Tag Archives: Louis C.K.

Trumbo

Trumbo is one of 2015’s best films. Its amazing story, its serious message and its sense of humor make it a “must see” for lovers of movies and movie history.

Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was a real-life screenwriter who wrote scripts for numerous hit movies. He was also a Communist. Along with like-minded members of the movie community such as actor Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlberg) and writers Arlen Hurd (Louis CK) and Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk), Trumbo went up against right-wingers like John Wayne (David James Elliott) and gossip queen Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) in Hollywood.

In one of the film’s memorable scenes, Hurd questions Trumbo about an apparent contradiction: he earns riches and enjoys the fruits of his labors while supporting the socialist philosophy of Communism. Another favorite scene features a confrontation between Trumbo and Wayne, in which Trumbo asks Wayne to let him remove his glasses first in case the Duke plans to punch him.

After World War II, Trumbo and other Hollywood figures are summoned to testify before Congress. Trumbo is held in contempt and incarcerated. Upon his return to L.A., because he is blacklisted, he has to work under assumed names. Much of that work is on “B-movies” for Frank King (John Goodman). Another favorite scene has King grabbing a baseball bat and menacing a right-winger who threatens to lead a boycott of King’s movies. Trumbo’s script for Roman Holiday (written under an alias) earned a screenwriting Oscar.

With love and support from his family, including wife Cleo (Diane Lane) and daughter Niki (Elle Fanning), Trumbo gradually edges back into the mainstream. Courageously, actor Kirk Douglas (Dean O’Gorman) and director Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel) step up and hire Trumbo to script Spartacus.

Trumbo deals with a serious topic but has many good laughs. Cranston plays the role with sincerity but a bit of bemusement at the way his career careens. The director is Jay Roach who directed the hilarious Austin Powers and Fockers movies.The script is by John McNamara.

Trumbo concludes with a heartfelt speech at an awards ceremony that allows Dalton Trumbo to say how he feels about what happened to him. In postwar America, just three decades after Russia’s revolution, there was serious concern about the threat of Communism. It is easy to look back now and see how the response to Trumbo’s activism was an gross overreaction.

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American Hustle

Director David O. Russell doesn’t really have a repertory company, but all four of his lead actors in American Hustle have worked for him in either 2010’s The Fighter or 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook. They all perform at a high level in American Hustle, working from a script that gives each of the four opportunities to shine. On January 16, expect a name or two or three from this ensemble to receive Oscar noms.

The root word of con, as in con man or con game, is confidence. In American Hustle, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) gains the confidence of marks who believe that he can get them loans for 50K. But first, they have to give him negotiable checks for 5-thousand to get the ball rolling.

After Irving meets Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) at a party and discovers they share a love of Duke Ellington, they become lovers and partners in crime. Sydney joins him in his con game. She fakes a British accent and implies that she can get money from friends in high places in the UK banking world.

When the con man and woman are caught by the feds, they are enlisted to aid the FBI in scamming politicians. American Hustle is not the story of the Abscam sting, which saw politicians accepting bribes. But true-life events inform much of what happens in AH.

Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) is the agent who runs the sting and becomes enamored with Sydney. Irving’s wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) seems at first to be a shallow, unaware housewife but later is revealed to be more clever than initially revealed.

Carmen Polito (Jeremy Renner with a pompadour Conway Twitty would’ve envied) is the mayor of Camden, New Jersey who wants to help his state get the money to help develop Atlantic City. While setting him up for the sting, Irving finds that he actually likes Carmen—which makes things interesting.

Another Russell alum (who appeared in Silver Linings Playbook), Robert DeNiro, plays a Miami mobster gets involved when a fake Arab sheik is presented as the deep pockets money man. Louis CK has a small role as agent DiMaso’s boss.

American Hustle has all the elements a movie needs to succeed: a compelling story, interesting characters and a clever telling of that story. It’s not the best movie of 2013, but it will show up on numerous top ten lists for the year, as it should.

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Blue Jasmine

How much money did Woody Allen lose to Bernie Madoff? If he was not among the many who were defrauded (Madoff’s ripoff total was some 65 billion dollars), Allen probably has friends in New York city who were losers in the gigantic Ponzi scheme.

Blue Jasmine is ostensibly the story of Jeanette “Jasmine” French (Cate Blanchett) whose husband Hal (Alec Baldwin) went to jail for investment fraud a la Madoff. After the feds have seized all their belongings, Jasmine goes from Park Avenue to San Francisco to stay with a poorer relation, her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Both were adopted and have never been particularly close.

Blue Jasmine also illustrates the damage done to people by investment scandals like the Madoff affair. Not just to Jasmine, but also to Ginger and her ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) and to Hal’s son Danny (Alden Ehrenreich), among others. Cate Blanchett’s performance may be the main reason to see Blue Jasmine, but Allen’s script (based on repercussions of the real-life fraud) is flawless and is the framework for this excellent movie.

Other memorable characters populate Blue Jasmine. Ginger’s boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale) is a volatile, tactless greaser who nonetheless accurately pegs Jasmine. Al (Louis C.K.) is a flirty charmer who momentarily woos Ginger away from Chili. Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) is the classy guy who appears to be Jasmine’s ticket back to wealth and respectability.

Jasmine is, at various times during the film, a woman to be pitied and a woman to be scorned. She has no apparent misgivings about her behavior when she was a woman of leisure, the wife of a man with limitless wealth. She has difficulty adjusting to her new personal economy and lifestyle and, like many working women, has to fight off the advances of her boss. Her crises have left her dependent on booze and pills to maintain a semblance of sanity. When she meets a wealthy man who is impressed by her style and grace, she is ready to shove off from Ginger’s generous charity in a heartbeat. Can she handle reality or is she a big phony?

A favorite scene is the one that finds Jasmine in an eatery booth with Ginger and Augie’s two sons. She shares with them some memories of the unraveling of her charmed life in NYC. The boys stare back with blank expressions, but she tells the tale anyway, perhaps because she knows that they don’t perceive the ramifications as their mom might.

Cate Blanchett is a likely Oscar nominee for best actress. Woody Allen has given her a timely, memorable character and she has delivered a performance that may be her best. Blue Jasmine is a “must see” movie. Not just for Cate’s work, but also for Woody’s.

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