Baby Driver

Michael J. Cinema started his review by saying, “There is a scene roughly halfway through Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 backstage masterpiece The Red Shoes where Ballet Russe impresario Lermontov comforts his understandably nervous principal dancer, Vicky Page.”

“Nothing matters by the music,” Lermontov assures her.

Cinema continued, “He hums the notes and Page relaxes, the steps have returned to her mind and her body regains confidence. Without the music, she’s just a bunch of limbs failing about; with the music, her body and her movements become a work of art.”

Maybe a post-war tragedy about that undying desire to create isn’t the most obvious connection to “Baby Driver” – the 2017 heist/getaway film from British writer/director Edgar Wright – Cinema noted, “but neither is Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 musical comedy Love Me Tonight. Or the candy-colored costuming and fluid choreography of Jacques Demy’s romantic French trilogy. Yet, there they are; up on the screen, alongside Walter Hill’s The Driver, Richard Rush’s Freebie and the Bean, and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. Much in the same way the French New Wave blew a breath of fresh air into gangster pictures, Wright makes a mixtape musical—a “rock opera” in his words—and brings the ghosts of the past to life.”

However, “Baby Driver” is more than just a summary of its reference points. It is an energetic race down the crime-ridden streets of Atlanta and up freeways of young love. Unknown to his girlfriend (Lily James), the protagonist Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a slave of a wheelman for crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey). Budd (Jon Hamm) and Darling (Eiza González), lovers who steal for their drug habit, and Bats (Jamie Foxx), a stick-up man with, as Cinema described, “a proletariat ax to grind, round out the remainder of the crew.”

Sultry, sleek, and stylish, “Baby Driver” is more than just an exciting take on a familiar genre. It’s a great combination of music and movies. Pre-recorded rock ‘n’ roll, pop, jazz, R&B, and rap are no strangers to mainstream cinema, but few filmmakers have found ways to use it as cleverly. The songs are not here to carry the story when it drags or insert energy where there isn’t any. They are here because they are just as important to Wright’s work as the images. They collide against each other, fuse into one another, and drown out Baby’s tinnitus – a constant reminder of the car accident that killed both of his parents.

However, Baby doesn’t just listen to the music, he moves to it. He mouths the words, sings to himself and others, and, most importantly, he creates it. The songs he selects for each job are carefully crafted based on the energy and timing needed. In one robbery, a bit of improvising from the criminals delays Baby long enough that he has to restart his getaway song to get the timing right. Nothing matters but the music.

After hearing so much praise about this movie, I checked this out a few months ago on Amazon Prime while exercising. You can see this on Netflix and I highly recommend it. If you have loved Edgar Wright’s previous works, you will love “Baby Driver.” The car chases, the music, the action, everything is an adrenaline blast from beginning to end. I cannot do the film justice with this review. You have to see the film to believe it. I give it a high recommendation.

I was surprised to see that there is going to be a sequel to the film. I thought it ended off fine, but if this is going to get a sequel, great. I would love to see a sequel to this film and see what Wright has in store for his fans.

Alright, we have now reached the end of “Kevin Spacey Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed it and saw the films I recommended. I know that Spacey is not respected after all the allegations against him, but his films were still great. Wait a minute. Next month is October. You know what that means…HALLOWEEN MONTH!!! Stay tuned to see what spooktacular franchise I will be reviewing next month.

American Beauty

“American Beauty” is a 1999 comedy because we laugh at the strangeness of the protagonist’s issues. This is also a tragedy because we can relate with his failure – not the specific details, but the general feeling.

The movie is about a man who is afraid of growing older, losing the hope of true love and not being respected by the ones who know him best. If you have never related to these things, then people will want to take lessons from you.

The protagonist of the film is Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey, who is a man who is not loved by his daughter, ignored by his wife, and superfluous at work. “I’ll be dead in a year,” he starts the movie saying. “In a way, I’m dead already.” The movie is the story of his uprising.

We meet his wife, Carolyn, played by Annette Bening, so perfect her garden shears are at the same level as her footwear. We meet his daughter, Jane, played by Thora Birch, who is saving up for chest implants even though she clearly doesn’t need them. Maybe her reason is not to attract more men, but to make them feel pity for what they can’t have.

“Both my wife and daughter think I’m this chronic loser,” Lester complains. He is right. However, they have their reasons. At a terrible family dinner, Carolyn plays Mantovanian music that pokes fun at every ration. The music is luxurious and reassuring, and the family is angry and silent. When Lester criticizes his daughter’s behavior, she points out correctly that he has hardly spoken to her in months.

Everything changes for Lester the night he is forced by Carolyn to see Jane’s cheerleader performance. There in the gymnasium, filled with a sub-Fosse tassel routine, he sees Jane’s high-school classmate, Angela, played by Mena Suvari. Is it wrong for a man in his 40s to get attracted to a teenage girl? Any honest man understands what a complicated question this is. This is wrong morally, certainly, and legally. However, as every woman knows, men are born with the feeling that goes directly from their eyes to their privates, bypassing what their brain says. They can disapprove of their thoughts, but they cannot stop themselves from having them.

Roger Ebert noted in his review, ““American Beauty” is not about a Lolita relationship, anyway. It’s about yearning after youth, respect, power and, of course, beauty. The moment a man stops dreaming is the moment he petrifies inside and starts writing snarfy letters disapproving of paragraphs like the one above. Lester’s thoughts about Angela are impure, but not perverted; he wants to do what men are programmed to do, with the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.”

Ebert continues, “Angela is not Lester’s highway to bliss, but she is at least a catalyst for his freedom. His thoughts, and the discontent they engender, blast him free from years of emotional paralysis, and soon he makes a cheerful announcement at the funereal dinner table:” “I quit my job, told my boss to **** himself and blackmailed him for $60,000.” Has he lost his mind? Not at all. The first thing he spends money on is actually understandable: a bright red 1970 Pontiac Firebird.

Carolyn and Jane are going through their own relationship problems. Lester finds out Carolyn is cheating when he sees her with her lover in the drive-through lane of a fast-food restaurant (where he has a job he likes). Jane is being videotaped by Ricky, played by Wes Bentley, the boy next door, who has a strange look to him. Ricky’s dad, played by Chris Cooper, is a farmer Marine who tests him for drugs, taking a urine sample every six months. Ricky plays along so nothing bad happens until he can leave home.

All of these emotions come together during one dark and stormy night, when there are so many bizarre misunderstandings they belong in a screwball comedy. Ebert notes, “And at the end, somehow, improbably, the film snatches victory from the jaws of defeat for Lester, its hero.” Not the kind of victory you’d get in a feel-good movie, but the kind where you prove something important, if only to yourself.

Ebert noted, ““American Beauty” is not as dark or twisted as “Happiness,” last year’s attempt to shine a light under the rock of American society.” It’s more about sadness and solitude than about cruelty or viciousness. Nobody is really bad in this movie, just made by society in such a way they can’t be themselves, or feel joy.

Every performance walk the line between parody and simple practicality. Thora Birch and Wes Bentley are the most grounded, talking in the tense, flat voices of kids who can’t wait to get out of their homes. Carolyn is a real estate agent who says self-help slogans, confuses happiness with success – bad enough if you’re successful, depressing if you’re not.

Spacey is an actor who takes on intelligence in his eyes and voice and was the right choice for Lester Burnham. He does reckless and foolish things in this movie, but he doesn’t cheat himself: he knows he’s running wild – and chooses to, destroying the future years of an empty lifetime for a few moments of freedom. He may have lost everything by the end of the film, but he’s no longer a loser.

This is definitely quite a comedy. You should see it just to see what kind of film it is. Especially with that empty white plastic grocery bag flying around. People who see this could relate to this type of lifetime, but that is the beauty of it being a comedy. There might have been those who have tried this before, and if you see it, you’ll know what I mean.

Next week, I’ll be ending “Kevin Spacey Month” with another comedy from a great director that I saw earlier this year and I had been hearing great things about. Stay tuned to find out because you will love it, I promise you.

L.A. Confidential

Confidential was a magazine of the 1950s, a monthly that sold millions of copies with its unpleasant articles of celebrity drugs and erotic material. Roger Ebert admitted, “I found it on my dad’s night table and read it breathlessly, the stories of reefer parties, multiple divorces, wife-swapping and “leading men” who liked to wear frilly undergarments. The magazine sank in a sea of lawsuits, but it created a genre; the trash tabloids are its direct descendants.”

Ebert continued, “Watching “L.A. Confidential,” I felt some of the same insider thrill that “Confidential” provided: The movie, like the magazine, is based on the belief that there are a million stories in the city, and all of them will raise your eyebrows and curl your hair.” The beginning is narrated by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), who publishes Hush-Hush magazine and bribes a cop named Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) to arrest celebrities. Ebert noted, “Jack is photographed with his luckless victims, and is famous as the guy who caught Robert Mitchum smoking marijuana.”

It's Christmas Eve in 1953 and Bing Crosby is playing on the radio as cops pick up cases of free alcohol for their holiday parties. Back at the headquarters, there are three officers who, in their mind, represent the future decisions for the LAPD. Ebert said, “Vincennes, star-struck, lives for his job as technical adviser to “Badge of Honor,” a “Dragnet”-style television show.” Bud White, played by Russell Crowe, is an aggressive young cop who is willing to accommodate the department’s relaxed methods. Ed Exley, played by Guy Pearce, is the straight man, his glasses making him look like a strong accountant – one who might work for the FBI.

Ed is an ambitious man who wants to do everything by the book. His captain, Dudley Smith, played by James Cromwell, kindly explain that an officer must be prepared to lie, cheat, and steal – obviously in the name of being sure the guilty get arrested. Captain Smith likes to call his men “good lads,” and looks wise we can almost believe him as he does little quizzes and explains that advancement depends on being prepared to give the “right answers.” “L.A. Confidential,” released in 1997, has the atmosphere and tradition of film noir, but it doesn’t look like a period picture – it believes its noir values and isn’t just using them for decoration. Ebert said, “It’s based on a novel by James Ellroy, that lanky, sardonic poet of Los Angeles sleaze. Its director, Curtis Hanson (“Bad Influence,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”), weaves a labyrinthine plot, but the twists are always clear because the characters are so sharply drawn; we don’t know who’s guilty or innocent, but we know who should be.”

The story is about a series of crimes that occurred during the beginning of 1997. Associates of Mickey Cohen, the L.A. mob boss, become victims of the type of gang executions. There’s a massacre at an all-night coffee shop. One of the victims is a twisted cop, and three black youths are immediately made as suspects, despite there’s thought that someone else is behind the crime.

We meet a millionaire adult filmmaker named Pierce Patchett, played by David Strathairn. He runs a top-notch call girl operation where aspiring young actresses are given plastic surgery to make them resemble movie stars. One of the them is Lynn Bracken, played by Kim Basinger, who, it is said, has been “cut” to look like Veronica Lake. Bud White finds her, thinking she’ll be able to tell about the coffee-shop massacre. (“You’re the first man in months who hasn’t told me I look just like Veronica Lake.”) Ebert admitted, “At this point, perhaps an hour into the movie, I felt inside a Raymond Chandler novel: not only because of the atmosphere and the dialogue, but also because there seemed to be no way all of these characters and events could be drawn together into a plot that made sense. Not that I would have cared; I enjoy film noir for the journey as much as the destination.”

However, Hanson and his co-writer, Brian Helgeland, have everything come together, and as the film goes on, there’s an unlikely camaraderie between two cops who start off as enemies. The film’s thought that despite it being miniscule in free booze and a little fix, there are some things a police officer just can’t do and look himself in the mirror in the morning.

The film is filled in L.A. folklore. Ellroy is a student of the city’s tough streets. It focuses on the town just at that postwar time when it was beginning to become self-conscious about the story. Ebert said, “Joseph Wambaugh writes in one of his books that he is constantly amazed by the hidden threads that connect the high to the low, the royalty to the vermin, in Los Angeles–where a hooker is only a role from stardom, and vice, as they say, versa.”

Ebert said, “One of the best scenes takes place in the Formosa Cafe, a restaurant much frequented in the 1940s by unlikely boothfellows.” Cops arrive to question Johnny Stompanato, a thug who may know something about the Cohen killings. His date tears him apart. “A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker,” Exley tells her, but Jack Vincennes knows better: “She is Lana Turner,” he says with such amusement.

One of the reasons “L.A. Confidential” is so good, why it deserves to be mentioned with “Chinatown,” is that it’s not just plot and atmosphere. There are believable characters here, not least Kim Basinger’s prostitute, whose silent line, “I thought I was helping you,” is one of the movie’s most revealing moments. Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce are two Australian actors who here move believably into star-making roles, and Kevin Spacey uses perfect timing to suggest his character’s ability to move between two worlds while betraying both (he has a wonderful scene where he refuses to cooperate with a department investigation – until they threaten his job on the TV show).

Behind everything, setting the moral tone and pulling a lot of the storylines, is the sharp captain, appearing so helpful. Ebert said, “James Cromwell, who was the kindly farmer in “Babe,” has the same benevolent smile in this role, but the eyes are cold, and in his values can be seen, perhaps, the road ahead to Rodney King.” “L.A. Confidential” is charming and beautiful, sarcastic and twisting, and one of the best films of 1997.

I had heard about this movie for quite some time and I must have been thinking about seeing it for some time now. Then, while I was exercising a few months back, I saw this film on Hulu. The film is not on there anymore. You would have to buy it off of Amazon. However, it is one of those films that you have to see because it is amazing. You will love the crime thrillers of this film because it is just edge of your seat. Check it out and have a great time watching it.

Next week, I will be looking at a film that is quite a strange film that will have you wondering about what they were thinking, but it’s still a good film, in “Kevin Spacey Month.”

Glengarry Glen Ross

For this month, I will be reviewing films that star Kevin Spacey. Yes, I know about everything that he has done, but he still has been in amazing films. Let’s take look at 1992 classic, “Glengarry Glen Ross.”

The untidy real estate office in the film may be one of the movie places we will remember, like the war room in “Dr. Strangelove” or Hannibal Lecter’s cell. It has two parts: a glass area where the office manager lives with his precious “leads” – cards with the names of people who might want to buy real estate – and the rest of the office, given over to the desks of the salesmen, who try to sound rich and confident over the phone, but whose eyes are filled with misery.

Throughout the day, they make calls to sell real estate that no one wants to buy. They are making no money. It is worse than that.

They are about to lose their jobs. Blake, played by Alec Baldwin, the professional jerk from downtown, arrives to give them a lesson on the chalkboard and a warning. There is a new sales contest. First prize is a Cadillac.

Second prize, a set of steak knives. Third prize, they’re fired: “Hit the bricks, plan, and beat it, ‘cause you are going OUT!” The movie is based on a play by David Mamet, who once briefly worked in that type of office. He knows the way these people communicate, and turns their language into a version of his own personal language, where the everyday swears and misery of everyday speech are copied into a sad music. Roger Ebert said in his review, “Their struggle takes on a kind of nobility.”

Look at Shelley (the Machine) Levene, for example. Played by Jack Lemmon, he was once a professional salesman, winning the office sweepstakes every month. Now he is not making any sales, and his wife is in the hospital, and it’s sad to hear his lies, about how he would feel wrong, not sharing this “marvelous opportunity.” Lemmon has a scene in this movie that shows the best work he has ever done. He makes a house call on a man who does not want to buy real estate. Ebert said, “The man knows it, we know it, Lemmon knows it – but Lemmon keeps trying, not registering the man’s growing impatience to have him out of his house. There is a fine line in this scene between deception and breakdown, between Lemmon’s false jolity and the possibility that he may collapse right on the man’s rug, surrendering all hope.”

The other salesman are gathered in a well-balanced cast that practiced Mamet’s dialogue for weeks, getting to know the music of the words while working on the characters. Ebert noted, “Kevin Spacey is the office manager, unblinking and cold, playing by the rules.” The salesmen are played by Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, and Lemmon. They are all in different types of breakdown. There is a part between Harris and Arkin that is one of the best things Mamet has written. They think about the near-famous “good leads” that Spacey has said to have locked in his office. What if someone broke into the office and stole the leads? Harris and Arkin discuss it, neither one really say out loud what they’re thinking.

There are other parts. Lemmon and Spacey have a scene in a car, in the rain, where Lemmon tries to buy the leads from Spacey.

And Pacino and Jonathan Pryce, who plays a possible customer, have an amazing scene in a restaurant booth, where Pacino slightly tries to convince Pryce into buying, by playing on what he feels is hidden gayness.

In “Dead of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller made the salesman into a symbol for the failure of the American dream. In Miller’s play, Willy Loman was out there alone, with a smile and a shoeshine. “Glengarry Glen Ross” is a version for modern times.

Ebert noted, “Produced onstage in the good times of the 1980s, filmed in the hard times of the 1990s, it shows the new kind of American salesmanship, which is organized around offices and corporations. No longer is a salesman self-employed, going door-to-door. Now individual effort has been replaced by teamwork. The shabby Chicago real estate office, huddled under the L tracks, could be any white-collar organization in which middle-aged men find themselves faced with sudden and possibly permanent unemployment.”

Ebert continued, “Having said that, I must not forget to mention the humor in the film. Mamet’s dialogue has a kind of logic, a cadence, that allows people to arrive in triumph at the ends of sentences we could not possibly have imagined. There is great energy in it. You can see the joy with which these actors get their teeth into these great lines, after living through movies in which flat dialogue serves only to advance the story. The film was directed by James Foley (“At Close Range“), whose timing and camera help underline the humor; a line of dialogue will end with a reaction shot that mirrors our own reaction – surprised, blind-sided, maybe a little stunned, but entertained by the zing of anger and ego in the words.” Meanwhile, nobody is buying any real estate, and it is raining, and the L goes by like a mystery train to down below.

What a movie. Anybody who has tried a job in sales could probably be able to relate to this in some way. Spacey’s character is called every swear in the book, which is a joy to watch, especially when Pacino goes off on him. If you haven’t seen this film, you need to see it because it is a classic. You will enjoy the film and seeing these characters interact is the best.

Next week I will be looking at another film that is great to watch in “Kevin Spacey Month.” Sorry for the late response. I got so tired after work that I took a nap.