Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

First Hit:  A bittersweet story about war hero Billy Lynn figuring out who he is, what's important to him, and where he belongs.

In the context of being a soldier, doing what he was taught to do and being part of a team of men whom he cares about; he ends up with a Silver Star and Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) is surprised by the attention of all this.

Billy has been a screw-up most of his life and while protecting the honor of his sister Katheryn (Kristen Stewart), he gets caught by the police. As done in many places in the USA, courts often let convicted criminals choose to join the military instead of jail time in hopes that the structure teaches young men responsibility. The structure helps him to be more responsible as does the close camaraderie between the diverse backgrounds of the men in his squad. He’s particularly taken by Squad leader "Shroom" (Vin Diesel) who pontificates about spirit and the spirituality behind all things.

The film begins with Billy coming home and getting ready to be honored for bravery with a victory tour and a half-time celebration at a Dallas Cowboys football game. Director Ang Lee uses flashbacks to give the audience the harrowing story of “Bravo” squad, as they engage in an intense fire fight in Iraq.

The best thing about the film is the juxtaposition between the fans, workers, cheerleaders, and football team owner Norm’s (Steve Martin) attitude and perception of the war and the men who fight it and what it means to be a hero. The film does this really well by cutting back and forth between the gun battle and the half-time celebration.

I related to the nervousness of the squad as loud noise and fireworks had them, in a nervous reflex, ducking for cover. I remember coming home from Vietnam and ducking and covering at every backfire from a car or startling loud noise.

Along with the celebration, all through the film there is a promoter Albert (Chris Tucker) who is attempting to get a deal for a film about the bravery of the squad. He makes it urgent because he can only get them big money while they are “hot” property. When Norm states that he's willing to fund their film, but only offers the men $5,500 each, Billy and Dime (Garrett Hedlund) take a firm stand. The story is not America’s but theirs and it cannot be bought for this very low price.

A film like this would need a love interest and here Billy runs into a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Faison (Makenzie Leigh) who admires the hero in Billy but does she even really see him? The idea of being close to a hero is effectively shared in their brief encounters and belies a real relationship.

Alwyn is very good in this role of naïve, yet worldly in the ways of life and death, young man. Martin is very effective as “America’s Football Team” owner. He is the personification of someone looking for an edge, notoriety, while taking advantage of situations for his own benefit. Diesel is strong as the philosophy spouting leader. Nice to see Diesel in a softer role. Hedlund is perfect as the toe the line new squad leader keeping his team together. Stewart is wonderful as the caring sister who feels responsible for her brother’s predicament. Leigh is great as the cheerleader who is more in love with a hero than the hero himself. Tucker is very believable as a promoter. Jean-Chrisophe Castelli wrote an interesting screenplay which takes on the challenge of showing the public's disconnect from the realities of war and yet wanting to own the heroes for their work. Lee effectively shows half-time pageantry, the behind the scenes of how the pageantry gets put together, and the battle scenes. His use of color is exquisite. This isn’t an easy story to tell but in Lee’s hands it works very well.

Overall:  I was surprised by how much I ended up liking the film because the title actually put me off.

Certain Women

First Hit:  A very thoughtful film that deepens and, at times, darkens with feelings just as the Montana winter closes in.

This film is, in essence, three separate yet interrelated stories of three women and their relationship with their inner self, work and the world about them. The film opens with Laura Wells (Laura Dern), as an attorney, having an affair with Ryan (James Le Gros) who happens to be Gina Lewis’s (Michelle Williams), husband. The strength and intelligence of this film is displayed in this opening scene. Long camera shots letting scenes play themselves out with words being a secondary communication device. The camera focuses on the faces letting the audience peer within the character. Of particular beauty was the stark motel room, only seeing Ryan, through the oval wall mirror, while Laura laid on the bed, contemplating the events, her life and her feelings about it.

Laura finds herself enabling a client named Fuller (Jared Harris) who is lost after a work event that left him disabled and unable to continue working. He’s confused and refuses to believe that he gave away his rights for a tort suit against his former employer as explained by Laura. These scenes of enabling build up to where she finally changes the situation.

Gina is introduced to the audience as she is warming down from a run, smoking a cigarette, and walking through a forested path. She’s serious and thoughtful in her look as she enters a campground. We soon learn she’s the powerful one in her family consisting of her husband Ryan and daughter Guthrie (Sara Roder). There is a moment when Gina indicates she dislikes being made the villain in the family. She feels undermined by Ryan which shows up as they discuss obtaining sandstone for the home they are building from Albert’s (Rene Auberjonois) yard. The long shots on her face left me feeling haunted by the weight she is bearing.

We meet Jamie (Lily Gladstone) working on a horse ranch. She leads a quiet life tending horses, watching TV, and eating. The scenes of her existence were made more lively, and funny to the audience, by the Corgi that always chases her as she puts hay into the corrals for the horses. The darkness of where she lives and the barn mirrors the loneliness of her life. One evening she gets into her truck and ventures to a school where she quietly takes root in the back row of a class with four other adults. The others in the class know each other, she’s an outsider. Into the classroom walks a young lawyer named Beth (Kristen Stewart) and we learn she’s a newly minted lawyer and has driven 4 hours to teach a class on Student / Educational Law. She acknowledges she knows little about this but has been studying. All the students, except Jamie, ask questions that directly affect themselves and try Beth’s patience. By going to a diner after class Jamie and Beth learn more about each other. Again, the long camera shots on their faces was extraordinary in giving the audience a glimpse of what is going on within them. What is going on with Jamie is that she is falling in love with Beth.

This is what made this film strong. In male oriented films there are quicker camera movements and more cuts. There is more of an overt purpose in directing the story in a particular direction, here the audience finds their way into the story by studying these women through their faces and movements.

Dern was amazing as someone who is alone, competent, caring and struggling to not be an enabler. Williams was sublime as a beautifully powerful strong woman that is finding her way through family life and what it is she wants her home to be. Harris is interesting as the man who is confused and dismayed at his current predicament. His reliance on Laura is interestingly dependent. Le Gros is good as the detached husband who is dependent on his strong wife. Gladstone was amazing. I loved her quiet depth, her aching heart, and pragmatic persistence. She was so powerful in this film by saying so very little. Stewart was wonderful as the object of Jamie’s affection. One of my favorite exchanges was when Beth said that in her family, the highest job they could attain was being a shoe salesperson. That she became a lawyer was something she held on to with tenuous hope and the audience feels this. Auberjonois was exceptionally sweet as a man slowly losing his memory. Kelly Reichardt wrote and directed this with an eye for letting the characters show what is going on with themselves by letting the camera see them. A job well done.

Overall:  This film is not for everyone, but if you want to gaze into the depth of certain women, see “Certain Women”.

Café Society

First Hit:  I was disappointed in this film.

The first thing was I couldn’t get over how quickly Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) spoke his lines with rejoinders coming almost as fast in return.

It just didn’t seem like anyone (Director or Actors) wanted the let the words breathe and have some sense of feeling with them. It is reflective of a poor Woody Allen film. Eisenberg is no Allen (and I like Eisenberg's work) and speaking Allen’s words the way he was directed didn’t work.

Nobody does Allen like Allen (good or bad). With this overriding problem with the film, it seemed hard to get into the story. On a good note, I thought that Kristen Stewart (as Vonnie) was very strong. She was the only main character that seemed to feel her way into her character.

Steve Carell as Phil Stern was OK, but at times it just seemed as though he was straightjacketed as the big time movie producer. I never felt his attraction to either his wife or Vonnie, it all seemed for show. I did like the feel of the 1930’s set with the nightclub being especially embracing.

Eisenberg, either got poor direction or wasn’t right for the role in that his machine gun approach to the lines lacked depth and feeling. Stewart was the best character in the film and she continues to show why she is so much more than the “Twilight” girl. Carell was mediocre as the studio executive, and my sense it was the direction that failed him. Blake Lively was good as Bobby’s wife and the scene of their meeting was one of the better scenes in the film. Corey Stoll as the criminal element of Bobby’s family was also good. Woody Allen, narrated, wrote and directed this film and in all ways it seemed to lack heart and comedy.

Overall:  One film that is easily forgotten.

American Ultra

First Hit:  The abilities of Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart made this film work.

When we are introduced to Mike (Eisenberg) he sits bloodied and being questioned by a law enforcement officer.

Then we quickly reel back to where his voice over tells the audience that he is a major screw-up. He gets high all the time, he’s afraid to leave his town. He works at a “Cash and Carry” convenience store in a small, sleepy, and uneventful town. He lives with his girlfriend Phoebe (Stewart) who seems to really care about him and doesn’t seem to mind Mike’s inabilities to function at a very high level.

What we end up learning that Mike and Phoebe are both CIA agents, with Mike being a secret weapon. He’s in hibernation, but when he becomes activated he’s a killing machine. Supervising CIA Agent Adrian Yates (Topher Grace) decides he want to eliminate Mike and begins a plan kill him with his own brand of psychologically modified agents. Protecting Mike and Phoebe is Agent Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) who activates Mike so that he can protect himself. Some of the funniest scenes are short scenes with Mike’s friend Rose (John Leguizamo).

Eisenberg is perfect for this role, introverted, intense, physically adept and fully in-charge of his character. Stewart is wonderful as the agent who falls in love with the person she was assigned to protect. Their chemistry and interaction is wonderful. Grace is very good as the guy trying to make a name for himself. Britton is good as the protecting agent. Leguizamo is fantastic as Mike odd-ball, drug dealing friend. Max Landis wrote a strong, interesting and funny script. Nima Nourizadeh did a wonderful job of making the script come alive with action and dark comedy.

Overall:  I enjoyed the ways kitchen items can be used to create harm.

Still Alice

First Hit:  Powerful acting in a very strong film.

Julianne Moore plays Alice Howland, famous and prestigious linguistic professor at Columbia University, who discovers that she has Familial Alzheimer’s disease which has a 50% chance of being passed on to her children.

Her three children Anna (Kate Bosworth), Tom (Hunter Parrish), and Lydia (Kristen Stewart), all have different relationships with their mother and are accurately testy with each other. Alice’s husband John (Alec-Baldwin) is also at Columbia and is very supportive of his wife’s oncoming illness.

This film is about what happens within this family as Alice’s disease takes ahold of her. The scenes are well done and allow the audience to feel along with both Alice and the others.

Moore is Oscar extraordinary. She delivers on all levels and the ending scene when she utters, says it all. Baldwin is very strong as the loving husband. Bosworth is very good as the know-it-all, professionally focus, and protective of her mother kind of daughter. Parrish was overshadowed by the other actor, but good at times. Stewart delivered. The complex, rebellious and understanding daughter role fit her perfectly. Richard Glatzer wrote this wonderfully compelling script and his own direction with Wash Westmoreland was spot on.

Overall:  This was a very good film and the acting sublime.