Tina's September 2016 Movies

It was a slow movie month for me with only 10 films making the cut, but there were a few with good scores.  All movies are rated on a scale of 1-5 cans of tuna, 5 being the top rating.  New movies are marked with an asterisk, and numbering picks up from previous months.

99.  The Light Between Oceans* (2016) – This movie is drawn from the book, which I thought was way too long.  There is certainly a slow pace here, too, but given the fact that the main character is a lighthouse keeper and nothing much happens on the job, that’s understandable.  A veteran of WWI, Tom is a loner, content to live on a remote island near Australia and tend to the lighthouse.  Back in town, he meets a lovely young woman who is brave enough to take on living in a place where you have to be pretty self-sufficient, and they get married and plan to have a family.  To tell you more would ruin the story.  Suffice to say that this drama involves moral dilemmas that no one should have to face.  Michael Fassbender and Alicia Verkander star as the young couple.  He brings stoicism and she brings vulnerability to their roles.  Slow, but worth the time.  3¾ cans – a rating I have never given out before.
100.  The Night Of* (2016) – Technically, my 100th movie of the year isn’t a movie at all.  This was an HBO miniseries, but it was so rich and engrossing (and, at about 10 hours total, I didn’t want to pass up a chance to include it on my list) that I wanted to recommend it.  Riz Ahmed plays Naz, a young and innocent-looking grad student of Pakistani descent who finds himself mixed up in a murder.  His situation looks hopeless, but along comes broken-down lawyer John Stone (John Turturro), who sees him in the holding cell at the NYC precinct and decides to take on his seemingly hopeless case.  The rest of the series focuses on the horrors of incarceration, the tedious task of solving a crime, the rippling effects of actions both big and small on families and friends, racism and cultural stereotyping and, most importantly, the old “who done it.”  This series makes an excellent companion to the Netflix documentary series “The Making of a Murderer,” as each one grabs your attention and you cannot look away.  It’s a long night, but a memorable one.  4½ cans.
101.  Up In The Air (2009) – Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has one of those jobs that didn’t exist even a few years ago.  He flies all around the country, dispatched by his company more than 300 days a year to fire people at client companies that can’t pull the trigger on their own.  Toting his trusty carry-on, a slew of airline loyalty cards and with no emotional baggage, he is the perfect, dispassionate guy for the job.  Then along comes Alex (Vera Famiglia), who appears his match in mileage and lack of emotion.  When young, inexperienced Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) joins the company, Ryan shows her the ropes on delivering the bad news, but she has a different approach, one that will ground Bingham and his cohorts and let the people hired to fire do it remotely, making the task even more impersonal.  This movie is an indictment of corporate downsizing, and it uses people who were actually fired to react to the news.  Clooney is the Cary Grant of his time, a handsome, well-dressed man traveling around with nary a wrinkle in his suit, packing, going through security and facing all of the hardships of travel with efficiency and purpose.  But he lives an empty life, albeit one he doesn’t seem to mind a bit.  One day, Natalie will be just like him, despite that baby-faced innocence.  I kept thinking at the end she would be firing him, but that is not how the movie ends.  3½ cans.
102.  Infamous* (2006) – When you think of author Truman Capote, you probably think of one of two things:  Either his epic, gripping book, “In Cold Blood,” or his reputation as a bon vivant, favored member of New York society, rubbing elbows, bending elbows and swapping gossip with the rich and famous ladies who lunch.  This movie gives you both versions.  Toby Jones transforms into the small, petty, yet immensely talented Capote, who travels to Kansas to write an article on the brutal murder of a family and ends up writing a book instead.  He ingratiates himself with the local authorities (Jeff Daniels) and winds up with unlimited access to the men eventually arrested for the crime.  He develops a bond with Perry Smith (Daniel Craig) as he worms his way into the killer’s heart and soul.  He is accompanied by author Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock), who is on hand to help him with the research.  This movie is a fascinating account of a fascinating man and a story that is unforgettable.  Jones IS Capote.  3½ cans.
103.  Michael Clayton (2007) – Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a fixer, the guy his law firm calls on to take care of its toughest issues, to “fix” things.  Ironically, he can’t fix his own life, where he sees his son only on occasion, gambles too much in high stakes games and is out $80,000 in a bad bar investment deal.  But one case presents a problem that may not be fixable.  His firm is on the wrong side of an environmental case that has dragged on for years and needs to be settled.  The boss (the late, great Sydney Pollack) needs the victory, and Arthur, one of the key people in his organization, (Tom Wilkinson) has uncovered information that will block that victory.  Arthur has a meltdown, goes off his meds and out of his mind.  Then the sinister forces of evil from the client side step in.  This is a suspenseful drama that shifts back and forth in time, with the bad guys pursuing Clayton and the good guys pursuing the truth.  Who will win in the end?  4 cans.
104.  Sully* (2016) – It only took 208 seconds from the time birds hit and knocked out the engines of US Air flight 1549 until Captain Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) landed the Airbus in the Hudson River – safely, with no loss of life – but it took much longer to determine whether he and his co-pilot (Aaron Eckhardt) made the right decision.  Sully was immediately hailed as a hero, given star treatment by the media, but he also came under the scrutiny of the NTSB for choosing NOT to attempt to land at a nearby airport.  Director Clint Eastwood has to give the movie substance beyond those 208 seconds, so much of the film focuses on the review of the flight by the authorities.  Sully had extensive experience as a pilot and also in examining flight crashes, so any attempt to “sully” his reputation comes across as mean-spirited.  The “Miracle on the Hudson” involved not only Sully and his crew, but also the many NY rescue boats, some of which were ordinary ferries that got to the sinking plane in time to rescue all 155 people on Board – with Sully, of course, the last one to leave.  It takes a well-crafted movie to hold your interest when you already know the outcome, and this movie brings the drama while our hero Hanks brings the gravitas.  The recreations and footage are amazing and should only be seen in a theater.  4 cans.
105.  Steve Jobs* (2016) – I have now completed the Jobs trifecta, having seen “Jobs” (the Ashton Kutcher film) and “Steve Jobs: The Man In the Machine” (the Alex Gibney documentary) and my conclusion remains the same.  Jobs was an insufferable son of a bitch, nasty to friends and foes alike, a man who denied his paternity and only grudgingly supported his child and her mother, a man who took credit for nearly everything and whose own partner queries him, “What do you do?”  Genius?  Yes, a man with a head for marketing and creating conceptual products that people not only will want, but which they fear they cannot live without.  In this production, Michael Fassbinder is given the formidable task of delivering Aaron Sorkin’s fast and furious dialog.  The plot centers around three product introductions at three different points in Jobs’ career, including the introduction of his post-Apple firing computer, Next.  Jobs is never nice, is always demanding and after total control of everything around him.  This is a well-executed story with an excellent cast (Kate Winslet as his right hand, Seth Rogen as legendary Woz) about a guy who is totally unlikeable, despite and because of his genius.  3½ cans.
106.  Soapdish (1991) – Soapdish is a send-up of those cheesy daytime dramas where main characters are beheaded yet miraculously survive only to reappear decades later.  Sally Field stars as the star, and I couldn’t help but like her, really, really like her as the bitchy lead.  The wonderful Kevin Kline shows up as her former love interest, now reduced to playing Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” at nursing homes.  The cast is filled with talented vets like Robert Downey Jr., Cathy Moriarity, Terry Hatcher, Kathy Najimy, Carrie Fisher and Whoopi Goldberg.  This is not Pulitzer Prize winning material, but if you want to laugh out loud and shake your head at Marxian antics, check it out.  4 cans.
107.  Truth* (2015) – The truth is that journalism is no longer about objective reportage – if it ever was.  Instead, we live in an age of “gotcha” news, where producers, newscasters, columnists and correspondents imagine themselves as the voice of the public, the keeper of values, the one source of truth, justice and the American Way (with apologies to Superman).  Here, Robert Redford plays venerable CBS newsman Dan Rather, who, when he was a part of “60 Minutes,” worked with producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) on a story that attempted to prove that President George Bush received preferential treatment in joining the National Guard and didn’t fulfill his military responsibilities.  And the team of news people know this because someone told them so and gave them a copy of correspondence that said so.  And everyone, including the president of CBS News, was willing to go for it because they seemed to nail it.  Except that they didn’t, because the documents were not originals and no one could authenticate them and the information.  This story aims to be like Redford’s classic, “All the President’s Men,” with the good guy, white-hat-wearing investigative reporters, led by Mapes, determined to bring this outrage to the American people.  Because no one ever got preferential treatment before for being rich and having connections.  No. One. Ever.  Right?  In the case of “All the President’s Men,” Woodward and Bernstein were dogged in unearthing the Watergate incident.  Here, the story is rushed to air before the team can really verify everything.  And there is a price to pay.  I worry about our ability to understand complex issues based on mere smattering of information that is so often served up to the public by the media in a frenzy to publish or broadcast.  It would have been better to find the real story before airing it.  3½ cans.
108.  Mistress America* (2015) – When you’re a college freshman who doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the girls at Barnard, life can be a little lonely.  Such is the case with Tracy (Lola Kirke), who really just wants to have her work accepted by the campus literary society.  Her mother is engaged to a man whose daughter, Brooke (Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach), lives in the city, so Mom encourages Tracy to look up her future stepsister.  Brooke is a charismatic woman in her early 30s with more get-rich schemes than Ralph Kramden, and Tracy is lured into her world of fun and adventure more for the subject matter material than anything else.  This movie becomes a female buddy movie, but also a somewhat comedic look at the dreams of Gen X and how hard it can be to achieve them.  Warm and friendly, if a bit odd.  3 cans.