Pawn Sacrifice

First Hit:  Fascinating story about a complicated fascinating man.

I learned chess because of Bobby Fischer in the late 1960's early 1970's. I had heard about this young man who was lighting up the chess world and wanted to know what this game was about. Learning more about chess I immediately saw the complexity of the game and wondered about the minds of people who played this game for a living.

In this film Fischer (played by Tobey Maguire) grows up in a household he found confusing and distracting. His solace – chess. He played all the time - day and night and early on he was out in the streets playing in the public parks in Brooklyn. He then started playing multiple people/boards at one time, winning most all the time.

This film follows the story from his youth until he plays Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) in Reykjavik, Iceland, then follows up with pictures and information as to what happened to the reclusive Fischer. Although the American public was supportive of the way he defeated “The Russians” in an intellectual discipline the Russians excelled in; Fischer spouted anti American and anti-semitic remarks to media through his paranoid nature which caused him to be at issue with both the government and many of the public.

As his friend and fellow chess coach Father Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard) said, Bobby went down the rabbit hole and would never come out. The mixture and use of real video/film of the time in this film was very good and added to a realistic view of this story and joy of these performances.

Maguire was really good at flipping from appearing sane and then being unstable. Schreiber was great as Spassky, his command of arrogance and humility at his loss to Fischer was perfect. Sarsgaard was really good as his friend, coach and understanding priest. Steven Knight wrote a very strong script while Edward Zwick’s directional use of old footage as well was excellent.

Overall:  I loved seeing this film because of the memories of the time, the memories it sparked within me and getting to learn something about a very driven person.

Black Mass

First Hit:  Very disappointing film as there is little substance about Whitey’s motivation to be the criminal he was.

I was looking forward to seeing this film, because I thought I’d learn something about James “Whitey” Bulger, the man who was on the FBI’s 10 most wanted lists for years.

I learned very little except he, as Johnny Depp played him, had a brother named Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch) that was a State Senator, his childhood friend named John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) was an FBI agent, and that he became an FBI informant to further his criminal career. But there was nothing about what drove Whitey to his life of crime and even more, nothing around the deeper motivation for his killing and crime spree.

The side story about Connolly was mediocre and, in this film, it was obvious his association with Whitey was ill-used and inappropriate. It was bad script-writing, poor direction, poor acting and/or a combination of any of these resulting in the audience being un-engaged while the payoff never arrived.

Depp had a great look for the film, and it appears he did what the script and director called for, but there wasn’t enough there to make it interesting. Cumberbatch was excellent in his small role and his meetings with Connolly were perfectly executed. Edgerton was OK, and it issue seemed to be the way the script was written and how the director wanted him to be emphatic about how Whitey was helping the FBI. It just didn’t see it working as a real story. Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth wrote the script that lacked backstory as to why Whitey took up a life of crime while his brother became a State Senator. Scott Cooper didn’t seem to see how the way he filmed this story lacked interest. The subject is a fascinating one, but it was all lost within intense vignettes.

Overall:  This film lacked depth and interest.

Rosenwald

First Hit:  I love when I get to learn something new, and to have it be about a humble yet an amazing person, sublime perfection.

Julius Rosenwald did something that had me absolutely amazed. As the CEO of Sears Roebuck company, he founded a way to build over 5,300 all black schools throughout the South.

In the early part of the 20th Century Afro-Americans were not allowed to attend the white only schools in the South. The schools they were attending were in poor run down, left to die, buildings and the people who taught the kids were either barely or not educated themselves.

Working with Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee University, Rosenwald devised a plan to create a way that prompted communities to build new schools using financing from Rosenwald.

This film also talked about Rosenwald’s other philanthropy efforts through grants and other organizations. The filmmakers used archival footage, scenes from films that represented the time, and recent interviews to create an amazing tale of giving. However for me the coup de grace was short footage of him giving a talk about his success – beautifully humble.

Aviva Kempner wrote and directed this amazing biographical documentary of an amazing man.

Overall:  This was a great, humbling, and honorable story of a very benevolent man.

Listen to me Marlon

First Hit:  It was very interesting to hear Marlon Brando speak about his acting and his life.

Two performances of Brando’s still stand out to me; “On the Waterfront” and “Godfather”. My reason for these two among many powerful roles, was that the first captures him young and new to the profession, while the latter was after years of experience and the subtly and strength of his ability to be at the top of his game showed through.

This film has many still pictures of Brando, a few film clips of him in a particular film and clips of him outside of film-making. For the most part the voice overs are minimal and it is Brando’s voice taken from recordings he made for himself. There are also voice mail recordings from his answering machine and a couple interview segments.

What struck me about this was how strongly he felt about bringing a character to life through the use of facial expressions, looks, and an embodiment of the person in his own body. He commented on how many actors before him just gave their personality to each role they played. He didn't feel that they brought a character to the role and he found that disdainful.

The film also documented his personal life and the difficult things that happened to his son and daughter.

Steven Riley and Peter Ettedgui wrote this with a strong focus towards telling Marlon’s story. Riley did a great job of piecing together snippets of film and audio material into a great story.

Overall:  It was a fascinating look at a great actor.

Straight Outta Compton

First Hit:  Loved watching these young men fight through police repression to make a name for themselves.

I’ll deal with the downsides of this film first:  It needed about 30 minutes trimmed from its running time. And two, I would have liked a little more about what connected Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), Dr. Dre (Cory Hawkins) and Easy-E (Jason Mitchell) to each other.

The film had the relationships at a slight arms distance, and it may have been how they were, but it just seemed to me that there may have been more to the depth of their connection (especially Dre and Cube). The most powerful parts of the film were how situations with Police drove Ice Cube to write amazing powerful lyrics and then, of course, the concert scenes.

The climatic concert scene was the Detroit concert where the cops told them to not sing “Fuck Tha Police”. Of course they did, using their amendment driven rights of free speech to tell their story. This was was followed by a riot and arrest. The sadness of Easy-E and Jerry Heller's (Paul Giamatti)  greed was hard to watch, especially when the others trusted them. They were getting theirs while the rest of the group wasn’t.

Then in comes Suge Knight (R. Marcus Taylor) bullying himself into saving the day, but really only for his benefit. The film also gives glimpses of Snoop Dogg and Tupac. We get to see Ice figure out he needs to leave NWA and go out successfully on his own. Then we see Dre figure out he needs to control his own destiny as well. He leaves Death Row Records and starts Aftermath through Interscope Records and Jimmy Iovine. Anyone who knows anything about music knows that Aftermath has a stable of amazing rappers, including 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem.

This films gives a great lesson and view of the West Coast rap scene.

Jackson Jr. was incredibly strong as Ice and playing his dad must have been interesting and amazing. Hawkins was wonderful as Dre. My favorite scene was when his blew up at Death Row Records office which was followed by his telling Suge, “I’m out”. Mitchell was sublime as the wheeler-dealer E. His first scene of him learning to rap was fantastic, along his finding out that he had AIDs were spot on. Giamatti was very good as NWA’s first manager. My favorite scene was when he was pleading with E to not leave – but always stating that he took care of his end. Taylor was incredibly sublime as Suge. He had the cigar smoking attitude down pat. Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff wrote a very strong, intelligent, and pointed script. Outside that I think the film was too long, F. Gary Gray’s direction was very good.

Overall:  This was a very strong film about West Coast rap scene and I liked it.