“State of Play” Damn Fine Filmmaking
Apr 22nd
Damn Fine Filmmaking
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
STATE OF PLAY is a very entertaining political thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, and Robin Wright Penn.
It was adapted from a BBC miniseries of the same name, but has been changed to take place in Washington, D.C., and to be about a reporter for an American newspaper who investigates a murder that becomes very personal for him.
The story begins with a man being shot and killed at night on the streets and an unlucky witness also being shot and sent to the hospital.
Cal McAffrey, a reporter for the WASHINGTON GLOBE, shows up at the crime scene the next day, and we see right away that he has a lot of sources and contacts in the police department.
Then a woman named Sonia Baker is killed in an accident in a subway station, and it turns out that she was the lead researcher and a member of the staff of Congressman Stephen Collins, who is the head of the committee that is investigating the outsourcing policies of the Pentagon.
McAffrey happens to know both Congressman Collins and his wife, Anne, because McAffrey and Collins were roommates in college.
Congressman Collins shows up at McCaffrey’s apartment one night, telling him that McCaffrey is the only real friend he has, and when Collins admits that he was having an affair with the dead woman, McCaffrey has to become both a friend to the congressman and a reporter for his newspaper.
Collins complains about reporters being camped out at his house now, and McCaffrey says, “Nature of the beast: public office.”
Meanwhile, McCaffrey’s newspaper has new owners who are concerned about the paper’s profitability, his editor wants McCaffrey to go with the story before McCaffrey believes it has been completed, and he has been teamed up against his will with the new blogger for the newspaper, Della Frye.
Then there is another murder, and McCaffrey suspects that a private military company that works for the Pentagon is involved.
You can think of the film and the story as “ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN with guns,” and when McCaffrey does something that Della believes is illegal, he tells her that it’s not breaking the law, but is “damn fine reporting.”
STATE OF PLAY is damn fine filmmaking, even though it does leave some unanswered questions.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Earth – Movie Trailer
Apr 22nd
As co-directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill, the nature documentary Earth represents an edited-down version of the 12-hour small-screen miniseries Planet Earth, reslated for cinematic release. The program provides a sweeping 99-minute tour of our home planet’s biosphere — spanning every level of gaze, from the epic (crystal-clear shots of the Earth hovering in space) to the hyper-specific (a mother polar bear and her cubs waking from a lengthy period of hibernation). The film almost exclusively emphasizes the behavior of the animal populations that inhabit the Earth, yet carefully omits shots that depict the more gory predatory behavior of species, rendering it family-friendly. It also employs a chronological approach — beginning in January in the Arctic wilderness, and moving progressively through the four seasons and 12 months comprising a single year, until it hits late December — contrasting various geographic regions of the Earth as shot in various seasons. Above all else, a cautionary message underscores this footage; as in An Inconvenient Truth, the filmmakers continually remind their audience that despite the grandiloquence present onscreen, all may be lost if humankind is not careful.
Is Anybody There – Movie Trailer
Apr 17th
Boy A director John Crowley followed up that award-winning film festival favorite with this eerie yet eloquent drama concerning a young boy fascinated by death due to the fact that he lives in the hospice home for the elderly that’s owned by his parents. Perhaps due to the morose surroundings in which he was raised, wide-eyed Edward (Son of Rambow star Bill Milner) possesses both an acute sense of death and an obsessive desire to find out what happens after we pass on from this life. These interests are most noticeably evident in Edward’s ongoing fascination with the paranormal, an obsession that his overworked parents merely tolerate as the curious boy makes his way around the hospice with a tape recorder determined to better understand the concept of mortality. Suddenly, into Edward’s world rolls embittered, burned-out ex-magician Clarence (Michael Caine) — who makes no attempts to hide the fact that he’s not in the hospice by his own free will. Clarence has long since ceased to practice his trade, and no longer possesses the ability to recognize anything positive in either his surroundings or the people who inhabit them. He’s irascible, ornery, and indignant, and he’s just barely able to tolerate the young boy who’s so interested in the one topic that plagues his thoughts most — death. Before long, however, these two outsiders discover that their mutual need to make sense of the world means they have more in common than initial appearances would suggest. Soon embarking on a series of comic misadventures that help them both to better understand the many mysteries of life, Edward and Clarence form an unlikely bond that provides them both with the comfort they so desperately need during this uncertain stage in each of their lives.
