The Two Popes

First Hit: Very engaging film about the Catholic Church’s 2012 shift towards being more liberal.

I had basic knowledge about how the Catholic Church choose a pope and that the Pope is chosen for life. But that was it. This film opens this door a little more, and it was interesting.

This movie tells the exciting and unusual 2012 story of Pope Benedict’s ascension after Pope John Paul ll passed away, his subsequent resignation, and the ascension to the papacy of Cardinal Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), Pope Francis.

The film points out that Benedict really wanted to be Pope, and his chief rival, Cardinal Bergoglio didn’t want to be Pope. From a philosophical point of view, they were diametrically opposed to the direction of the church. Watching the interaction of all the Cardinals before and during the selection of the new Pope was impressive.

When Benedict became Pope, his plan was to move the church back towards its more traditional values. However, these values were in opposition to increasingly more liberal ways Catholics around the world who were embracing like gay marriage and women having a more active role in the church.

Benedict didn’t understand or support these things. He wanted the church to go back to Latin services and for the church to be opaque in its operations. He also liked the old fashion adornments of being the Pope, and he struggled with the sexual assault suits being brought against the church, and the financial improprieties perpetuated by his right-hand man.

Bergoglio decided he wanted to retire because he felt the church wasn’t heading in the right direction. He wanted to quit being a Cardinal and go back to being a simple priest so that he could be closer to his followers in Argentina. When he flies to Rome to present his resignation letter to Pope Benedict, his letter is rejected; actually, more like his letter keeps getting ignored.

The two spend time together talking about their differences, and eventually, these discussions bring them to a point at which they are able to share their deepest secrets and failings as priests. These stories are deeply touching and when Benedict asks Bergoglio to hear his confession, the beauty of how these two different men find their genuinely humble priestly roots is remarkable.

The filmmakers make great use of the Vatican itself as scenes there are elegantly shot. There are some amusing moments when Bergoglio tries to get the Pope to sign his letter of resignation, but the Pope just ignores each request.

When Benedict shares with Bergoglio his plans to retire and hope that the Cardinals select Bergoglio to move the church in a more positive direction, Bergoglio’s plaintiff pleas to Benedict to stay in power are real and sweet.

This film does a great job of providing an honest glimpse of how the Pope selection process works and how seriously the Cardinals take this responsibility.

Pryce was sweetly sublime in this role as Cardinal Bergoglio and Pope Francis. The sweetness and humbleness of the real Pope Francis’ beliefs were wonderfully shown. Hopkins was excellent as Pope Benedict. His firmly held beliefs of how the church should work, versus what was actually happening in the church was perfectly presented. Anthony McCarten wrote a fantastic screenplay that felt real and honest to these two people. Fernando Meirelles got excellent performances from these two great actors and was able to make the Catholic Church both interesting and attempting to fix the Vatican ship.

Overall: This story brought the Catholic Church to life for me.

Thor: Ragnarok

First Hit: Found this film and story to be silly and having a mediocre plot.

I know I’m not the target audience for superhero adventures. What I find is that the more films are made about these superheroes the less plausible they become. The fantasy kingdoms have no basis in anything relatable and with the stupidity and/or lack of depth of most of the characters, I check-out while watching them.

Here we have Thor (Chris Hemsworth) who is being imprisoned by a fire demon named Surtur (why, how and so what), learns that his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is no longer in his home world of Asgard (why, how and so what) and that everything is going to be succumbed by the prophecy of Ragnarok. This prophecy tells of the death of the gods including Thor because he’s the God of Thunder. This might be a good thing as these characters are getting long in tooth and stretched far beyond their original purpose. More importantly, they aren't interesting any longer.

Breaking free, he discovers that his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been posing as their father Odin in Asgard. Together they endeavor to find their father Odin. In comes the older sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) who is the goddess of death and tells Loki and Thor that she’s taking over the kingdom of Asgard.

From here it just gets bad, we have flights of fancy to a planet called Sakaar where Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) holds court. He pits Thor against Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) in a fight to the finish. Then they meet a drunk Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) who relinquishes her drunken lost ways and decides to fight the good fight to kill Hela.

Was there anything I liked? The tongue-in-cheek stuff was OK, but this film is all over the map in time, space, and story.

I didn’t care about any of the characters. I thought that many of the sets were fun to look at. Didn’t think the story was compelling or interesting. I wondered by Blanchett and Hopkins would do these parts. The constant battles are the same everywhere and there’s nothing new under the sun here.

I was left thinking; why can’t someone get creative?

Hemsworth did what he was told. There’s no real acting here, just a modern man playing a god and losing his hair along the way. Wondering if he gets his hammer back in the next movie. Ruffalo was OK, nothing interesting in this role for him. Thompson was adequate to the role. Goldblum was his over the top Goldblum – when will he actually act as something other than a smart-alecky buffoon. Blanchett was good, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she took this on. Hopkins, obviously, does things for money in some cases and this is one of them. Hiddleston was OK as the evil brother. Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle wrote a very mediocre, lackluster script. Taika Waititi threw everything at the audience and the outcome was how much shit actually stuck on the wall? Very little.

Overall: I’ve got to quit going to Marvel films because it is too hard to make the story work with what I see on the screen.

Noah

First Hit:  Initially bored, story interpretation unbelievable, and a few minor amazing scenes.

I enjoy watching biblical stories and a director’s interpretation of this book. I was put off by the beginning of the film with the screen captions stating the story of the beginning. Then we were led into an interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, then the story of Seth.

Then we are introduced to angels that ended up as moving rocks which are their prisons for assisting human kind. Director Darren Aronofsky shows the earth as mostly barren because of Cain’s clan mining of glowing rocks. First, I don’t believe for a minute that the Earth would be that barren in that time period by clans of people mining rocks.

There was a hint of technology by showing the audience some of the deserted mines, yet there was a primitiveness to everyone that seemed incongruent. Another item that didn’t work for me was the different accents of the actors. We had Australian/New Zealand (Russell Crowe as Noah), English/Wales (Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah), American (Jennifer Connelly as Naameh – Noah’s wife), English (Emma Watson as Ila), and it goes on.

There was no attempt to change this by the Director or Actors. Some of the highlights were some of the shots. One in particular that took my breath away was a shot of dusk, Noah and Naameh were silhouetted on a slight round hill against the sky – truly one of the most beautiful shots I’ve ever seen on film. I was also very impressed with the scene where Noah tells the story of life on earth because they used evolution and biblical terms and mixed them very well. It was simple and perfect.

I thoroughly enjoyed the full engagement Watson gave in her performance – it was stellar. Crowe also gave his all to his performance and I believed that he believed he was doing “the creator’s word”.

Crowe, as I previously stated was very good. He emanated the strength of the role and story. Connelly seemed like a fish out of water – almost too sophisticated for the part. Hopkins was cute more than anything. I got that he probably enjoyed being a Yoda of sorts. Watson was sublime. Her innocence, beauty, and wisdom were all present and forthcoming in this role. Aronofsky and Ari Handel wrote an uneven script and at times implausible. Aronofsky’s direction followed the unevenness and implausibility of his own script.

Overall:  I was severely disappointed by this film.

Red 2

First Hit:  Tongue in cheek fun, watchable and entertaining.

During the cold war Bailey (Anthony Hopkins) created a nuclear device, which was hidden in the Kremlin. He is also the only one alive that may know where the device was hidden.

The issue is that he's been lock up in a semi-insane asylum/prison. A team of retired black-ops people is reunited get him released and track down this bomb and return it to the US. This team, led by Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), is cobbled together and includes an aging Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren).

In a tangential way the team also includes Han Cho Bai (Byung-hun Lee) and Frank’s wife Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker). Frank is in love with Sarah and spends a lot of film time trying to protect her. However, Sarah is up for adventure, and is quirky enough in character to make her role very fun.

Trying to subvert the team is Katja (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who wants the bomb as well. What everyone doesn’t know is that Baily is not crazy, just a man on a mission to make right a wrong he thought was done to him.

The actors here appear to have had fun in their roles and there is always a sense that there was a slight wink and an nod as they did their scenes together.

Hopkins is the most brilliant in his role as he switches from off his rocker to singularly focused to right a personal wrong. Willis is always a bit tongue in cheek and here he’s in his swim lane. Malkovich is great as the sidekick that is always one hair away from being off his rocker. Mirren is fabulous as the unsuspecting older refined woman that has a "take no prisoners attitude". Parker is sublime as the quirky wife looking for adventure in her life and marriage. Zeta-Jones hams it up and is in her glory. Lee is really good as the guy who switches sides for just a moment to gets what he wants. Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber wrote a fun and entertaining script. Dean Parisot married the actors and script in a way that made all this work well. 

Overall:  This is a fun film but don’t look for everything to hold together, it wasn’t meant to.

Hitchcock

First Hit:  This film is for older people because if you don’t remember his films or TV show, this film isn’t much to watch.

Alfred Hitchcock (played by Anthony Hopkins) directed many great films from thrillers to mysteries to horrors to dramas.

This film begins after the success of his film North by Northwest which starred Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. He’s searching for a film to do and finds the book Psycho which is a horror story. He buys all the available copies so that no one will know the ending until they see the film.

However Paramount films won’t finance the film because, to them, they think it is a cheap type of film. They want another North by Northwest. Anyway this story focuses on his relationship with this wife Alma Reville (played by Helen Mirren), how they work together, and his fantasies about being with sexy blonds. This point is made in the film because his previous films co-star (Eva Marie Saint) won’t work with him again. The film is also about his creative genius and abilities to make a film work.

In Psycho Janet Leigh (played by Scarlett Johansson) is the femme-fatal and has a wonderful working relationship with Hitchcock. Alma has an admirer who likes working with her, but although she likes working with him she doesn’t want to have an affair.

Hitchcock has some very odd mannerisms and his way of speaking is halting and direct. He is also shown here as obsessed with food and ice cream. I do recall his films when they came out and I also use to watch his television program – but here I saw a version of Hitchcock the human and it was interesting.

Hopkins played an interesting Hitchcock and without knowing much about the man, I found it interesting and disturbing in the way he acted and responded to people. Mirren was fabulous as Alma, the woman who loved and was a major creative force in Hitchcock’s life. Johansson was really good as Janet Leigh’s character. John J. McLaughlin wrote an interesting and informative screenplay. Sacha Gervasi did have a clear vision for this film but it felt limited in execution.

Overall:  I enjoyed the film but it is probably for a selected audience.