Book Club

First Hit: Although the age ranges they portrayed didn’t work, as a comedy it was out-loud funny.

The actual age ranges between these women (Fonda 81 & Steenburgen 65) was too wide ranging for me to believe that they were nearly lifelong friends. This part of the story needed cleaning up. However, once I got past this, I found the story funny, poignant, and enjoyable.

At the time I went to see this film, 11:00 AM, there was a small crowd of older women. I think I was the only man in the audience. And initially, they were laughing at just about everything. I was only mildly amused.

Yet something happened as the film went on, I found myself enjoying the pointed jabs at age, men, sex, and technology. What made it work was the actors themselves. They all have been around long enough for the audience to know them a little. The parts they played were perfect to how we know them.

The vehicle the story uses for these women to get together once a month is a Monthly Book club. They’ve been meeting monthly for over forty years and in doing so, they have learned to love and accept each other as they are.

Diane (Diane Keaton) was grounded in her flighty Annie Hall sort of way. Watching her slow build to telling her grown protective children that she was still capable of being happy, learning, and having fun experiences with a man was pointedly clear.

Vivian (Jane Fonda) played the rich I don’ need anyone loner was perfect. Jane has generally shown her skittishness towards being vulnerable and in this role, she has to become vulnerable with the man who shows up to her again after forty years.

Sharon (Candice Bergen) was the professional woman, who had her cat and her Federal Judgeship to keep her happy. After her divorce her husband Tom (Ed Begley Jr.) found love in someone one third his age. She said she couldn’t care less and was happy presiding over her courtroom until....

And Carol (Mary Steenburgen) was the only married woman in the group. Her husband Bruce (Craig T. Nelson) and her still liked sex. However, after his retirement party six months earlier, he was disinterested in her sexually and seemed lost.

Early in the film, the group meets and it’s Vivian’s turn to select a book. She chooses Fifty Shades of Grey. This gets all the women thinking about their sex life and eventually their love life.

Diane is afraid of flying and meets a very rich pilot Mitchell (Andy Garcia). Vivian runs into her old beau Arthur (Don Johnson) who is still in love with her. Sharon decides to try internet dating and meets up with George (Richard Dreyfus) an accountant and someone who really likes her. And Carol finds devious ways to try to get Bruce interested in sex again.

As you might imagine, older women finding that they are interested in love and intimacy is relevant to all people at any age.

Keaton was quirkily funny in both her actions (paddling a floating swan in a pool) and words. She can really shine when the role calls for it, and it does here. Fonda, I must admit, is someone I’ve adored for her intelligent skittishness towards men. Here she shows that she still has that power over me at 81. Bergen was the character I had the most reservations about. I never liked her TV role of Murphy Brown much, but here she shines. I loved her projections of herself on her contented cat. Steenburgen had the most difficult role because she was still in a relationship. However, the scene with the cop stopping her and Bruce after she spiked his beer with Viagra was funny. Nelson was very good as the reluctant husband finding his way after retirement. Garcia was excellent as the pilot who wanted to whisk Diane away. Johnson was very good as the very romantic younger man who still held a lot of love for Vivian. Dreyfus was funny and appropriately stuffy as the accountant that had found his match. Them getting out of the back seat of Sharon’s car was funny. Bill Holderman and Erin Simms wrote a script that worked for these actors. Holderman’s direction was strong enough to get me laughing out loud.

Overall: I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

RED

First Hit: A silly fun film which showed off the quirkiness of some great actors.

I like films like RED which are a farce but reasonably put together enough to make it fun. I like when the implausible is made plausible enough so that I can sit back and just go for the ride. RED is one such film.

Is any of it plausible? No, but that isn’t the point. The point is to create enough of a plot with some writing which fit the actors range, yet move them enough outside their norm to make it enjoyable.

Frank Moses (played by Bruce Willis) is a retired CIA spook who, years ago, happened to be on a mission in Guatemala where the current Vice President got himself skewed by giving favors to a corporate executive named Alexander Dunning (played by Richard Dreyfuss).

The story begins to leak and a reporter is killed as are others who were on the mission. Moses was on the mission and is now being hunted. He innocently gets hooked up with a Social Security Claims associate named Sarah Ross (played by Mary-Louise Parker) because he likes the sound of her voice over the phone but meeting Moses means she is hunted as well.

To get out of this mess Moses finds others who were on the same mission in Guatemala to warm them that a CIA operative is out to kill them because they know the Vice President’s past. There is Joe Matheson (played by Morgan Freeman) who is dying of cancer, has nothing else to live for and thinks stopping these useless deaths is important.

Then there is Marvin Boggs (played by John Malkovich) who is paranoid, thinks the government is always after him and may mistakenly think a particular person is out to kill him but is often times right. These people are joined by Victoria (played by Helen Mirren) who is steely eyed and ready to kill someone at the drop of a hat (just to keep her finger in the pie).

All these older CIA covert operations people (RED Retired Extremely Dangerous) are out to expose the truth because if they don’t the current CIA will kill them.

Willis is great with his typical sarcastic wit conjuring up a way to resolve the crisis he finds himself. Dreyfuss is fine as the man behind the scenes with money and the stings which are pulling on the VP and soon to be President. Parker is a perfect fit as the girl living in Kansas City who’s never seen or done anything in her life as she gets pulled into the espionage mess and enjoys the change of life. Freeman is perfect as the sound thinker and always ready to do the right thing for the team even if it means pulling a trigger or being on the other end of the bullet. Malkovich is perfect as the right on the edge guy who spent many of his early years in the Army’s LSD program. Mirren was funny in her out of character role firing machine guns and wasting other’s lives. For fun Ernest Borgnine the CIA deep dark records keeper is a joy to see again. Jon and Eric Hoeber wrote this in a funny tongue-in-cheek sort of way while Robert Schwentke made the best of his actors and a tight script that moved things along in a silly funny sort of way.

Overall: It was a romp, easy to watch, predictable and engaging.

W.

First Hit: This could have been more hard hitting on the worst ever president to have lived in the White House during my lifetime. However, it did have some interesting and shining poignant moments.

With my own personal dislike of our President George W. Bush, I was hoping for something more devastating.

With that aside, W. seemed, at times, a fair representation of some of The President’s frustration of growing up the son of a powerful politico and his gullibility to listen to some of the people he surrounded himself with.

The film intersperses the years leading up to his decision to invade Iraq including snippets of his college hell raising days, his quitting numerous jobs, his less than honest and stellar military service, his meeting of Laura (played by Elizabeth Banks), and other events; most of them being seen as failures by his father.

Oliver Stone, the director, surrounds The President (played by Josh Brolin) with strong actors playing the parts of the cabinet. Richard Dreyfuss plays Dick Cheney, Scott Glenn plays Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones, plays Karl Rove, Thandie Newton plays Condoleezza Rice and Jeffrey Wright plays General Colin Powell. There are numerous characters in this film but the interchange between the aforementioned was the most interesting to me. Rove acted as a puppet master, Cheney was the bully, Rumsfeld was off the wall, Rice was silly and meaningless, and Powell as someone reluctant to go against the hard edge bully. Bush comes off as believing he actually knew something but because God wanted him to be President he is simply “The Decider”.

Brolin does an excellent job of capturing many of The President’s mannerisms and ways of speaking. Dreyfus “gets” Cheney and links the public views with the behind the scenes reality of him. Jones captures Rove well and as the non-assuming puppet master and intellectual. Newton plays Rice as a twit which is far different than the public Rice we’re given. Wright plays Powell with less assurance than the public Powell. Stone doesn’t go over the top like he has in other films but I would have like more understanding of how The President got his calling and how he felt he was doing God’s work.

Overall: This was a really good film although not a great film. I enjoyed watching it and it brought together many salient aspects as to why The President acts the way he does. In some ways it left me with the feeling that maybe each President needs to go through a psychological profile before he can serve the country; W. would have failed the profile.