The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 A Bit Uneven

I liked The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, the fourth and last installment of the Hunger Games movies.  I will try to be as spoiler free so I will not tell you who lives, who dies, who loves, and or how it all comes together.  If you've read the books, you already know.  The movie centers on the completion of the revolt against District 1 and the evil president/dictator Snow, the growth and burden that must be born by the Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen, and on the recovery of her lost friend and broken warrior, Peta Mellark.

The movie has the return of all the characters we came to love or hate in the first three movies.  The cast of actors from Jennifer Lawerence, Donald Sutherland, to Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson and Julianne Moore all turn in their usually strong performances. I must admit it is a bit hard seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman and knowing this subtle and talented actor was taken from us too soon.  That all said Mockingjay Part 2 is the weakest of the four movies and the reason is really quite simple.

I have not yet read the books, but I am told that Part 2 is the most faithful to the novels. It is also, as one reviewer I read put it, the problem.  Mockingjay should have never been split into two movies.  The second part is a good enough finale for the series, but it is unevenly paced and overly long in parts. It struggles to carry the weight of a full-length movie.  If it had been a more judicially edited addition to a longer version of Part 1, making the two movies one, it would probably make for a much stronger movie.  I am also told by those who have read the book, Mockingjay also suffers from the same uneven pacing.

What makes The Hunger Games series including its fourth installment work is that it captures a complex story.  This is a failing of the host of wannabe Hunger Games like the Divergent, Mazerunner, and The Giver.  While I know The Giver is a wonderfully nuanced novel, the movie misses these undertones.  This movie along with  Divergent and Mazerunner comes off as evil governments or politicians who use the youths for some unknown purpose.  We do not get that in Hunger Games.  The writers have captured the feel of the characters and the people of Panem.  They have also captured the undercurrents of the machinations of those driven by power.  Snow is not pure evil.  We come to know, despite the loss of the actor, that it is Plutarch Heavensbee who is the true Gamemaker in more ways than just one.

Mockingjay Part 2 shows us the damage not only to property the war brings but also how it war turns even the innocent into combatants on both sides when they shouldn't be.  It causes damage to even the victors.  The Games gives the audience a single insight into the people and the warriors.  No one leaves the games unscathed.  Mockingjay Part 2 is not just a vengeance of stopping Katniss stopping Snow.  It is the story of politics, power, and subterfuge.  It comes at a great cost.

While the movie suffers a bit from it having the last novel divided into two parts, I guess it is understandable since the weekend box office take was the lowest in the series and it still brought in $100 million.  Hollywood is, after all, about money too.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 does capture and maintain a feel that was established in the first three.   I liked it well enough; it just isn't as strong as the previous three.  Still we are reminded, in war no one ever really wins The Hunger Games.  "May the odds be ever in your favor."

James Bond and the Dirty Martini

Ian Flemming's James Bond makes his 24th appearance, at least in this franchise, in Spectre.  Bond, now in the franchise's sixth incarnation played by Daniel Craig as the iconic assassin and spy, has become a grittier Bond - more of the "blunt instrument" as the character of M says.  This is Craig's fourth outing as the character, and he is considered by many to be the best Bond since the original, Sean Connery.  Since Craig took the role, the critics loved the first and the third and while the majority of reviews were positive for the second, it was not as well received.  It is looking like this will also be the case for Spectre. The reviews are mostly positive but not the raves of Skyfall.  I too must agree.  Spectre is a fun movie but doesn't quite have the edge that Skyfall did.

Don't get me wrong.  I am glad I saw the movie. What can I say? I am a fan of Bond...James Bond.  I like the Craig films probably better than any of the Bonds of recent years quite simply because it's good to see Bond go back to his roots in a more modern world.  Daniel Craig exudes charm and strength as the world's most famous misogynistic and alcoholic spy.  Ralph Fiennes who replaces Judi Dench as "M" is a much more active leader of the 00 program.  Ben Whishaw plays perhaps the best "Q" and like M, Q and Moneypenny, played by Naomie Harris, are given more to do.  The bad guy, Oberhauser/Blofeld, is played by perennial villain Christoph Waltz.  He is as always the most charming and creepy psychopath in the room.  We also have the henchman, Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) whose "killer thumbnails" were silly even for a Bond movie. There is also the bureaucrat, Denbigh (Andrew Scott) who is more than he seems. The love interest, Dr. Swann (Léa Seydoux) is also more than just a pretty face for Bond to bed.  Finally, we can also add Monica Bellucci who, at 51, becomes officially the oldest Bond girl in franchise history.

The movie centers on the rise of Spectre a group led by the evil Blofeld.  (You may remember Blofeld as the guy with the white, Persian cat who appeared in about half a dozen Bond movies including the one where he is unceremoniously dropped down a chimney at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only.) As it turns out, all the villains of the previous Daniel Craig three movies all work for Blofeld and Spectre.  Bond sets our to destroy Spectre. That's pretty much the plot.

The movie has the usual over-the-top chase scenes with cars, boats, planes, and cars.  It also has some astonishing real helicopter stunts. While the stunts were flown off site and then stitched into a CGI representation of Mexico City, it is still some impressive flying that was actually done just 30 feet above the 1500 extras hired for the shoot. Spectre has Bond gadgets.  It has knock down, drag out fights which one scene later Bond shows no sign of having had. It has explosions and villains who are almost as difficult to kill as Bond is. It is all the things we've come to love about the exciting and often cartoon style violence of a Bond film.


It will help if you've seen the other movies, but it is not a requirement.  The movie does tend to get a bit long in the middle, but this too is not a new Bond problem. This may be Craig's last time as the character, but I hope not.  He really is well suited to the role.  All in all, it's a fun movie and was worth the bucks.

Bridge of Spies Nearly Perfect

Steven Spielberg's newest film is the historical spy thriller Bridge of Spies.  While Spielberg and company do occasionally take a few side-steps from historical accuracy, the movie is nearly perfect in its storytelling.  Spielberg has long ago mastered storytelling without heavy exposition, narration, or burdensome dialog.  He tells his stories the way the medium of film should: simply and visually.

To do this, he also works with the best and he has that in spades through the skills of Tom Hanks who plays historical lead character, insurance lawyer James Donovan.  Yes, there really was a James Donovan and yes, he really did go into East Berlin, alone and armed only with his wits to negotiate the release of Gary Powers, the U2 spy plane pilot who was shot down while flying over a Soviet missile installation. Okay, okay, James Donovan was not really quite the lone wolf and without support that is portrayed in the movie.  The fact is that JFK and Nikita Khrushchev had been working on trying to take back the escalating Cold War far before the Powers' exchange following the near call of nuclear war in October of 1960.  So the real James Donovan had the way paved a little better, but that is not really what the movie is about.

Hanks is an astonishing actor.  It seems to me that I write that sentence every time I review one of his movies.  His ability to emote every thought and feeling in a single moment of film astonishes me every time I see him do it.  He tells the story.  He doesn't need dialog or narration, just his consummate skill as an actor who understands his job. It is this skill that makes the movie work on the level it does.

Hanks is surrounded by a host of actors who also have skills but the two that also clearly make the movie work are Amy Ryan who plays Mary Donovan and Mark Rylance who plays the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.  Ryan, as the wife to Hanks' Donovan, has great chemistry with her on-screen husband.  Like Hanks, she doesn't need a lot of dialog to communicate her complex and loving relationship to the complicated life her husband finds himself in.


Mark Rylance gives Rudolf Abel something that few Soviet spies have ever been given, humanity.  Abel is a man of honor who is doing his job.  He is, in every sense, an enemy combatant whose simple humor and honest performance makes him no just "the enemy" but a human who has decided to serve his country, just as American spy Gary Powers who is played by Austin Stowell.  We don't really get to know much about Powers, but there is plenty on the real Gary Powers.

If the movie has any fault, it is that it tries to tell too large of a story.  While the reaction to Donovan's defense of Abel is important and the training and selection of the U2 pilots are
important, it may be overly detailed in the movie.  The tensions between the US and the USSR are important, particularly for a younger audience. The silliness of duck and cover and the fear that some felt was the coming and inevitable nuclear war - that fortunately never came - is adds to the feel of the film too, but may also be a bit over-stated.

What is important is that Donovan is a man of principle who believes that without the rights of the Constitution being given to every person regardless of who they are or where they are from, we will fail in what is our single greatest achievement, a document for all people.  Donovan, who really did engineer the additional trade for an imprisoned college student, becomes a remarkable "standing man" who when knocked down, always stands again.  He stands on his ideals and beliefs.  He stands on justice.

Bridge of Spies is well worth your time if for not other reason it is a good spy thriller too.

Welcome to the House of Usher...I Mean Crimson Peak

If ever a movie suffers from bad advertising choices, it is Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak. The movie is a slow paced, to say the least, with some intense moments of scariness, but its storytelling is frequently plodding rather than building suspense.

Crimson Peak is visually stunning and well-acted by it fairly small ensemble cast of Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain as the creepy and not all too normal brother and sister, Sir Thomas Sharpe and Lady Lucille Sharp. Mia Wasikowska is Edith Cushing who becomes Sir Thomas's bride plays the heroine demonstrating some range. Charlie Hunnam plays would-be hero Dr. Alan McMichael who is the most two-dimensional of the characters. Jim Beaver plays strong and loving father a role that he pretty much developed from his years on Supernatural. In short, the cast performs well enough, but the characters are a little predictable and with the exception of Edith and Thomas, pretty much not very deep.

They are, in fact, classic characters of the Gothic romance and that is the problem of the movie. Advertised as a Gothic terror movie, it is in reality a Gothic romance. The ghost story is, while creepy, really more of the frame that was common in romance stories. The movie is overly slow paced with seemingly extraneous details that don't really add to the story. It starts with Edith Cushing who wants to be a writer announcing that a baronet is a titled, self-important man who uses servants to meet his needs. She then immediately becomes enamored with the same baronet, Sir Thomas Sharpe and marries him in pretty short order.

From there the movie plods along with an occasional reminder that it's supposed to be a ghost story. There is also the trouble of the story Edith is writing which too is a Gothic ghost story, but we are never told enough about the story to know if what we are watching is the story or if it is a parallel prediction. We know that at least one editor wants Edith to add a romantic plotline to her story.

That is what Crimson Peak is a romantic plot with some creepy ghost and a fairly gruesome ending. It is far from the "horror" story it's been advertised as. For me, the other problem is the story has been done before and better. While I've found nothing to indicate that del Toro has said Peak is "The Fall of the House of Usher," it clearly is firmly entrenched in the Edgar Allan Poe Gothic story of madness and terror. In Crimson Peak, the main character becomes a strong female character rather than an old school chum. In "Usher," we have a sinking house, a "lunatic" family, incest, and the added bonus that we cannot be sure that we should trust the storyteller. Del Torro has included all this in his movie, but its pacing and lack of tight storytelling do nothing to bring the classic tale to life, and we have no reason not to trust Edith's story.

Crimson Peak is one that you might want to rent or wait for on a pay channel. Its moments of intensity and visuals are over weighted by slow pacing and loose plot. Instead just read "The Fall of the House of Usher" for a good Gothic tale.

Horatio's Backpack - The National Theater's Production o Hamlet

The new production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the National Theater in London's Barbican is a different kind of Hamlet. I was pleased to attend the NT Live event at a local movie theater of the production.  Since many of us will never get to see theses shows, the high definition broadcast of a single production is actually a treat.

So what's different about this Hamlet? It is the theme through staging.  Olivier played up the oedipal side of the Hamlet story and cut all the political stuff.  Mel Gibson played the zaniest or most antic and possibly the worst Hamlet on film.  Derek Jacobi's Hamlet was one that actually seemed like the son of a warrior king. Unfortunately, the filming of his version makes it, to say the least, boring to watch. Kenneth Branagh brought the uncut and more serious version of Hamlet to film. His was grand in scope and occasionally over-acted with a strong supporting cast.  David Tennant's Dane mines the humor that is in the play. Ethan Hawke's is a sort of lost or even slacker Hamlet.  What is Cumberbatch's Hamlet? He is one of generational nature.  It is perhaps the way the play has been reordered slightly and cut to reflect a more political and war-like nature by director Lyndsey Turner that makes Benedict's character of Hamlet less human and more of a Millennial sort of Hamlet.  At three hours long, this Hamlet in its cutting falls closer to the complete text than the radically butchered version with Mel Gibson.

The wonder of this version is that it tends to be more statement.  The 39-year-old Cumberbatch's Hamlet is one that really tries to throw the facets of the character almost in a juggler like fashion. It has been said that no actor can hit all the dimensions of Hamlet as a character and so perhaps to the detriment of Cumberbatch's skill, the director's vision becomes a statement of Hamlet as generational representative trying to be all things. His "antic disposition" finds the wonder and humor of Shakespeare's gifted use of double entendre and puns.  The humor is a potent element.  Just as quickly, Hamlet drops the madness to show the depths of pain and despair he feels at his father's murder.  By the time the play-within-the-play rolls around, Hamlet becomes the conglomeration of these facets.  His costume has shifted from the classic Hamlet in black that begins the play to a combination of clothes from Adidas tennis shoes, a drummer's red coat under which shows a Ziggy Stardust tee.  He is a representative of having no real place in this era to call his own and being a self-absorbed member or the generation he symbolizes. He finds no real direction until his confrontation with the Fortinbras army and his realization that while he has done nothing to change his circumstance, 20,000 men are prepared to die for no reason. It is from this point that Hamlet understands that he must make a change.  He must become involved.

 

When next we see Hamlet, gone are the affectations of his wild costume and now he appears in a simple costume of a merchant sailor.  When last he faces his battle with the treacherous and misled Laertes, he wears a sparkling white fencing coat with glove opposed to the black costumes of Laertes and Claudius.  In short he is the hero his generation must become if change is to come.

I would have liked to felt more for the characters but the symbolic use of costume and set occasionally got in the way.  An example would have to be Horatio's backpack.  Every time Horatio (Leo Bill) is on stage, he wears a large knapsack and for apparently no reason.  When he arrives at the castle, he wears the backpack.  When they go to see the ghost, there is Horatio and his backpack.  When he watches the play-within-the-play, he wears his backpack.  The only time that Horatio is not wearing his pack is at the end when he puts it down during the duel. I am still not sure what the point of the pack was. Horatio is also covered in visible tattoos.  I am also unsure if they are a statement to link Horatio to the current fad or if Leo Bill just has a lot of tattoos.  Bill doesn't have a strong voice or presence to begin with and then to encumber the witness of Hamlet with a backpack and tattoos did no service to the production. 

Another example is as the kingdom of Claudius crumbles the floors are covered in black debris that clings to every actor and costume. It interferes with the performance.  Ophelia, played by Sian Brooke, has to deal with it in perhaps her strongest scene.  Ophelia's first soliloquy is extremely labored while her madness scene is strong and moving with great depth.  It would be better though if she weren't covered in the fake black symbols of a crumbling empire.

The performance by Claudius, played by Ciarán Hinds, is a good one. He has just the right amount of smooth-talking slimy villain to make his relationship with Cumberbatch's Hamlet a potent conflict. The casting, overall, was an interesting choice. Karl Johnson who plays the ghost and the grave digger is a fine actor but is a far better grave digger than warrior king.  Laertes really seems to labor with his speeches.  In the defense of some of the speeches appearing labored, it could be because of the closeness of camera to the performer in the "live theater" experience.  

I liked the show.  It moved well and delivery was, for the most part, clean.  While a few of the casting choices were weaker than other actors I've seen in the roles, most of the time, if the set, symbolic nature, and costumes didn't get in the way, the actors worked well on stage.  The line interpretations gave me some insight into meanings that I had not thought of.  It had energy.  So when it comes out on DVD, if it does, give it a shot.  It may not become as iconic as Olivier's Hamlet, but it will give some new perspective.

Now if I could just figure out the reason for Horatio's backpack.

Of Mountains and Molehills, Much Ado

A few are horribly upset that Obama renamed Mt. McKinley. He did and he didn't.  For a party whose advocates supposedly believe state rights, it seems to me that a number of right-wing pundits and a few in the conservative wing, are awfully upset over which flea owns the dog. I should point out that many elected Republicans also support the return of Denali.  One friend said it was a clear abuse of Obama's executive powers and went on to say this is one example showing  Obama as a dictator. This, of course, is the red meat fed not from the party but the right wing media. Strong stuff for a mountain that accidentally, more or less, got its name changed. The story of Denali vs. McKinley is the story of accidentally renaming a mountain, Ohio wanting a mountain in Alaska named for a native son, Alaska wanting to name its own mountains, a park named to honor an assassinated president and a law passed shortly after a World War.


Mt. McKinley's original name by the indigenous people was Denali which means literally Big or Tall or Great Mountain.* The first European to see the mountain was George Vancouver who called it a "distant stupendous mountain," but Vancouver left it unnamed. Ferdinand von Wrangel was actually the first person to give it a map name, Tenada, and I have no idea what that means. When Alaska was owned by Russia, it was commonly called Bolshaya Gora which means enough Big Mountain. Given the fact the natives also called it that, it seems kind of appropriate.

In 1897, a prospector named William Dickey named it in his journal as Mt. McKinley.  So in 1900 a government geologist named Josiah Spurr listed the name of Denali, as everything but Denali.  His list included a bad spelling of the Russian word for big, Mt. Allen and Mt. McKinley.  In geological reports, it was subsequently referred to as Mt. Mckinley.  After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, congress created Mt. McKinley National Park in 1917 thus by default making the official name Mt. McKinley.

Alaskans, however, continued to refer to the area and the mountain as Denali.  In 1975, the Alaskan legislature officially requested the US government return it to Denali.  The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, who govern the naming of locations and was created in 1890, agreed but were blocked.  A single congressman, Ralph Regula, from Canton, Ohio, from where President McKinley hailed, used his influence to block the renaming. In 1980, McKinley Park was made a part of the much larger Denali National Park, leaving only the issue of the name of the mountain.

Ralph Regula

Regula used congressional procedures which basically killed any chance of actually changing the name. He would periodically introduce legislation into the budget or in separate legislation directing the name of McKinley be used.  Even if the legislation failed, as long as there was a bill on the agenda of congress, the Department of the Interior who oversees the recommendations of the Board on Geographic Names, could not meet the request of the Alaskan Congress and Governor because they cannot change a name while there is legislation pending.

Regula retired in 2009 and once again there was a move in the Alaskan legislature to change the name. Two more Ohio representatives, Betty Sutton and Tim Ryan, took up Regula's cause.  Regula is a Republican while the two new fighters for McKinley are both Democrats.

In 2015, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the name would be made Denali using a power given to the Secretary if the Board on Geographic Names failed to answer a request by a state in a reasonable amount of time.  Citing the Board's failure to meet the request of the name change for 40 years as being more than enough reasonable time, the name of Mt. McKinley became Denali. The law that gives the Secretary of Interior that power was passed by Congress in 1947.

As one Alaskan senator, Lisa Murkowski (R) put it, "There's a lot of things in Ohio that are already named after McKinley. This is no affront to our former president; this is all about ensuring that respect for the land and respect for the native people of the region is afforded." The current Governor of Alaska,  Bill Walker (R) was glad the name would now "reflect and respect the rich cultural history of our state..." President Obama made the name change even more official, if there is such a thing, by Executive Order in September of 2015.


So McKinley, which was basically accidentally named by a prospector and sloppy surveyor, has been returned to its original name as requested by Alaska.  No, Obama cannot rename other landmarks. In all this much ado, there is still a magnificent mountain that will be here long after we are all dust.  Now you know that it is just a tiny bit ridiculous for fleas to argue over who owns the dog or build a mountain out of a molehill.





*Thanks to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali%E2%80%93Mount_McKinley_naming_dispute for much of the well-documented historical information that I am too lazy to look up elsewhere.