in reality. To live in a darkened cave and perceive shadows as the entire reality of being is a stretch to imagine but logical for the purposes of the lesson. Who knew I would one day find a movie that explains it in simple terms, as black and white as can be and in a style that is nearly child-like.

ROOM is obviously the story of a woman imprisoned, locked away in a shed by her kidnapper for 7 years, during which time she has a son, Jack, and raises her as best as she can given the circumstances. Ma, as she is called, teaches Jack to read, write, clean, cook, but most of all imagine. In this tiny shed, the "room" they frequently reference, is the entire universe, and out of fear or sadness in his finding out the truth, she tells him that there is nothing else but this tiny place in existance. "Old Nick," their captor, supplies then with weekly rations of food and TV, but for Jack, the images he sees on that TV are all fake, and Nick gets food and medicine from the land inside the TV. Being born and raised entirely in a 10-foot squared space, who's to tell him differently?

The kind of wonder that comes with a movie like this is not the intricacy or set-up of the characters, but rather the intimately real feeling we get when watching it. The movie takes many turns, and it's no surprise they escape in one of the more beautiful moments I think I have seen in a movie (Jack for the first time in his life rolls out of a dirty carpet to see an entire panorama of sky and trees and road. The scenery is anything but beautiful, but the look on his face would have us believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle). From here on out, the movie dives into a more traditional drama involving the reuniting of Ma's family and the emotional implications such a tragedy can have in the long run.

Brie Larson has been getting most of the attention for her difficult work in the film, and she is surely admirable (a fragile and yet determined personality that's rough around the edges we also saw from her in "Short Term 12"). This is really a two-person show, and the young actor playing Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is nothing short of miraculous. We hear his opening narration, a sweet, high voice that tells us about the world he knows to be real, and then later in the film the same voice telling us how he has learned about the size of Earth and ponders why we don't fall off the face of it. It's remarkable for a 9 year old to reveal such truths in a movie like this as convincingly, and even the smallest gestures he uses are absolutely heartbreaking and true (the time he first meets a dog, or perhaps the way he carefully nurses a tooth in his hand while sleeping). Tremblay gives serious competition to become potentially the youngest Oscar winner in history, but looking at some of the best from the past (Ana Paquin and Tatum O'Neal), he stands level-headed as perhaps the finest performance of the year.

In a movie that could have been dark, Room explores hard subject matter with a light hand along the lines of "Life is Beautiful," another film that shows the power of a strong parent protecting their child from emotional damage. The story follows so many absolutes and yet flows with a poetry that makes it feel like a timeless story. Near the end, we hear Larson's character say "I'm not a good enough ma," to which Jack innocently replies "but you're ma." If that isn't one of the most gorgeous summaries of life, I don't know what is. Life has ups and downs and wins and losses. How we choose to live in it is entirely our own decision.

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Actress (Larson), Best Actor (Tremblay), Best Supporting Actress (Joan Allen), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Original Score)