Films for the Trump Years: All The President's Men

               It has taken me far too long to get to this one. Part of this was that I didn't want to be so immediately obvious with my picks for this series, but another, bigger, part of it, especially in recent months, was simply a dearth of time, forcing me to constantly push back my writing schedule. Now, though, I make no further excuses. After nearly two years of an unending stream of revelations about the historical level of corruption in the Trump Administration, aided and abetted by every figure of consequence within the GOP, let's talk about everyone's favorite, go-to historical comparison. Let's talk about Watergate.

               Released in 1976, just a few short years after Nixon resigned in disgrace rather than face an impeachment vote, All The President's Men was the procedural investigative journalism drama that started them all; there's no Spotlight or The Post in a world where All The President's Men was never made.

               Directed by Alan J. Pakula, with a screenplay by William Goldman, the movie is directly lifted from the non-fiction book of the same name that chronicled the investigative work of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward following the Watergate break-in that, eventually uncovered a massive and long-running network of wrongdoing that forced the first (and thus far, only) resignation of a President in US history. Starring Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, the movie saw plenty of immediate success upon release. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won 4 (Art Direction, Sound Design, Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Jason Robards). Since then, its stature has only grown- it continutes to regularly appear on various "Best of" film lists from the late 20^th century, and it is among the relatively few works selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

               With all that pedigree attached to its name, and with a subject matter so heady, it's easy to approach the film today with a particularly high amount of skepticism, especially since the film defies much of the dramatic bells and whistles that later takes on this sort of journalistic film try to use to raise the stakes. There are very few moments that are conventionally "cinematic," with a rising score, quick editing, or a fast-moving camera. The movie is steady in its approach towards and depiction of real journalistic processes, and thus consists mostly of people just talking, often about names and ideas and organizations that seem incredibly obscure and vague for most viewers.

               In the end, though, this all fits in with the focus of the film, and with what makes it still stand out from others within this genre; the lack of artificial drama allows the movie to focus on the actual story all the more. Redford and Hoffman, being as good as they are, are able to tell us bits and pieces about who these reporters are as individuals, but there is never any focus on that, because that's not what's important. What matters more is examining the sort of corruption they found and providing an example of the sort of work needed to bring the truth to light.

               And it's not just all dialogue; the cinematography is expertly crafted, using a lot of distant, long tracking shots to convey a sense of size and scale of the huge apparatus that is the US government, the smallness of two reporters compared to a massive and (at the time) very mysterious corruption racket surrounded and threatening to silence them. It's easy to get lost in such large, sprawling, winding buildings, if you aren't careful.

               This careful use of shot composition reaches its zenith in the final moments of the film. It's easy to forget that Watergate was a long process- the break-in and initial investigations were in the summer of 1972, BEFORE Nixon was reelected, and were still ongoing throughout the campaign and after he won in a massive landslide. The ending of the film deliberately focuses on this moment of seeming defeat instead of ending with Nixon's ultimate downfall; in the last scene, a television airing Nixon's exuberant reelection speech is in the foreground of the shot, with Woodward and Bernstein behind and in the right side of the frame, at first out of focus, but still diligently working away at their typewriters throughout the speech, not once looking up.

               I found this choice to be incredibly powerful, the sort of silent testament most of this film's imitators have never been able to equal. Yes, there have been setbacks and losses, and in the wake of a triumphant reelection, it may have seemed obvious to many that any further efforts to uncover the truth would not change anything, or would just be waste of time. We know now, of course, that the true reckoning was still to come, but it only came about because enough people, Woodward and Bernstein included, refused to give up and insisted on airing the truth in the light of day.

               Obviously, it's not possible to talk abot this movie without adressing the famed scenes with Deep Throat (whose identity, long a secret, was revealed a full three decades after the film's release). This is easily the most well-known and most thoroughly parodied part of the entire film, so iconic that it's nearly impossible to try to experience the scenes on their own merits. They are certainly a touch on the hammy side, and the character is played up as being something of a mysterious mentor-like figure rather than one individual in a large chess game with his own goals and interests.

               Nonetheless, I still found the whole dynamic around his character an effective refute to the hope of some that, in our current times, lifelong employees of the "deep state" will be able to save us via a supposed ironclad commitment to the Constitution. If anything, the dynamic within the FBI and CIA that Deep Throat reveals is exactly the opposite- that the "deep state," insofar as it exists, tends far more towards not rocking the boat, even when that boat is headed off a fucking waterfall. And that famous line, engraved in American film canon, "Follow the money," has remained powerfully prescient; it was, indeed, through following chains of checks and bank accounts that much of Nixon's blackmailing apparatus was revealed. And when we look at the news today, what are the revelations that brings out the clearest signs of panic in Trump? Anything touching his tax returns. Oh, and how history repeats itself.

               Though certainly not perfect, All The President's Men still remains a powerful testament to how hard work and ceaseless diligence can still bring out a few rays of good into a world that seems to be drowning in darkness. It reminds us that apathy and willed ignorance remain defining parts of human society; so many people in the movie shrug their shoulders at the reporters' questions and insist they were "just following orders, and what's so wrong with a little loyalty?" In the midst of the Watergate scandal as it was developing, it was easy to feel that evil was getting the upper hand, that a particularly bad election had killed any chance of the truth meaning anything at all. Yet, because enough people refused to quite, the ultimate fall ended up being all the greater and more shocking.

               It is up to us to learn from the example set by Woodward, Bernstein, and their colleagues at the Washington Post to ensure that the current regime, one that would make even Richard Nixon blush, meets a similar (or preferably, even worse) fate.

-Noah Franc

Previously on Films for the Trump Years:

Part 1- Selma

Part 2- Good Night, and Good Luck

Part 3- 13^th

Part 4- Get Out

Part 5- Chasing Ice/Chasing Coral

Part 6- The Big Short

Part 7- Human Flow

Part 8- Winter's Bone/Moonlight

Part 9- Black Panther

Part 10- Arrested Development

Part 11- Bowling for Columbine

Part 12- [T]error

Part 13- Angels in America

Part 14- Do The Right Thing

Review: Jupiter holdja (Jupiter's Moon)

Jupiter's Moon (2017): Written by Kata Weber, directed by Kornel Mundruczo. Starring: Zsombor Jeger, Merab Ninidze, Gyoergy Cserhalmi, and Monika Balsai. Running Time: 129 minutes.

Rating: 3.5/4

               Given the long, long history of humankind dreaming of flight before it became possible, I can't help but feel this deep, profound desire within us to defy gravity is, in part, a survival instinct; how many of us have had moments in our lives, ranging from the simply embarrassing to the truly dangerous, where we would have given anything, everything, to be able to simply float away from it all, untouched and untouchable? How often has each of us dreamed of such a thing happening in our lives?

               Jupiter's Moon, the latest film by Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo (who previously gifted the world the criminally underappreciated White God in 2014), takes this basic, almost childlike concept, and makes it literal in a way that is both direct and ethereal all at once. Aryan, from Syria, is part of a group of refugees slowly making their way via smugglers through the Balkans, in the midst of the refugee crisis of 2015. He and his father are traveling together, but are separated and also lose their papers when their group is attacked and fired on in the middle of the night by Hungarian border agents. This sequence, beginning at night and continuing into the early hours in the morning, is merely the first of several set pieces within the film that are brutally effective in drawing the viewer into the apprehension and terror felt by those on-screen, as people are shot and/or drowning everywhere and no one knows where to go. It is the table-setter for the storytelling feast that is to come.

               As Aryan flees through the woods, he runs into one of the head officers, a grim man named Laszlo, who prompty shoots him several times in the chest. This should kill him instantly. But it doesn't; instead, we see him rise above the ground, slowly at first, then spin around and around in the air, the Earth spinning around behind him, until he finally crashes to the ground, where he is taken into custody. Soon afterwards, his “ability” (which the film, to its credit, never attempts to justify or explain) is discovered by Stern, a gruff and pretty miserable doctor without a job who shakes down refugees for money so as to pay the costs of a malpractice lawsuit.

               Once he gets over his shock at what he's seen, he initially tries to use Aryan to pay his debts, promising him all the while he can help him find his father, retrieve his papers, and move on out of Hungary. He starts marketing himself as a “miracle healer,” paying visits to wealthy clients and using Aryan's flying to coax them out of their life savings. As he gets to know him, though- and as Aryan quickly starts to grasp Stern's real motive for “helping” him- he starts to feel guilty, and for seemingly the first time is able to really see his faults for what they are. Not that either have much time for reflection, though; Laszlo soon learns of Aryan's powers and starts to doggedly pursue them, leaving them with fewer and fewer safe places within the city.

               There are worlds upon worlds of symbolism and meaning baked into the premise, the writing, the characters, and the story, enough that I could rattle off a dozen different interpretations of the film and still have breathing space left. One visual theme that struck me, repeatedly, was an emphasize on horizontal lines of sight. Many of the shots from Aryan's point of view while flying show people down below, only looking straight ahead, never up, and thus missing the literal miracle happening just over their heads. We become so consumed with the material, with the day-to-day, with “real life,” as we are so fond of calling it, that we lose the ability for wonder, the ability to simply look up and really see what's around us. When a character DOES look up, it's clearly seen as an exception, a lone person having a rare moment of genuine awareness.

               These moments of flight are among the most powerful in the film, where the movement of the camera and the way the music and sound intensifies create a sensation to rival anything in How To Train Your Dragon or the Superman canon. Come to think of it, Superman was himself a refugee, so perhaps that fits better that I first thought. In one particularly memorable moment, he drifts down the side of an apartment building to the street below. As he drifts lower and lower, he passes the windows to the rooms in each level, where we briefly look in different people engaged in different parts of life- having sex, feeding pets, children playing, or just watching TV- and all the while, the light casts his shadow across the building and the people within. At times, it's not clear what, exactly, Aryan's powers are; is he himself flying, or is reorienting and altering gravity around his body? I suppose it's up to us to decide.

               Not that the technical prowess of the film is limited to flight; this film also has, for my money, one of the most intense car chases ever put to film. As Stern and Aryan attempt to drive away from the hospital, Laszlo pursues them in a high-speed chase through the city. The whole scene is done in a single shot, with the camera fixed to the front of Laszlo's car, so that our eyes the entire time are near ground-level, moving at the same speed as the car; we, alongside the car, swerve around incoming traffic, fall behind, pull ahead, and at times bang into Stern's car in front of us, until the chase finally ends in a moment that is genuinely heart-stopping.

               Zsombor Jeger occasionally runs the risk of being a bit of an empty vessel as Aryan, but the concrete stakes and clear goals for him- find his father, get to the train station, get out of Budapest- allow him to ground the character as someone who just wants a little peace back in his life. He never asked for miraculous powers. Like every single one of the tens of millions of real-world refugees around the globe, he never asked for any of this. He never asked to be shot, to be chased, to be demonized, to become a receptacle for the stereotypes, fears, and selfish desires of people from a country, language, and culture he knows nothing of. It's simply happened to him, and the only way he is able to cope is to keep a laser-focus on a few, concrete goals.

               Merab Ninidze and Gyoergy Cserhalmi as, respectively, Stern and Laszlo, give powerhouse performances as well, but sadly, the lone female character ( Monika Balsai), a fellow doctor/girlfriend of Stern's who tolerates his use of hospital facilities despite his probation, gets a somewhat short shrift. Her character, and the particular struggles she deals with between her job and Stern, not to mention the hell that breaks loose when Aryan shows up, had potential to further expand the film's nuance, but it's never really dealt with. It's the one major shortcoming in a film that is otherwise damn-near perfect.

               The closest thing to a thesis in a movie that otherwise resists explaining itself is a line contained in an exchange between Stern and Aryan while catching a rare moment of rest. Speaking of the fears and failings in their lives, Aryan asks Stern if there really is somewhere, anywhere, that is truly safe. Stern responds, “There is no place safe from the injuries of history.” Quite right. Unless, I suppose, if one could learn how to just fly away.

-Noah Franc

Review- Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019): Written by Rob Letterman, Derek Connelly, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez, directed by Rob Letterman. Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe, and Bill Nighy. Running Time: 104 minutes. Based on the Pokemon franchise by Satoshi Tajiri and the 2016 video game Detective Pikachu.

Rating: 3/4

               I remained skeptical right up to the end- nothing, I felt, could ever make live-action Pokemon convincing- but lo and behold, Detective Pikachu pulled it off; the Pokemon Cinematic Universe has officially arrived, and a new chapter in Pokehistory begins.

               Set in the distinctly noir-ish Ryme City, Tim Goodman (played by Justice Smith) has just learned of the death of his estranged father, Harry Goodman, while following a case. He's arrived in the city- a place founded as a quasi-utopia of human-Pokemon coexistence by the business visionary Howard Clifford (played by an extra-delicious Bill Nighy)- to sort through his things, but the night he arrives his Dad's apartment is infiltrated by a deerstalker-wearing Pikachu with the voice of Ryan Reynolds.

               The REALLY strange part is that he's the only one who can talk with Pikachu- no other person hears the voice of Deadpool coming out of the yellow Lightning Mouse at his side, just that trademark cry of “Pika-pikaaaa!” Both are wholly taken aback by this, but before they can figure out what in Arceus' name is going on, they soon find themselves drawn into the mystery Tim's father was apparently exploring at the time of his death, one that involves an illicit, gaseous drug that appears to turn any Pokemon that breathes it in raging mad.

               It's off to the races from there, with story twists and character turns aplenty, although with one exception none of them are anything experienced moviegoers will have any trouble predicting well in advance. I can't find it in me to hold this too harshly against the film, though, since the story was never the point; this is a film out to make bank on the wow factor of seeing as many CGI Pokemon on the screen as possible. And it is very hard, as a lifelong Pokefreak, to not get caught up in the sheer novelty of it all; the awesome spectacle of a Magicarp evolving, the sweetness of seeing a field filled with chirping Bulbasaur, or the belly laugh to be had when the film aggressively acknowledges how fucking useless Mr. Mime is. And, of course, seeing Mewtwo in action is something no Pokemaniac can ever not find cool; it's ingrained far too deeply in our DNA.

               True, none of these bits ever hit a real high note of the sort of wonder the best of Pokemon achieves- though a sequence involving a field of massive Torterras might come the closest- but the designs really are excellently realized, and nearly all of them look solid. The music further adds to the intended feel of a video game coming to life, mixing in synthetic beats during the action scenes that deliberately hark to the best of the music from the games. All in all, the movie finds a good balance between the CGI effects and Blade-Runner aesthetic, though I do hope future films take up a brighter pallet; Pokemon were meant to pop, not be shaded over. Not like this.

               As far as the humans are concerned, Justice Smith acquits himself quite well in the lead role. He finds the right balance between conveying his own character's personal issues, from a strained relationship with his father to abandoned dreams of Pokemon mastership, without bogging down the tone of the film too much, especially during his scenes with Ryan Reynolds' Pikachu. My Deadpool joke before may be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but Reynold's timing and delivery, though obviously kid-friendly, is clearly cut from the same cloth. He and Smith play off each other well, and their scenes together are easily the best of the whole movie.

               The other humans, though, are very mixed. Bill Nighy is all the joy you would expect from the man who brought us “Christmas Is All Around,” but Ken Watanabe is sadly wasted in his side role as police chief, and the less said about Chris Geere, the better. The one that I feel the most mixed about is Kathryn Newton as Lucy Stevens, a wannabe reporter in the city who enters the story following her own leads on the gas. She's trying her best, and I liked a lot of her dynamic with Smith, but the script does her no favors; her introductory scene has way too many one-liners that are genuinely groan-inducing, and it takes awhile for the character to recover after stumbling out of the gate like that.

               All things considered, I had tremendous fun watching this movie and am officially on board for whatever comes next in the PCU. Yes, I do confess- live action Pokemon CAN work. Bring on another round, with a good, strong coffee to boot.

-Noah Franc