Interesting and intelligent tale of intrigue revolving around some investigative attorneys chasing down leads that suggest an intelligence agency might be responsible for a huge disaster similar to the World Trade Tower in 2001.

Interesting and watchable even though they tap into the current hysteria about National Security Agencies collecting data on the general public (most pundits think there is no convincing evidence of evil intent.)

The reality is that intelligence agencies don’t go around killing people that might connect them to wrongdoing. If that were the case, both Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden would be reposing in shallow graves somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire.

Intelligence agencies both here and in Britain collect organize and root out information as in “Zero Dark Thirty”. None of John Lecarre’s characters ever became involved in any kind of violence. James Bond is a plausible myth, but a myth just the same. John Drake of “Secret Agent” (1960-62) never carried any kind of weapon and said “Oh Dear” a lot when confronted with danger.

However, it’s fun to surmise that intelligence agencies could evolve to all kinds of violent trickery as in “The Manchurian Candidate (Frank Sinatra, 1962) and “The Parallax View” (Warren Beatty, 1974).  “Bond about to be sectioned by a hot laser beam: “Do you expect me to talk?  Auric Goldfinger:  “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”

All that said, if you’re wiling to forgive the obvious paranoia, the film is interesting, well acted, coherent and offers a lot of intrigue, much like a LeCarre film.

Worst feature:  Like LeCarre, the plot is slower than it could have been.

Best feature: Near the end, Jim Broadbent as the sinister Attorney General explaining to Eric Bana how the system will effectively deal with the apparent legal mess as a self fulfilling prophesy.

Oddity:  One of the characters in named Farroukh, which is the real first name of the late Freddy Mercury, “Queen” front man who was born in Zanzibar and educated in India.

I thought it was intelligent and interesting.

I give it three of five cryptic cell phone warnings.

Not reviewed well by Rotten Tomatoes and others. The reviews complain that Kutcher does a passable job of creating a caricature of Jobs, but never gets inside the man.

But I strongly disagree for a lot of reasons.

I agree that the film doesn’t do a super job of exploring the intricacies of one of the most influential men of our century.  However, I think it’s impossible to portray Jobs in film.  In the end, I think Kutcher does a yeoman job of becoming a Steve Jobs we can understand, right up to the uncompromising, piercing glare that put the fear of God into so many of those that knew and worked with him.

If you want to see inside Steve Jobs, a much better visual is the 14 minutes or so of his commencement address to the Stanford graduating class of 2005. A fascinating must-watch.

The thing about Jobs is that his genius perceived the need for products that would be in demand for a market that didn’t exist and for a population that knew nothing about any of it. To show users what they need, then supply it. A cryptic talent that can’t be interpreted on film.  Like most authentic geniuses, Jobs is also bathed in imperfections and inadequacies that swirl around him as he changes the world, unclear whether they held him back or were a silent but integral part of his genius.

Business experts said Jobs had little or no business talent and got by on dumb luck.  It was remarked frequently that although he was a genius at creative innovations he would have been an unqualified disaster as President (of the United States). His genius was not arriving at the future, but getting there.  At some point in his past, his colleagues put up a banner stating: “Steve: The Journey is the Reward”.

A personal note: Sometime in 1984 I wandered into a computer shop looking to see if there was an upgrade for my Radio Shack TRS 80 with whopping 16 kilobytes of RAM. I was shown the latest IBM offering, something called a PC Jr, which was clearly junk. Over in the corner, all by itself was a greenish tan shell and keyboard smirking at me. I asked about it to be told it wasn’t a serious computer; a toy that would vanish in a few months and I needed to stick with the tried and true IBM.

Then the shell stopped smirking and flat out dared me.  So I tentatively wandered over there and was struck by lightning never to depart from the Apple Markee. As the years progressed, it was said that the difference between Macintosh users and “all others” was that Mac users were immature, insolent, audacious, impertinent, contrary, defiant, oppositional, nonconformist and conflicting. I can assure you all that’s true in spades and it all radically changed the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjgtLSHhTPg

Worst feature:  Jobs’ hunched, loping gait looked contrived.

Best feature:  The Woz’s soliloquy informing jobs he was quitting Apple.

“Jobs” is entertaining, coherent and Kutcher nails Jobs as well as can be expected. I can’t think of anyone that could do it better.

I give it a solid 4 of 5 piercing stares.

Recommended by me..

Coming soon, eagerly awaited:  “Rush” directed by Ron Howard. The story of the fabled competition between James Hunt and Nikki Lauda in the mid-70s Formula-One racing circus.

A morality play about illegal immigration built on an Amalgam of three other films:

Oblivion (Tom Cruise- 2013)
Blade Runner (Harrison Ford- 1982)
Mad Max (Mel Gibson-1979)

And of course the obligatory CGI backdrop, although some scenes were filmed in Mexico.

It’s way far in the future and the earth is a hopeless overcrowded, polluted chunk of misery. The rich and entitled have moved to Elysium, a huge rotating space station full of mansions and Stepford Wives, overseen by a particularly cold blooded “Homeland Security” officer insuring no dilution of the lifestyle occurs from the unwashed denizens below.

Matt Damon is an earthbound guy with a quickly terminal disease trying to get to Elysium for the freely available curative health care. By an accidental chain of events, everyone needs to catch Damon for different reasons, so the second half of the film is a prolonged chase replete with the obligatory CGI pyrotechnics.

The film is a thinly veiled criticism of what some consider our current immigration policy to be, with a side comment on universal health care. This criticism of the inequity of closed borders fails to address bigger pictures such as how it got that way and how the earth might benefit over the long haul owning a small respite. The portrayal of the earthly losers and the rich entitled are both overblown for effect.

The story line is small-bore, the “real” problems of immigration are minimized or ignored and the inability to effectively kill any of the villains becomes tedious. An aging Jodie Foster is woefully miscast and doesn’t come off as a bloodless bureaucrat. Matt Damon puts in a lifeless performance that could have been accomplished by any other minor leaguer.

That said, the villains came more to life than the heros. South African filmmaker Sharlto Copley, with his strange quasi-Australian accent is impeccably menacing and effectively evil with a smarmy twist. Brazilian Wagner Moura is super as the overwrought computer hacker bent on taking over Elysium. the villains are far more interesting than the heros.

Best feature: Sharlto Copley

Worst feature: Matt Damon’s silly ectoplasm. Too many improbably endless chase scenes.

I give it 2 of five computer screens screwed into Damon’s skull. Wait till it comes around on HBO and root for the villains

I am professor of Critical Care Medicine and Neurologic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh  Medical Center in Pittsburgh, PA.

“Superman” originated as a comic in June 1938. The thrust was to present a hero pre-war depression public could identify with, mysterious and omnipotent, fighting crime and standing up for the common man.  After 75 years, this action hero continues to be an American cultural icon; star of radio serials, television programs, films, newspaper funnies, video games and of course- “Man of Steel” (2013). Action Comics Volume 1, #1 (first Superman issue) in poor condition recently sold at auction for US$175,000. A pristine copy sold for over two million dollars in 2011.

Like the original story line, we’re given a lengthy history of how the planet Krypton came to be destroyed and the clash over good and evil involved in sending it’s genetic material out into space in the hope it would plant somewhere hospitable. The original story line then departs quickly and becomes more labored. The Superman character departs from the usual attributes of strength, flight and x-ray vision to encompass the more dubious elements of vulnerability and a political conscious.

After the child lands on earth and is nurtured by Kevin Costner, the film collapses in more blinding special effects than when God created the universe. Any semblance of plot vanishes as the protagonists destroy most of Metropolis by slinging each other into buildings, with incredulous bystanders gawking as they did when Godzilla wiped out Tokyo. This goes on nonstop for over 45 minutes, culminated by the ultimate hero finishing the deed after all that destruction by a quiet snap. The point of all that trashing?

After seeing this monstrosity and reading audience reviews, it’s clear why there is nothing on network television anymore but empty headed “reality” shows and dimwit sisters talking dirty on camera to preserve their “brand”. Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan are giving the pubic exactly what they want. A thin plot for about an hour punctuated by another hour and a half of overwrought CGI pyrotechnics. Simplistic one-dimensional characters caught in a barrage of exploding buildings, aircraft, spacecraft, and hapless citizens running through the streets like wet rats. It’s the film allegory equivalent of “American Idol” and “The Voice”. For whatever reason, this is what the public wants and they’re out seeing it in droves.

Best quip:  Lois Lane shortly after kissing Superman: “You must remember that culturally, it’s all downhill after the first kiss”.

Best brief cameo role:  Richard Schiff (Toby on the West Wing).

Best feature: The first hour is entertaining.

Worst feature:  At two and a half hours it’s TOO LONG, and the last hour and a half is nothing but CGI pyrotechnics that get BOOOOORING after the first ten minutes.

This film is as embarrassing to first-rate filmmaking as disco was to blue chip music. Be prepared for gait and balance abnormalities on leaving the theater. Maybe seizures.

I give it 3 of 5 “Hope” chests, and that’s a gift for Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner.

“Space: the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds,
to seek out new life and new civilizations,
to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

In order to Savor the new generation “Star Trek” series produced/directed by JJ Abrams, you sort of have had to be there for the original beginning in ‘66’, cancelled by NBC in ’69 due to low ratings. However, NBC and others failed to recognize the impact of this series on American culture and it eventually spawned five more similar series and 12 films. In 2011, the decision to cancel Star Trek by NBC was ranked #4 on the TV Guide special: “The 25 Biggest TV Blunders 2”.

JJ Abrams re-created the first of the truly high-tech Star Treks in 2009, retroactively re-uniting most of the original characters in their youth and the beginning of their Star Fleet careers. The ’09 film worked well and set the stage for the latest Iteration this month: “Star Trek II: Into Darkness” which should have been a smooth, logical transition.

Unfortunately, the new film doesn’t completely deliver as it could have.  The story line is hokey and needlessly convoluted, tending to wring overacting skills rather than character development from its participants. Abrams tends to use flash and light shows to augment and ultimately replace plot. The villain isn’t very believable and the crisis involving Kirk at the end elicited groans from the audience. Bones McCoy is particularly rendered a caricature of his original self (“Damn it Jim….I’m a DOCTOR, not a engineering technician!).

3-D adds little and the IMAX experience ends up bloated and feeding on itself, promoting sore necks from audiences heads moving side to side for two hours. Chris Pine was mildly disappointing this time around, unable to grab a firm connection to the plot or the audience. Zachary Quinto as Spock was given a meatier role than last time and he runs with it well. The rest of the cast were either throw-aways or add-ons.

Best part:  The coherent story line and action sequences in the first five minutes, all of which dissolved quickly.

Worst part:  Too much flash and glitz, quickly numbing the audience like a big screen JLo concert. McCoy’s irritating use of glitzy metaphors for every occasion: “You don’t rob a bank when the getaway car has a flat tire!”

I was disappointed in this effort. JJ Abrams succumbed to dumbing down the film for a quick box office blast from thrill seekers. He should have demanded better writing and more substance. He could have had it.

I give it three of five Blond PhDs with great legs knowledgeably fiddling with photon torpedo innards.

Released in 2012, “Looking for Sugar Man” was rarely seen by the average viewer despite a stellar rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and an Oscar for best documentary at the 85^th Academy Awards. Never released for wide distribution, many viewers saw it on airplane entertainment consoles.

The film details the story of a talented singer/songwriter in the genre of Bob Dylan that arrived in the early 70s, essentially a social injustice protester without the marketing money that Dylan enjoyed. He make two well received albums that never sold, and then vanished into the mist like many others of his ilk and time.

But talent is rarely completely vanquished even though it may not be marketable.  The artist’s eloquent musical attacks on social injustice emerged halfway across the world in South Africa where it became bigger a seller than the Rolling Stones or Elvis. One of his albums sold 500,000 copies 30 years after it was pressed, outselling Abbey Road.

In 1998, two South African record shop managers set about tracking down the artist Sixto Rodriguez in his native Detroit, ultimately finding him in 2011 toiling at construction labor.  This film details that search, and how virtually anyone can be found using the Internet.

Following the film’s release, Mr. Rodriguez has enjoyed some modest reemergence in his American popularity. 30 years is a long time to find the kind of fame Mr. Rodriguez discovers at age 70, but like the old Nashville adage goes: “Anyone with talent will make it big in country music…….eventually”.

The film documentary does much more than detail the search for a personality. It effectively explores the caprice of the rock scene, the nature of celebrity and appends the history of popular music.  Most of all, it’s a revealing saga of how a significant talent could vanish without trace in the world of show business where everything is publicized on Entertainment Tonight, Twitter and the Internet.

The nature of “talent” has always been ephemeral at best and, of course, varies with the eye or ear of the beholder. The popular on-line review site “rottentomatoes.com” shows two ratings for film, viewers and critics. The opinions thereof can be widely variable, the critic portion there to standardize objective benchmarks away from capricious personal opinion.

Accordingly, critical acclaim goes to Mr. Rodriguez for standing in place without extraneous hype or glitz, singing original material accompanying himself serviceably on a single musical instrument. Visions of Paul Simon, Don McLean, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Doc Watson and Kris Kristofferson in the early years.

One rarely if ever sees this kind of talent in the year this film was released. The entire concept of talent has evolved to how much visual and auditory impact an audience can absorb in lieu of simply singing a song with a clear voice and interesting lyrics.

One now sees female vocalists warbling within vividly embellished stages dressed as a ham sandwich, others with pink hair and outfits that can be covered with a thumb. Retina shattering blasts of light and sound accompanied by “Cleopatra”-like stage effects. Vocalists that make the evening edition of Entertainment Tonight when they change their hairstyle.

Tom Wolfe describes it as Plutography- the photography of the rich and famous for being famous.

““Looking for Sugar Man” is a very interesting chronicle of our time and a sad vision of the end of music as an art form as we knew it in the 70s.

Highly recommended by me.

I give it four and a half of five flopped albums.

A very interesting suspense thriller from stem to stern on several levels of intricacy director Stephen Soderbergh is famous for. Begins as a routine expose’ and indictment of manipulative pharmaceuticals that create demand for their products by glib advertising to the lay public and greedy physicians who take money for “recruiting” patients. Soderbergh smoothly lulls the audience into a bit of a yawn; all this has all been worked in the national news.

The audience fairly weeps for the young woman incapacitated by depression, unable to function even in simple social occasions. A pathetic creature that aches for redemption. Enter the wily, perceptive and sharp-witted psychiatrist who tries to sort out her difficulties electively during office hours.  Ultimately, numerous psychoactive medications are tried, none work.

The patient then sees an advertisement for a new anti-depressant on TV and asks to try it. The psychiatrist, eager to try any thing that will improve the situation, eagerly prescribes it, and in time discovers a previously poorly documented side effect, somnambulism (sleep-walking) and is sucked into the events that follow.

Soderbergh doesn’t let the audience in on the aftermath too soon or too quickly but progressively, the entire complexion smoothly and eloquently changes. It’s difficult or impossible to perceive some of the changes in real time. They become apparent at Soderbergh’s leisure, another example of the director’s commitment to subtle but profound film craftsmanship.

Ultimately, this film draws a masterful portrait of sociopaths.  Invariably intelligent creatures with personal magnetism and strong organizational ability.  Charlie Manson and a host of quasi-evangelists come to mind. You cannot manage them. They manage you. They don’t perceive there is anything is wrong with them and they are contemptuous of those who seek to understand them.  They are capable of ruthless projects that would over run Genghis Khan. Given enough rope, however, sociopaths always arrive at the pathologic outcome they build for themselves.

Integral to this process is the truly masterful performance of Rooney Mara, an actress that gave a rather monochromatic performance in “Girl with the Dragon tattoo (2011)”.  No more. She burns up the screen with her portrayal of the pathetic broken little bird and the transformation that follows. Jude Law puts in a masterful performance of the psychiatrist savvy and resourceful enough to play multiple sociopaths against each other like a Stradivarius.

Best quip:  “Girls learn to start faking things about the same time boys learn how to lie”

Best part:  The masterful transition Ms. Mara brings to life when she ultimately recites the truth.

Not so best part: the issue of pharmaceutical dishonesty is glossed over as a diversion and could have been left out completely.

I give it 4.5 broken birds.  Rooney Mara in a  “Must See” role.

The long awaited pageant of obsession, meticulousness, intrigue, suspense and ultimately, vengeance.

The vengeance portion is actually only a small part of the intricate and involuted plot, revolving round Maya, a very Carrie Mathison-like persona from “Homeland”. The similarities are striking and probably indicative of a new breed of CIA intelligence analysts, probably female and certainly consumed with the tedious ask of neutralizing dangerous people in the world. The CIA recruiter knew what he or she was looking for. Maya was recruited out of high school.

The film starts by a rather cold and graphic depiction of the kind of torture politicians deny. This coercion yields small bits and pieces of information, or even lack thereof that when correlated over the long haul yields connections with otherwise undetectable villains.

In real life, it’s unclear whether physical coercion is very effective. The Vietnam experience suggested physical coercion didn’t yield much useful information, as few of the captureable players knew much about centralized strategic decisions.  The current Middle East situation may be different as the whole point is getting to the central decision makers. These players do know centralized strategy this film suggests their giving it up directly led to the death of Bin Laden, who had escaped detection for 10 years.

The film also vividly points out the value of the new breed of straight up warriors, mechanized extensions of the “007” ethos. Extensively trained and single-minded pursuers of the completion of a mission. These are different guys that were sent out in 1980 in the failed “Eagle Claw” mission to rescue the Tehran hostages. These are the same guys that in 2009 accurately sniped three Somali pirates floating in a boat at night, rescuing Captain Richard Phillips.

The entire film is masterfully directed by Kathryn Bigelow  (The Hurt Locker, 2008). The cinematography is immaculate and vivid. The progression of events is smooth without lapses or diversions. The actors are incomparable.  In my opinion, Jessica Chastain should win the Academy Award for best actress in a dramatic role. “Lincoln” will take the rest of them.

Best part:  The meticulous military precision of the raid and the vision shown the audience through night vision goggles.

Not so best part:  The portions of the film leading up to the raid is just a little long.

Character you’ve seen before:  Look for the Damon Pope character out of Sons of Anarchy.

I give this film four and a half of five water boards.  Will do well in the Academy Awards.

Must see.

————————————–

FOLLOWUP COMMENT:

Like any other film, I call it fiction unless it’s billed as a straight up biography or history. I’m not sure I see much if any manipulative political intent in this film. If any, I think it shows that “intelligence” and meticulous gathering and interpretation of information by obsessed, single minded anylists “John LeCarre” style brings home the bacon. That’s not political. The undisputed reality is that we sometimes, not always, use “enhanced interviews” to get that information. Sometimes it doesn’t yield anything. Sometimes it adds to a body of information that gets results. Without that body of information, it would be virtually impossible to find some of these monsters and take them out of the loop. I think the film doesn’t try to say anything else political. I enjoyed the film as fiction and didn’t try to read anythign more into it. It’s a brilliant film.

There are many, many bits of info from many sources that mean nothing until they’re put into perspective. That’s where the obsessed, tireless analysts come in. Just like Carrie on “Homeland”. Were it not for her, no one would have ever suspected Brody. We are in a war with totally committed opponents who vow to destroy out civilization if it takes 100 years and they are willing to die to do it. We’ll still probably be fighting this war 100 years from now if there’s anything left of the world. They’re like “The Terminator”: “Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead”. Should we do whatever it takes in this kind of war maintain an advantage or should we insist on Marquis of Queensbury rules and only win if we win as nice guys?

Django (2012).

Director Quinton Tarantino’s paean to the spaghetti westerns of the late 60s, including a musical scores my Ennio Morricone. The credits mention Franco Nero, the original “Django” in the 1966 film of the same name. Franco has a small role in the 2012 version.

Tarantino‘s films are noted for at least three themes.  Meticulous detail, at least one humorous, out-of-context group discussion signifying nothing and an intense, prolonged moral dilemma scene inevitably followed by cataclysmic violence. In the case of number two, a prolonged discussion amongst hooded vigilantes as to the size of eyeholes is a howl.

Otherwise, Django is a fairly stock retread of “for a few dollars more”(1965) with a bit more involved plot and a lot more gratuitous carnage, including very vivid bullet wound impacts. In interviews, Tarantino says his intent was to show the “true nature” of slave trading in 1859, not the sanitized versions frequently seen in other films. He succeeds in this a little too intensely. The brutality of slave trading is quite well known and adequately chronicled by a five year war between the States resulting in the death of 620,000 young men. One wonders if there is a need to gratuitously portray it again in 2012.

Jamie Foxx as Django is appropriately laconic and committed to the tasks at hand. As the slave master, Leonardo DiCaprio is a bit too heavy handed in his portrayal of pure evil. Samuel L. Jackson is wickedly sycophantic and shrewd. The real eye-catcher is Christolph Waltz (of “Inglorious Basterds” (2009).  He’s an amazing actor. You can’t take your eyes off him. He single handedly rescues this otherwise mediocre film, more or less.

Best part:  Django’s steely-eyed reply to a bar side conversant (Franco Nero) who asks him how his name is spelled. “D.J.A..N..G..O..  The D is silent”.  Franco replies:  “I know”.

Not so best part:  Overwrought, very visually provoking mass death. Detracts from the film.

Cameos:  Look for a brief appearance of Michael Parks from “Then came Bronson” (1969), a biker adventure epic in the vein of “Route 66” (1960-64). In the pilot, beautiful Bonnie Bedelia was briefly filmed topless in a beach scene, later cut by censors, but the original clip remains on the Internet (naturally, I have it).

Wait till it comes out on cable and watch it only for the amazing Christoph Waltz.

I give it two of five blood spurting bullet wounds.