Whitney

First Hit: Although the film is strong, I didn’t learn much about Whitney and learned a fair amount about her enabling family and supporters whom she financially supported.

One doesn’t need to be a Whitney Huston fan to acknowledge her amazing voice. It is also true that not everyone who has an amazing talent also has the ability and presence to manage their life in a productive mindful way. This film shows this.

The film states that her mother (Cissy) pushed her hard, as a young girl, to learn to use her voice. Music ran throughout her family and extended family with relatives Dionne Warwick and her sister Dee Dee Warwick. At family gatherings the interviewees discussed having singalongs instead of conversations.

Religion was also a backdrop in their lives as both Cissy and Whitney sang in the church choir.

The film shares some Whitney’s early singing as well as her adult singing and when it shows one of her last concerts, where her bloated body tried to belt out “I Will Always Love You” with her tired drug addled cigarette hampered raspy voice, the sadness of her life and her lack of preparedness, for life itself, was astoundingly sad.

As the story is told, Whitney’s parents were gone a lot and that meant they, Whitney and her siblings, were not raised in an environment that allowed them to grow mindful of the workings of the world. When her brother Gary bragged about how he and Whitney could out drug use Bobby Brown, he was stating it with pride – really, he felt good about this. That both Gary and Whitney indicated they were abused by a woman at very young ages only tells part of why they were ill prepared to deal with the complexity of wealth and fame.

What the film lacked was depth and maybe this was because Whitney lacked depth. The film stated, she liked to party, she liked to sleep, she liked sex, and she liked that she was fawned over. Maybe that was the point, Whitney had a talent that she didn’t have to work at and then rode this talent into the depths of insolvency. Her lack of practiced effort to be in-charge of her talent and life was born out by how the film showed that her amazing rendition of the Star Spangle Banner at the Super Bowl was the first time she ever sang it. What made this notable was that her arranger had the music switched from 3/4 time to 4/4 time to take advantage of her voice. Although an amazing rendition and feat to sing it for first time in this way, it also showed that she didn’t work at her gift and relied on it to make her money to support her lifestyle which was loaded with hangers on who ended up bankrupting her.

Proof of this such greed by her team was when her father sued her for $100 million dollars for his part in securing a record deal. Everybody ignored her rampant and public drug use. Her father even told her she didn’t have to go into a treatment center.

Her real only friend, Robyn Crawford, with whom she had an intimate relationship with, was canned because her overbearing and measly talented husband Bobby Brown was jealous and gave Whitney an ultimatum.

What the film didn’t show, and it could have been true, that Whitney was capable of anything much more than singing. Proved out by the people she kept around to do things for her and she even farmed off parenting of her daughter Bobby Kristina.

We all know the end. It was very sad and an end to the life of a major powerful singing talent. However, as this film unfolded, seeing her life as was filmed it could have only ended this way.

All told, the film was well done. Great intersperses of Whitney singing brought some joy and reflective pauses to a film about self-destruction. The interviews were to the point and allowed for and showed the interviewees emotive pauses. When Bobby Brown was asked about drug use, he stated that this film wasn’t supposed to explore this and had nothing to do with Whitney’s life. Bobby’s objective stupidity and his harm on Whitney and their now dead daughter, reign as proof.

Kevin McDonald did a great job of splicing together interesting material about this incredibly voiced person. But who was Whitney? I’m still left with that question.

Overall: I liked the film and the opportunity to hear Whitney’s talent, but who was she?

Winchester

First Hit:  This film needed to be taken out back and shot with a Winchester rifle.

I’ve been to the Winchester mansion in San Jose. It is a very interesting structure and although currently it is large, 4 stories in some sections, it was once much larger at seven stories high in places. But after the 1906 earthquake, also a plot device in the film, it got reduced in size.

The basic story about the house is that Sarah built this house to capture and confuse the ghosts resulting from people who died by her husband’s rifles. She was told by a medium, that she needed to amend for her husbands invention of the repeating rifle. This film takes the bent that because she owned a huge portion of her deceased husband's company, Winchester Repeating Arms Company, the board of directors thought she was crazy to be building this house, and wanted a negative evaluation of Sarah Winchester’s (Helen Mirren) mental capabilities to take back control of the company.

The directors hire Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke) who’s imbibing Laudanum to ease the pain of losing his wife who killed herself with a Winchester Rifle after wounding him with the same rifle, to analyze Sarah and report back to the board.

They pressure him to determine that Sarah is crazy. He arrives at Winchester’s house and has dealings with staff, niece Marion Marriot (Sarah Snook), her son, and ghosts. Because Sarah is driven to house and appease all the ghosts, building rooms onto the house goes on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. People are always working on the house.

The film tries to make a compelling ghost and horror story about Sarah, Marion’s son, and Eric and how, together, they fight to kill one rambunctious ghost, Ben Block (Eamon Farren).

I cannot tell you anything I liked about this film. It was shot way to darkly (in color) and they showed very little of the peculiarities of the house itself. Winchester House is interesting and fascinating and this film does nothing with this, they just made a poorly constructed and contrived ghost story.

Mirren was OK in a role and script that didn’t become her abilities. Clarke was poor. His choices, as directed in the film’s script, were poorly done and not well thought out. The story of his demise felt contrived. Snook tired to be sincere but it was the role and script that failed her. Peter and Michael Spierig wrote and directed this mess. I’m not sure how they got funding for this, and my guess is that they will be hard pressed to get funding for a future project.

Overall:  This film is a waste of any money used to go see it, let alone make it.

The Post

First Hit:  A powerful film about the power of the press to share the truth to the American public and how a woman finds own her power and strength.

People who weren’t born early enough to experience the power of the press in 1971, as depicted in this film, may get a chance to witness this power with today’s political climate.

However, one of the most powerful parts of this film has nothing to do with the press, government secrets, or how the government lied to the public; it has to do with how a woman, Kay (Katharine) Graham (Meryl Streep), found her inner strength and resolve to make a decision that changed history.

Graham grew up privileged, pampered, and cared for. Her life was a world where men, for the most part, ruled the world and roost.

The film opens with her in the throes of finalizing a public offering of The Washington Post's stock. She’s doing this because she's in-charge and the company needs money to survive. When her father died, he'd given control of the paper to her husband who committed suicide which left her in control of the paper.

With a cadre of all male advisors, she is being coached through the steps to make The Post financially stable. However, she struggles to find her words while balancing her social duties as a well-to-do hostess of the Washington elite.

The scene where all the secretaries (that’s what assistants were called then) are gathered in front of the meeting room where she alone would enter a room full of male bankers and other investors, said it all.

As the film unfolds, we get a glimpse of the men she relied on to help her navigate the rough and tumble world of newspapers, the company, and finance. Among the men she works with were her Executive Editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), who seems to hold Graham in high regard and encourages her to stand up and take charge. Additionally there was Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) who was Secretary of Defense in the lying Nixon administration and a very close family friend of Graham’s. Then there was Fritz Beebe (Tracy Letts) the Post’s Chairman of the Board, in addition to a few others.

The issue that takes her to task and brings her to the forefront is that The New York Times has a headline written from the stolen Pentagon Papers. These secrets were taken from The Rand Corporation by Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys). On the same day The Times headlines this information, her paper has Trisha Nixon's wedding as their headline.

Ellsberg had discovered that the government, through a recent study sponsored by McNamara, had been lying to the country about our involvement in Vietnam.

With this exposed, Nixon's Department of Justice sent The New York Times a cease and desist. In the background, Bradlee, hating to be scooped by the Times sent Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) to find out how to get a copy of the leaked papers. They contact Ellsberg and get boxes of the original papers and begin to write stories to publish.

The awakening and climax is: Will Katharine publish the papers and risk being shut down by the government? Will it negate the public offering? And, will everyone at The Post lose their jobs? This is where the film really is dynamically excellent. The conversations Katharine has with her daughter Lally (Alison Brie), Bradlee, McNamara, and Letts are beautifully constructed and powerfully executed.

Streep was sublime as a woman discovering and then using her power. The evolution of Graham during this film is exquisite. Hanks is extremely strong in his role of protecting the freedom of the press. Odenkirk is fantastic as the assigned Post reporter to find the papers and get The Post back in the fray. Rhys was excellent as Ellsberg for whom I bow to for taking the risk of losing his freedom to tell US citizens the truth of our government’s deceit. Greenwood was great as McNamara. Serving Nixon and being honest with Graham, his friend, was a difficult task. Letts was strong as The Post’s chairman. He wanted and supported Katharine's growth. Brie was perfect as Graham’s daughter. Her role in the bedroom scene added so much to Katharine’s growth. Liz Hannah and Josh Singer wrote an excellent, inviting, and movingly strong script. Steven Spielberg hasn’t lost his touch to create ways for the audience to become fully engaged with his films. The scenes (living room with the papers strung about, the corporate boardroom, the rumbling of the presses starting up shaking the upstairs desks) are typical Spielberg, full, complete, and excellent. However, it was coaxing excellent performances where his ability to work with actors that shined most.

Overall:  This film is perfect for the times; the growing strength of women and holding our government accountable.

I, Tonya

First Hit: A very engaging story, supremely well-acted, and one of this years best films.

I loved how this film effectively dances between talking directly to the audience through interview cameras and commenting right at the audience during dramatic scenes, while giving us a straight up film. Breaking the plane between the story and the audience isn’t always done very effectively, but here it is perfect.

Tonya Harding (Margo Robbie) was well known as a rough, scrappy, and physical ice skater in the mid 1980’s through the mid 1990’s. She was raised by her abusive mother LaVona (Allison Janney) who threw her on the ice rink because that is all the seven-year-old Tonya wanted to do.

According to the film, LaVona hit Tonya, once threw a knife at her, but most egregiously never showed any empathy, love or caring towards Tonya. All she kept harping on was that she spent all her waitressing money on Tonya’s skating. She was so cold and mean that Tonya grew up knowing nothing about what a supportive, caring, or loving relationship might even look like.

What kept Tonya going through life was her ability to skate and skate well. She was the first woman to ever land a triple axel (3.5 spins in the air landing backwards on the outside edge of the skate) in a competition as well as completing two triple axels in a single competition. As a competitor, she was heads above everyone else in technical merit, scoring the first perfect 6.0 in the U.S. Championships. However, her hard scrabble background was reflected in her presentation scores. Because she was less graceful than physical and had poorly created handmade costumes, these scores were always low. Lastly, she also suffered from asthma which, at times inhibited her ability to skate with inner ease.

The worst and defining moment of her career was when her husband, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), helped to plan a physical attack on Tonya’s chief skating friend and rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). The actual attack by Shane Stant (Ricky Russert) on Kerrigan’s knee was set into motion by Gillooly’s closest friend Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). This attack was to give Tonya an advantage at the U.S. Championships and Olympics.

The film used faux, current day and after the fact, interviews of Tonya, Jeff, Shawn, and LaVona to set up certain sequences and sections of this story. The ice skating scenes were well done and effective in showing Tonya’s skating style. Having remembered watching these performances back when they actually happened, they conjured up the direct memories effectively.

Robbie was exquisite as the hard scrabble, poorly educated, and socially inept Tonya. Robbie did some of the skating scenes, and her ability to own Tonya’s physical presence while channeling her inner struggles was what made this work. Janney was beyond amazing as the uncaring emotionless LaVona. She was almost scary and her sitting in the faux interviews with the bird picking at her ear was inspired. Stan as the poorly educated and impulsive Gillooly, whose name became a verb for knee beating, was excellent. Watching him smolder, ready to burst into anger, reflected his inability to help Tonya. Hauser was perfect as the self-promoting dolt who was proud that he made history by hurting Kerrigan. His insistence that he was in international spy and agent was excellent. Julianne Nicholson as Tonya’s skating teacher and trainer, Diane Rawlinson, was excellent. Her slightly distanced engaged caring in working with Tonya and LaVona when Tonya was young and later, as an Olympian, was wonderful. Steven Rogers wrote an excellent screenplay. Craig Gillespie’s direction was spot on perfect. The vision came alive on the screen and I was fully engaged from the beginning.

Overall:  This was truly a fun, empathetic, and engaging story and film about Tonya Harding.

Molly's Game

First Hit:  Although a very interesting story, I felt pummeled by the constant voice overs and rapid fire conversational tone of most of the scenes.

This is a powerful and interesting story about a young woman who had a promising career in ski racing, but because of an injury, headed to California to clear her head and ended up running a gambling operation.

Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) was raised by her father, Larry (Kevin Costner), to be competitive and self-reliant at whatever she did. He was her primary ski coach and was a well-respected psychologist and pushed her with little mercy. There are numerous scenes in the film to help set-up this important dynamic.

When Molly leaves the skiing scene and heads to CA, she is doing it to relax, save some money and get her head together before she heads to law school. However, she ends up working for Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong) who is a small time real estate developer who happens to have a gambling problem as well. To make money, Keith holds gambling nights and invites Hollywood stars to his games. One such person, Player X (Michael Cera), plays well, wins often and likes to destroy his opponents. The games start out as cash games with the buy-in being $10K per player.

Keith tells Molly to set-up and run the games while he participates as one of the players. She gets really good tips from the players which far exceeds what she makes as a waitress and working for Keith’s real estate firm.

At one point Keith decides he cannot afford to pay Molly for her employment work and tells her to subsist on her tips from the running the games. She decides to run her own games when Keith fires her.

She becomes the "go-to" person for holding these card games. She knows that as long as she doesn’t take a skim/draw from the table it is all legal. However, some of her clients don’t have the cash and she ends up carrying them. So to protect herself she begins to skim from the table stakes which means that what she’s doing is now illegal.

When she opens a game in New York City, with $250K buy-ins, the Russians become players and this is when the shit hits the fan. The FBI is looking to see how the Russians are laundering money and they suspect Molly is doing this. When they raid her home as well as many of the other player’s homes, Molly refuses to give up any names. Because she’s facing huge prison sentence, she hires Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba) to defend her.

Much of the film uses Molly and Charlie’s meetings as a jumping off point for viewing past scenes. During these flashbacks, Molly does voice overs to set-up the scenes. This happens a lot during the film and is generally effective. However, the intense, combative, and defensive way Molly speaks in the voice overs to set up the flashbacks, to Charlie, and to everyone else wore on me and I think the audience as well.

It became almost affrontive and I found myself wanting to tell Molly to take a break, breath and tell me what’s going on.

At the end when her father, Larry, comes back into the picture and they have three years of therapy in three minutes, Molly finally breathes.

Chastain was very strong as Molly. I felt Molly’s drive through her. Elba was also very strong as Molly’s attorney. His own intense nature was equally matched with Chastain’s. Strong was excellent as the semi-slimy guy who took advantage of Molly and got his comeuppance. Cera was great as Player X. His inner intelligence and drive to win and make people feel their losses was excellent. Costner was wonderful as the father and the scene of them during the three-minute therapy session where he will give the answers she’s looking for was perfect. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed this story with an edge that didn’t quite work for me. The rapid fire conversational tone, eventually wore me down and pushed me away from the film.

Overall:  I loved the story and didn’t like the rapid fire beating I took to get the story.