Alec Baldwin

The Public

07/05/20

Curzon Home Cinema

It’s probably a sign of the times when one-time movie brat and teen heart-throb, Emilio Estevez appears in a film playing – of all things – a librarian. Mind you, it’s clear from the outset that his character, Stuart Goodson, has hidden depths, not to mention a colourful past. And his tryst with kooky neighbour, Angela (Taylor Schilling), is enough to convince us that he knows how to party.

In The Public, he’s a long-serving worker at the Cincinnati Public Library, liked and trusted by his colleagues, his boss, Mr Anderson (Jeffrey Wright), and the legions of unemployed and homeless people who regard the place as an all-important refuge. They come here on a daily basis to get warm and dry, to educate themselves and to meet up with friends from across the city.

It’s one of the coldest winters on record and the city just doesn’t have enough shelters to ensure everyone has a bed for the night. Homeless man, Jackson (Michael Kenneth Williams), knows he is unlikely to survive another night sleeping on the streets, he instigates an occupation of the library, and Goodson doesn’t exactly do his utmost to dissuade him from the notion. Pretty soon, the library is in lockdown, packed with destitute people, and the forces of law and order are called in to solve the situation. Key amongst the latter are heinous public prosecutor (and would-be Mayor) Josh Davis (Christian Slater) and experienced police negotiator Bill Ramstead (Alec Baldwin). And Bill has his own reasons for wanting to study the faces of the occupiers.

Written and directed by Estevez, The Public is an immensely likeable movie that strangely enough, has some things in common with John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club: a bunch of likeable misfits who find themselves trapped in a library under the baleful glare of authority. Sound familiar?

Davis is an interesting character and, if some of the others are less convincingly drawn (we really don’t find out enough about Ramstead and the situation with his runaway son), this is an enjoyable watch. The political messages occasionally verge on the naive; nonetheless, they are well-intentioned – and I love a narrative that repeatedly drives home the message that public libraries are a valuable and much-neglected resource, and richly deserve all the funding that can be thrown at them.

As somebody who regularly avails himself of the services of a public library (or at least, somebody who used to), this has me longing to be back in those quiet reflective spaces. Until such things are possible once more, The Public will have to suffice.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Motherless Brooklyn

13/12/19

Motherless Brooklyn, based on the novel by Jonathan Letham, has clearly been a labour of love for actor, Edward Norton. He’s been trying to put a movie version together for something like fifteen years now and, finally, here’s the result. As well as starring as lead character Lionel Essrog, Norton has gone ‘the full Orson Welles,’ serving as screenwriter, executive producer and director. He’s transposed the novel’s setting from the 1990s to the 1950s, an astute move, as the look and feel of the film is most definitely noir. Dick Pope’s bleak cinematography evokes memories of some of the great movies in this genre, particularly Chinatown.

Lionel is working for a small-time detective agency in New York. When we join the action, he and Gilbert (Ethan Supplee) are watching out for their boss, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), who has an important meeting with some powerful people and has asked his employees to covertly back him up. 

The meeting goes spectacularly wrong and Frank winds up with a bullet in his gut. As a result, Lionel finds himself following up on Frank’s recent cases, one of which has him following Laura (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an activist and daughter of a local jazz club owner. Lionel is able to call on some pretty special skills, as he has an uncanny ability to recall everything that’s ever been said to him. He also has a tendency to blurt out seemingly unconnected utterances at random moments – it’s probably Tourette’s syndrome but, this being the 1950s, his condition doesn’t yet appear to have a name.

As Lionel digs deeper into the case, he comes up against ruthless property developer, Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) and also Randolph’s mysterious, down-at-heel critic, Paul (Willem Dafoe). But what do these two men have to do with Laura? And will the unravelling of the case prove dangerous for both her and Lionel?

Motherless Brooklyn is a curiously old-fashioned concoction, one that takes its own sweet time to roll out its labyrinthine story, but Norton, in what is only his second attempt at directing a movie (his first was Keeping the Faith in 2000) has done a pretty good job of pulling the various narrative strands into a satisfying whole. His performance is pitch perfect and he’s helped by a stellar supporting cast. Baldwin is particularly good as the decidedly Trumpian Randolph, a dead-eyed, frost-hearted megalomaniac with no scruples whatsoever, while Mbatha-Raw dazzles like an orchid in the drab heart of 50s America. I like the way Lionel’s disability is handled (it feels very convincing, just a part of who he is, ordinary to those who know him) and I also enjoy the film’s refusal to tie its storylines up with easy resolutions. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the jazz score, a style of music that usually repels me, works brilliantly here, as does a haunting piece by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.

This won’t be for everyone, but those with an enduring love of film noir will find plenty here to savour – and Norton deserves much credit for his tenacity in seeing this slow-gestating project through to the end.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

BlackkKlansman

29/08/18

Spike Lee is a passionate and prolific filmmaker, but few would deny that it’s been a while since he released anything of real gravitas. BlacKkKlansman is therefore, far and away the most exciting movie he’s made in years, even though (perhaps typically for him), it’s far from a straightforward proposition.

Take the opening scenes for example. We get that famous sequence from Gone With the Wind, where Scarlett O Hara wanders through hordes of injured Confederate troops and then cut to a 1950s KKK recruitment film shoot featuring Alec Baldwin as ‘Dr Kinnebrew Beauregard,’ spouting his white supremacist worldview as scenes from D W Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation are projected onto his face. The problem with this is that we’ve already been advised that the film is based on a true story – yet Beauregard is a completely fictional character, a twist that seems to undermine Lee’s good intentions. Why not feature the words of a genuine racist? There are surely plenty to choose from.

But then we are into the ‘fo’ real shit’ as Lee likes to call it – and I can’t help thinking that if this wasn’t a true story, nobody would believe it ever happened. It’s the 1970s and Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is the first black man ever employed by the Colorado Springs Police Department. He is eventually allowed to prove his worth and is promoted to the role of undercover cop and, on a slow day in 1979, he impulsively decides to answer a newspaper ad by the Klu Kux Klan, who are looking to form a new chapter. He does this by simply picking up the phone and giving them a call. He hits it off with the man on the other end of the line, former soldier Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold), by telling him that he hates blacks, Jews and homosexuals and, on that merit, is promptly invited to pop along for an informal chat.

Obviously, that won’t work, so Stallworth talks his white fellow-cop, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), into impersonating him for the meeting. Despite his Jewish upbringing (the KKK are, after all,  equal opportunities racists), Zimmerman manages to infiltrate the organisation, even hooking up with head honcho David Duke (Topher Grace). Meanwhile, Stallworth is becoming romantically involved with black rights activist, Patrice Dumarr (Laura Harrier), who is unaware that he is a police officer and clearly won’t be pleased if she ever finds out…

The tone of the film veers alarmingly between laugh-out-loud depictions of the KKK’s trusting naivety, sprightly ‘afros and flares’ nightclub scenes, full-tilt action sequences and searing polemics about historical injustice. Veteran screen actor Harry Belafonte appears as Jerome Turner, relating the true story of the horrific murder of black teenager, Jesse Washington, accused of raping a white woman in 1916 (the same year that Birth of a Nation was released). This is intercut with scenes at a Klan get-together, where the film is being screened to an enthusiastic crowd. It’s a powerful concept, beautifully shot, but it’s a tad overlong and there remains the overall conviction that, trimmed down a little, the film could have made all the same points just as effectively. It’s as though, Lee, enthused by the project, wants to throw in every idea he has – and sometimes, less is more. But that said, there’s still plenty to enjoy here, not least Washington’s solid and immensely likeable performance in the lead. Driver is good too, but then, I don’t think I’ve seen him make a bad job of any role he’s undertaken.

Just when I think the whole things’s being neatly wrapped up with a pink bow, Lee brings me suddenly and shockingly up to date, with a montage of recent real life footage that sends the audience stumbling out into the night in stunned silence. There is no doubting the director’s commitment to the cause of black rights and no arguing with his view that the world is in dire danger of slipping back into the kind of horrors we thought had been vanquished forever. It’s a sobering moment.

BlacKkKlansman may not be perfect, but it’s nonetheless a heartfelt and important movie that stays with me, long after viewing.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

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02/09/15

We were far too late getting on to this – largely because an entire month of reviewing at the Edinburgh Fringe left us with too little time to actually make it to the cinema: a sorry state of affairs. Rogue Nation is the latest improbably titled instalment in Tom Cruise’s evergreen TV spy spinoff and as the series goes, it’s one of the better efforts – an adrenalin fuelled romp with an outrageously daft plot and a whole heap of inexplicable gadgetry to help the IMF team achieve their goals.

The film starts as it means to go on with the throttle wide open. Ethan Hunt attempts to board a plane… after it’s taken off. (Don’t try this at home. That’s my old stamping ground of RAF Wittering hundreds of feet below, by the way and yes, that is Cruise clinging on to the side of the plane. Nobody can say he doesn’t earn his millions.)

Hunt is on the trail of a mysterious organisation called The Syndicate, who have dedicated themselves to the eradication of the IMF and who are headed up by evil villain, Solomon Lane (a deeply creepy Sean Harris.) As Hunt hurtles around the world, evading assassins and leaping athletically from very high buildings, back at base, Brandt (Jeremy Renner) is engaged in a more pedestrian battle as grumpy CIA man, Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) attempts to get the Impossible Missions team shut down. It seems he finds them a bout too reckless for his liking. Soon Hunt is pretty much out there on his own, aided only by his hapless bessie mate, Benjie (Simon Pegg, who must be relieved to add a much-needed hit to his CV) and by the mysterious Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who keeps popping up just in time to save Hunt’s life.

It’s fairly pointless to go into the plot. Most of it is unfathomable and all of it is unlikely, but it’s presented with enough tongue-in-cheek brio to suspend your disbelief. There’s an ingenious set piece at the Vienna opera house, while an underwater sequence where Hunt has to hold his breath for three minutes wracks up the tension to an almost unbearable degree. On the downside, there’s a  motorbike/car chase that seems a tad perfunctory this time around, but that’s a minor quibble. Overall, this is a superior slice of entertainment, which should keep you riveted till the final credits. And of course it still features Lalo Schifrin’s sinewy, unforgettable theme tune, which is a thriller all by itself.

What else can I say? Mission accomplished.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Still Alice

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16/3/15

Still Alice is of course, the film that secured Julianne Moore a well-deserved Oscar and this tale of a fifty year old Professor of Linguistics, struck down by Early Onset Alzheimers, becomes even more poignant with the news that writer/co-director Richard Glatzer, died just two days after the Oscar ceremony. (He suffered from the rare but equally debilitating condition ALS.) The film is surprisingly understated, avoiding the excesses of so many other medical issue dramas and it could be argued that it cuts away before things get too messy, but the enterprise is held together by Moore’s extraordinary performance, which instills a kind of creeping terror in the viewer; we’ve all experienced many of the  problems she encounters here. Who hasn’t found themselves walking into a room and then drawing a blank as to why we’ve gone there? Could what we’ve dismissed as mere absent-mindedness be something more sinister?

We first encounter the eponymous Alice at a University lecture where she momentarily forgets what she’s about to say. A little later whilst jogging around her hometown, she suddenly discovers that she doesn’t recognise her surroundings, even though she’s right outside the University where she works. (This scene is terrifying.) Alice’s husband and fellow academic, John (Alec Baldwin – don’t be afraid, he’s quite good in this) tries to do what’s best for his wife, but the demands of his own career cause complications and there are more of those too for Alice’s children, when it transpires that the rare type of Alzheimer’s she’s suffering from is familial – it can be passed on to them. This is devastating news for eldest daughter Anna (Kate Bosworth) who is trying to start a family of her own, while flakey youngest daughter, Lydia (Kristen Stewart) ironically manages to grow closer to her mother as her condition advances. From here, we witness the gradual disintegration of Alice’s life as with each successive day, a little more of her memory is eroded and irrevocably lost.

Still Alice isn’t a great film – indeed, with a lesser performance at it’s core, it could easily have stumbled and fallen, but it does have Moore’s intelligent and heartfelt input and that’s enough to kick it out of the stadium. I was warned that I would need a box of Kleenex for this one, but though I sat there consumed with dread throughout (my own Mother suffered with Alzheimer’s for the last ten years of her life) I managed to stay resolutely dry eyed  – a testament, I think, to the fact that the story never panders to histrionics and presents a realistic portrayal of an illness that surely does require more research and investment than it’s currently receiving. Worth seeing? Yes, but mostly for Julianne Moore at the top of her game.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney