In a summer filled with superhero movies and blockbusters filled with aliens looking to decimate planet Earth, it’s nice to see one with an earthbound action hero who hurts and bleeds like the rest of us. That’s the great thing about watching Matt Damon as Jason Bourne; he makes this formerly amnesiac soldier completely human even as he performs superhuman feats. And now the latest Bourne adventure, simply titled “Jason Bourne,” has Damon reuniting with director Paul Greengrass in another globe-trotting adventure that has Bourne, or David Webb if you want to call him by his real name, once again risking his life more often than not. What results is one of the most solidly entertaining movies to come out in a rather blah summer movie season.
We catch up with Bourne several years after the events of “The Bourne Ultimatum” as he makes a living participating in illegal fighting rings. Bourne has since recovered from his amnesia to where he remembers everything, but he still finds himself haunted by what he has done and plagued by demons he can only expunge by beating up opponents, sometimes with a single punch. But then Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) turns up out of the blue to give Bourne some important information regarding Bourne’s father, Richard Webb (Gregg Henry). Just when you thought Bourne was done with the past, it turns out he doesn’t actually remember everything, or at least not yet.
I still vividly remember watching “The Bourne Ultimatum” at the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles when it came out in 2007. Few action movies thrilled me the way “Ultimatum” did as Greengrass grounded it in a reality not all that different from our own. Both he and Damon know what makes these movies ticks, and this proves to be “Jason Bourne’s” greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Some have called this entry in the franchise “The Bourne Familiarity,” and it’s not hard to understand why. It follows many of the same beats of its predecessors to where the freshness we discovered in “The Bourne Identity” is largely lost here. Still, “Jason Bourne” is still a pulse-pounding thrill ride as we are led from one insane action set piece to another to where we can’t catch our breath.
Aside from Damon, Stiles is the only actor from previous installments to appear in “Jason Bourne.” This time around we are introduced to a new set of CIA employees that are either out to terminate Bourne or eager to learn more about him. Among them is CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) who is eager to punish Bourne for his exposure of the Blackbriar program. Dewey is also heading the Iron Hand program, a Treadstone for the new millennium, and it’s no surprise that while he doesn’t intend to make the same mistakes, it’s highly likely he will make a bunch of new ones.
Jones is great fun to watch here as he is so devilish in his portrayal of a man eager to bury the past in order to ensure the security of America’s future. You never catch “The Fugitive” actor playing Dewey as a one-dimensional bad guy, but instead as a man eager to control the uncontrollable. Not once does Jones overact here as he warns others not to tell Bourne all they know, and he is an actor who doesn’t need to speak up much to show just how threatening he can be. It’s great to see him react to the havoc Bourne brings to his carefully laid plans as he does his best to remain cool under pressure.
But I have to tell you, the person almost steals “Jason Bourne” from Damon and Jones is recent Oscar winner Alicia Vikander who portrays the head of the CIA Cyber Ops Division, Heather Lee. Vikander is to “Jason Bourne” as Rebecca Ferguson was to “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation;” a wonderfully enigmatic character whose motives are never entirely clear until the very end. Some will complain that Vikander gives an emotionless performance here, but that’s missing the point. Her character is one who has to hold her cards close to her chest as any reveal could compromise not just her, but the movie as a whole. You can’t take your eyes off of Vikander as she grabs your attention from start to finish.
Greengrass still knows how to direct an action movie to maximum impact. As with “The Bourne Supremacy” and “Ultimatum,” he succeeds in putting you into the action as opposed to making you sit comfortably in your seat. The shaky cam remains a favorite of his which will drive some audience members nuts, but it serves to make all those bullets, car chases and punches feel all the more visceral. As “Jason Bourne” reaches its furious climax, Greengrass keeps our pulses pounding as we wonder how much more damage its hero can take.
Speaking of car chases, Greengrass still comes up with the craziest ones ever. This movie has Bourne chasing down a nameless “Asset” (played by Vincent Cassel) up and down the Las Vegas strip. It’s hard to remember the last time so many parked cars were destroyed in a movie, but “Jason Bourne” may very well have set a new record. While we watch this chase confident Bourne will survive, you still wonder how he will survive when he’s racing at speeds even Sammy Hagar wouldn’t approve of.
“Jason Bourne” doesn’t feel quite as thrilling as “The Bourne Ultimatum” did, and the familiarity it shares with its predecessors does take away from the excitement a bit. But after a seven-year break, Damon and Greengrass still know how to get our adrenaline pumping to where we come out of the theatre thoroughly exhausted. In a summer that feels surprisingly low on thrill rides, we finally have one which delivers.
There’s certainly room for another Bourne adventure in the future, but here’s hoping our hero looks forward instead of back. That should make a future installment stand on its own a bit more.
2015 proved to be a great year for documentaries with unforgettable ones like “Amy,” “An Honest Liar” and “The Wolfpack.” Now there’s another terrific documentary to check out called “Take None Give None” which is about the Chosen Few, an outlaw motorcycle club based in South Central Los Angeles. Directed by Gusmano Cesaretti, a producer on many of Michael Mann’s films, it chronicles how this motorcycle club, the first multi-racial club of its kind, formed and is bound by the strength of their brotherhood. The documentary also follows the club’s struggles as they deal with the LAPD which raided their clubhouse and unfairly branded them as a criminal organization in the media.
“Take None Give None” had a special screening at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los AngelesMuseum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and it was sold out and filled with people of all kinds as well as members of the Chosen Few. When it ended, one of the club’s members stood up and said, “Tell people about this movie so that they can see who we really are.” This was met with a thunderous applause from everyone in attendance.
I got to speak with Cesaretti over the phone about “Take None Give None” which he filmed with co-director Kurt Mangum over a three-year period. Cesaretti described how he became acquainted with the Chosen Few, how he managed to get an interview with one of the LAPD cops who went undercover to infiltrate the club, and of how working with Michael Mann served to help him on this project.
Ben Kenber: Congratulations on the documentary. This proved to be a real eye opener about the Chosen Few. How did you first become acquainted with this motorcycle club?
Gusmano Cesaretti: Well I saw some of those guys riding motorcycles about 25 years ago on the Pasadena freeway and I pulled over next to them with my car and I said, “Hey! Pull over, I want to talk to you.” And they pulled over then I told them, “I like the way you look. Everything about it is great. I love the way you were riding the bike.” They weren’t just riders, they had pride for some reason. So I told them I would like to take some pictures, and they invited me to the clubhouse. I went over there and it was amazing to see all these great amounts of people and they were all nice. I walked over with the camera and everybody started looking at me and saying, “Hey what are you doing? Oh yeah take pictures of me! Take pictures of my bike!” It was really great. They were friendly, they were open to anything and to me it was fascinating. They were a great people and then I started going there every other week and kept taking photographs and so on in support. Then in 2011, because they were talking all the time about their rides and how important they were for them and being together in like a brotherhood, I said I would like to film one of your rides. So I organized a ride for them where we went through South Central and on the freeways and then through downtown, and then after the ride they started really talking to me and said that we should make a record of all this. That’s when I started doing the documentary, and we just finished (laughs).
BK: When you first started shooting the documentary, how did you envision it and how did it evolve from that point to where it is now?
GC: That’s a good question. When I first started the documentary I had no idea because when you make a documentary you really don’t know which way you’re going. I feel you’re doing it for a year or two (laughs) and then you would have all the information you ever need to create a storyline. We recorded about 48 hours (of footage), and when we finally decided to edit it was like a nightmare because you’ve got listen to all these conversations and all the recording we did. It took months but then you know what’s going on, and then we put a big roll of paper on the floor of my studio and started writing down the scenes. It was crazy. A lot of different cameras were used. It took me about a month to figure out the storyline, and then even during the process of editing there’s always changing this, putting back this and taking this off. It was a very challenging process but I learned so much.
BK: When it came to filming the documentary what formats did you utilize?
GC: We did a lot of stuff with the Super 8 riding the bikes here and there and we used other film. We used Cannon, we used Sony, etc. But the problem when we did the editing, because of all the different formats and all the different cameras, it became now we gotta do this, now we gotta change this and now we have to download everything into this. It was really crazy, but it worked because I shot it in a very cinema verite way. I didn’t want to commit to any style. And the way I interviewed those guys it was like, “Tell me the story.” I didn’t ask any questions because I wanted them to talk and tell me from their point of view. So that’s usually the way I prefer to do my photography; I connect with people and establish a relationship even if it’s for a moment, and I need to start a relationship if I want to get the image that I need.
BK: When the Chosen Few’s club gets raided, we get to see how the media really twisted their identity of proportion. Then they got evicted from their building which had a huge impact on the neighborhood because things were a lot safer when the club was around.
GC: Correct. What was interesting about the Chosen Few in South Central is that it’s really about the cultural of Los Angeles. It’s not necessarily about the bikers, it’s about their lives. The clubhouse was open for all the members and friends and people and visitors like me. There were probably a lot of undercover cops going there too, I’m sure, just to check and make sure that they were okay. But the thing is this; there were always old people there. It wasn’t just the club for the motorcycle people. It was older people who used to sit there all day long and have conversations with their friends, and when they lost the clubhouse a lot of these old people died because they didn’t have a place to go. They were like homeless people practically, and that was really sad to see that happen. All the members too, they felt homeless. They felt like the police were trying to take their identity away. They didn’t have the energy that they used to have any more, so it was extremely sad.
BK: Speaking of the police, you did manage to get an interview with one of the undercover cops who infiltrated the Chosen Few. Was that a hard interview to get?
GC: No actually. I have a friend that is a cop and I said to him, “Look I’m doing this documentary and I would like to interview the police that did the raid.” He said, “Yeah I’ll find him for you.” So he took a couple weeks and then he called me one night and said, “I got the guy.” I talked to him and he was very interested to do it, and we got together and did it. He was actually a nice cop. He was very open and he also told me the truth. What he was saying was real.
BK: It was nice to have the cop’s perspective of the raid as well as the Chosen Few’s as it manages to balance things out.
GC: Yes, yes. It’s a big club and not everybody’s an angel, you know what I mean? But that’s the same in any other big company like Google. There’s always somebody messing up things and in the club a lot of those guys come from the gangs, most of them. Being in the club was like upgrading their lifestyle and they got a job, but they are still connected with the streets and the gangs. There will always be somebody doing a little bit of this and little bit of that and a little drug dealing, but most of them are really wonderful, nice people. The theology of the Father, Lionel Ricks, is amazing. He started the club because he didn’t have a family and he wanted to have a family. That’s beautiful. What really fascinated me the most was that Lionel Ricks started the club in 1959 and then integrated it in 1960, and this was before the civil rights movement. He was able to bring blacks and whites and Mexicans and Chinese and a couple of people from Syria together without any political or powerful stuff like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and all those people afterwards. He did it very simple and in a naïve and beautiful way with the motorcycle. That’s amazing to me. Think about it, he brought people together with a motorcycle! And that was when I said, “Okay we gotta do this,” and they were all excited about doing a documentary. We got all these great people to interview and the Father. The Father right now is very sick and in the hospital, and I hope he’s going to get better. But I did show him the documentary about a month ago when we finished editing. I went over to his house and showed it to him, and he had tears in his eyes and said, “It’s good. It’s real.” And I said, “Great! Thank you!” He really loved it.
BK: You worked a lot with Michael Mann on his movies. How did your experience working with him help you in making this documentary?
GC: Well I think making a film is completely different from making a documentary. The only help that I got on this film from that world is the camera guys that I worked with, and they are my friends and they came and helped me. With film you have a script and you got the actors and you have time to keep repeating and filming a scene a scene until it comes to where you want it. When you do a documentary the moment is right there. You are shooting this, you turn your head and you see something and you shoot that. You don’t know what’s going on and you’ve got to be aware of what is going on around you, so it’s really different. For me, this was a totally unique experience.
BK: Was there anything you wanted to include in this documentary that you were not able to?
GC: We got to a point where we said okay we gotta finish this project, so there were maybe a few more people that I wanted to interview that we never got to. There was a guy who did an amazing wheel stand. He did a wheelie and he was supposed to come over one night to do a performance for us while we were shooting in South Central, but the guy couldn’t make it and never showed up. And that was another thing that I wanted to include because it’s beautiful and its part of the art of being in control of the motorcycle. When somebody does something like that in a beautiful way it was nice to visually put it into the documentary, but at the same time it wasn’t that kind of a documentary. It was more about the feeling of the individuals and the members and everything that came from their hearts and communicating to the outside world and saying here we are. This is what we are. We are not what people think, we are what we are.
I want to thank Gusmano Cesaretti for taking the time to talk with me. Please feel free to check out the movie’s website at www.takenonegivenonethefilm.com, and be sure to check out its social media pages on Facebook and Twitter.
“Cache” was written and directed by Michael Haneke who made “Funny Games” (both the original and the remake), “The White Ribbon” and “Amour.” My parents gave me the DVD to this film as a Christmas present, and I went ahead and watched it before going out to see the “Funny Games” remake in theaters. With all the polarizing opinions regarding that film, I felt it was in my best interest to see “Cache” beforehand as I was afraid that if I hated it, then I would never get around to watching the DVD my parents gave me. I have enough trouble as it is watching the other movies they have given me over the years, but this one had a great quote on the DVD cover by Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Like Hitchcock, only creepier.” I read that quote and was immediately intrigued about what this movie had in store for me.
“Cache” opens up with a long and uninterrupted shot of an exterior of the residence the main characters live in which lasts a good three or four minutes. But suddenly we hear voices and eventually realize we are actually watching a videotape along with two people who rewind it at one point. The couple is made up of TV talk show host Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), and they have received this tape from an anonymous person for reasons unknown. As this couple continues to receive more videos, their lives unravel at an increasing rate as the layers of the movie’s story keep getting peeled away.
Describing a movie like this is difficult because its creator makes it ambiguous to the point where we have no choice but to draw our conclusions as to what we have witnessed. These videos reawaken long and dormant memories for Georges as we come to see events from his childhood which may or may not be real, and it uncovers a guilt he thought he had long since made his peace with. But instead, he discovers that deep emotional scar never really disappeared, and now it is being picked at like a nasty scab more than ever before. In the end, it does not matter who is making these videos as much as it does the effect they have on Georges and those closest to him.
It’s clear to me Haneke really likes to play around with the audiences’ expectations. We are so conditioned by the formulaic movies mainstream cinema churns out with consistent regularity to where anything which challenges the norm seems designed to give us unbearable headaches. Those looking for a resolution which tidies up everything to everyone’s satisfaction will be endlessly frustrated with “Cache.” Haneke is not a director interested in spelling out everything for you as he is in trying to get you to figure out the story for yourself.
What is revealed is that Georges did something to another person he never really forgave himself for. Now the past is coming back to haunt him, and it ends up isolating him in his own guilt and fears and alienates him from his family. Anne, Georges’ wife, is incensed she is not being let in on any guesses her husband has as to who might be putting them through such immense anxiety. Georges is never portrayed as a bad person, but it doesn’t matter if he is a good person. Guilt tears away at him, and while some make peace with the past, he may never have that luxury. What’s worse, this guilt may end up being carried on by his son who only has inklings of what is going on between his parents.
Haneke won the Best Director award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival for “Cache,” and it was probably well deserved. He keeps you hooked into the story which is like an onion that keeps being peeled away, and he succeeds in generating strong tension without the use of a music score. In fact, there is little to no music played throughout the entire movie. The only other movie I can think of which succeeded in keeping us on the edge of our seats without the aid of a music score is “The China Syndrome.”
All the performances are excellent without ever being flashy. Daniel Auteuil creates a morally ambiguous character who is not always easy to get along with, but we still care about what he goes through from start to finish. The most recognizable actor here is Juliette Binoche, and her performance is another in a long line of brilliant ones she has given. Binoche makes Anne’s panic and anxiety all the more real as she keeps getting shut out in the cold as to what’s really going on. Also, Maurice Bénichou, who plays a very pivotal character, brilliantly shows how a person can be threating while remaining perfectly calm.
“Cache” is a brilliant exercise in suspense, and it shows how much of a master Haneke in generating suspense. There are no easy answers to be found here, and the ending itself leaves a lot of things open, but not all movies are meant to be easily understood. Some are meant to engage you mentally so you can draw your own conclusions. What’s wrong with having a movie like that every once in a while? We need challenging movies which break the typical formulas dominating most of American cinema today. “Cache” engages you with the unblinking eye of the camera, and it traps you in the world of its characters to where it is impossible to look away. Movies don’t get more suspenseful than this one.
I have a confession to make; for years I had never seen a John Wayne western before. I was certainly aware of who he was and of how he is seen as an American hero to many. There is an airport in Orange County named after him, and it houses an enormous statue of him in his western gear that towers over all those taking a flight out of there. Wayne is as conservative as an actor can get in Hollywood, and there are certain people I know personally who don’t want to watch his movies because of that. But come one, we’re here to watch a movie, not debate politics! If I can sit through a Chuck Norris movie, there’s no reason why I can’t see a John Wayne movie.
“Rio Bravo” was directed by Howard Hawks and it is widely regarded as one of the greatest westerns ever made. It was made by Hawks and Wayne as a “right wing response” to “High Noon” in which Gary Cooper played a sheriff who urged the townspeople to join him in defending the town they live in. In “Rio Bravo” Wayne plays Sheriff John T. Chance, a man who has no time at for amateurs and will deal only with professionals who know what they are doing. That should give you a good idea of how pissed off Wayne was at Cooper.
The plot revolves around Chance guarding a prisoner named Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) who murdered another man at a bar for no good reason. Working with Chance are an old cripple named Stumpy (Walter Brennan) who is always complaining about something, the town drunk Dude (Dean Martin) who spends the movie sobering up, and the new kid in town Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson) who is quick on the draw. They are waiting for the marshal to arrive to take Burdette away, but his brother Nathan (John Russell) will not rest until he is freed. Nothing beats brotherly love when you want to keep your sibling from being someone’s best friend, in a manner of speaking, behind bars.
“Rio Bravo” is essentially a big buildup to a final a violent confrontation between the Sheriff and Nathan where bullets fly in all directions. We see these characters going about their normal lives and the Sheriff starting up a subtle romance with the new woman in town, Feathers (Angie Dickinson). Most action movies today would demand filmmakers cut out the character developments and simply go right to the action. It is rare to see a movie like “Rio Bravo” made today as filmmaking gets more faster paced to where we keep losing the art of subtlety.
I see why Wayne was such an incredibly strong presence in movies. He handles the dialogue well, but his best moments come when he doesn’t say a word. There is a moment where he glares at someone he doesn’t recognize as friendly, and he keeps staring at him until the nameless man walks away. Like Chance, Wayne had a face with a lot of history written all over it, and few others could pull off a scene like that so effectively.
You could tell that, like his characters, Wayne had been through a lot in life, and this added immeasurably to the “don’t mess with me” attitude he exhibited onscreen. He was never some pretty boy actor trying to get the ladies, but a seemingly down to earth guy doing his part to serve and protect others.
The other actor who impressed me here was Dean Martin who played Dude, the once famous gunslinger who has spent way too much time drinking to ease a broken heart. Maybe it’s because I have this view of Martin being a member of the Rat Pack to where I thought it completely overshadowed him as an actor. I figured he was more of a star than an actor, but his performance here proved me wrong. Martin takes his character from what seems like an eternally drunk state to a world of sobriety he struggles to keep up with. It’s a battle he can never fully win, but he tries to stay on the right track and Martin makes you root for him throughout.
I can also see why Ricky Nelson was cast here. A big rock star at the time, he was probably cast to help this movie appeal more to women who were crazy about him at the time. Nelson may never have been a truly great actor, but he is very good here as the new kid out to help the Sheriff in times of trouble. Nelson plays it cool here, maybe too cool at times, but you believe he is quick on the trigger.
But the big scene stealer here is Walter Brennan who plays Stumpy. All Stumpy can do is guard the jail with his shotgun and from behind closed doors, and he can be seriously trigger happy if you don’t let him know you’re right outside those jail doors. Every other line he said throughout the movie had the audience I saw it with at New Beverly Cinema in hysterics. The moment where he does that quick impression of Chance had me laughing my ass off.
This is also the first movie I have ever seen directed by Howard Hawks. He shoots with an economy of style and doesn’t overburden “Rio Bravo” with too much style and overlong shots a lot of show-off directors tend to employ. His focus here is on the characters and how they interact with one another. This makes the action more exciting as we come to care about these characters to where we don’t want them to get hurt.
Director John Carpenter pointed out how one of Hawks’ strongest attributes as a filmmaker is his inclusion of strong women. The example of that in Rio Bravo is in the form of Angie Dickinson’s character of Feathers who proves to be the only person in the entire movie who can tame Chance. You never doubt Feathers to be an independent woman who can get by on her own terms. She’s tough, and yet Dickinson manages to bring some vulnerability to Feathers where she doesn’t always appear trustworthy.
The scenes Dickinson has with Wayne are strong, and she succeeds in bringing out his vulnerabilities to the point where he can’t help but appear a little goofy. This is all despite the fact that Wayne was 51 and Dickinson was 26 when they made this movie. It turns out Wayne was very nervous about the love scenes in regards to the age difference. Then again, I don’t think I would have noticed their age difference unless someone pointed it out to me.
“Rio Bravo” is filled with many memorable moments not easily forgotten. The moment where Dude takes out a shooter in a bar is a brilliant one you never see coming. The shootouts are still exciting as hell, especially when good use is made of a flower pot being hurled through a window.
One of my favorite moments comes when the men come in harmony together as they sing “My Rifle, My Pony and Me.” It reminded me of one of my favorite moments from Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” when Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw sang “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” I love those moments in films when people find a way to come together despite whatever differences keep them apart.
I found “Rio Bravo” to be an excellent western, and it’s no surprise to me that it is one of the most influential westerns ever made. It certainly holds a strong place in the cinematic history of westerns, and it endures to this very day. Of course, Hollywood in its infinite wisdom will probably end up remaking it after they have pillaged all the horror franchises they can. That’ll be the day!
“Almost Holy” is one of the most harrowing documentaries I have seen in years as it follows the efforts of Gennadiy Mokhnenko, a Ukrainian pastor, who helps the drug addicted kids lost in the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine. After the Soviet Union fell, social services in Russia were severely cut to where many of its citizens fell into a life of drugs and prostitution, and Gennadiy pulls them off the street to give them the help they need at his Pilgrim Republic rehab facility. While many view him as a hero, others consider him a vigilante for his unorthodox tactics. The way he sees it, he doesn’t need anyone’s permission to do good deeds, and the documentary invites us to make up our own minds about him and what he does.
“Almost Holy” was directed by Steve Hoover whose previous works include the critically acclaimed documentaries “Blood Brother” and “Seven Days.” I got to speak with him while he was in Los Angeles.
Ben Kenber: How did you first become aware of Gennadiy?
Steve Hoover: I had friends who worked on an assignment in Ukraine doing a promotional piece for a nonprofit and they were traveling to a lot of different cities in Ukraine, and their last stop was Mariupol at Pilgrim with is Gennadiy’s rehab center. They were forewarned that this guy was fascinating and to not revert too much onto him, and the way they’ll describe is not intentionally, but he stole the show for them. They detoured from the project and followed him for several days and just filmed everything, and they described Gennadiy as having loads of stories and he just talked and captivated everybody in the room. These are friends of mine that I work with and they came back to Pittsburgh where I am based after that trip and they were like, “You have to see this guy. He’s open to being in a documentary and he has years of archival footage. Do you want to direct it?” And I was like, “Well, why don’t you direct it?” Anyway, they offered it to me to direct, so that’s how I got connected to Gennadiy and things went from there.
BK: What I found fascinating about “Almost Holy” is that you never judge Gennadiy. There are reasons to judge him especially when it comes to the way he gets kids into his rehab program. How were you able to keep a very objective perspective while making this documentary?
SH: I wanted people to have a similar experience that I had. I didn’t want them to have my exact experience. I found that I walked into this situation thinking that I knew and understood the story, but as documentaries go you never do. In general, I’m interested in people’s motives and complications of people’s motives, and I like to explore why people make the decisions they make because I find people so easily boil people’s motives down to very simple things. I just don’t think that’s ever the case. Why Gennadiy does what he does, there is not an easy answer for that. I think he’s somebody you could frame in a lot of different ways. People have made him look very heroic, and I wanted people to see what I saw and didn’t want to give people answers because I don’t ever feel confident in being like here’s how you should think or here’s how you should think about this person. You don’t have to do any work, just react emotionally to this.
BK: How would you say your vision of this documentary evolved from when you first started shooting it to when you were editing it?
SH: I think because my friends that had met Gennadiy had limited exposure to him, they thought the story was something. So what they communicated to me was what I thought the story was going to be; that Gennadiy only stays in Mariupol and pulls kids off the streets and rehabs them. That was what I thought I was walking into. I didn’t have personal correspondence with Gennadiy beforehand, so the first time I saw him was the first time I ever talked to him. Some people will do extensive talks with the subject to try to figure out if this is worth it, but I just fell into Ukraine which, for me, was fun because it was this exploration and it was very much an adventure. I quickly started to realize that the story was more interesting than that. How does he get more interesting than adopting homeless kids and rehabbing them? His story had evolved with the needs and problems of his city and what was around him, and I came to realize that adopting kids from the street through these night raids was a back story and that it was so much more ill-defined which made him more developed and interesting. When we started the conflict hadn’t happened. There wasn’t even like, “Oh now’s a good time to do something in Ukraine because there might be a conflict.” There was nothing. That all dramatically impacted the narrative of the film because the conflict forced its way into everybody’s lives in Ukraine, so for a while I wasn’t sure. In the middle of it there’s the Euromaidan revolution and I was like, I don’t think we need to get into that. But it just kept creeping closer and closer and then it just was on the doorstep and in his life and everybody’s lives. At first it was like okay, I can avoid this, but then I realized how much it actually helped the story because here you have a figure who cares deeply about Ukraine and has been an advocate, a social worker and a lot of makeshift things. Whether it’s the prettiest execution of those offices or makeshift offices doesn’t matter. He’s somebody who was trying to make a difference in his country, and all his years of work is now being threatened by a force he can’t control and that became more interesting to me. That’s how it changed.
BK: The documentary has a wonderful industrial score by Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross and Bobby Krlic. Did you work with them closely on the score, or did you let the composers just work on it on their own?
SH: We had sent Atticus some clips of Gennadiy as a work in progress and said this is what we’re doing, would you be interested in being a part of this? He took interest for his own reasons, and he’s somebody who is creatively beyond me in what I do. He has incredible sensibilities and is someone you could absolutely trust. I was interested in seeing how these visuals inspire him and what he made of them, and he would send me bits of his work and his inspiration. The way I like to work is exactly like that, where composers would give me music. My last film had six or seven different composers and I only knew one of them personally. The great thing is Atticus had been working on it at his own time and pace based out of inspiration. Atticus, Leopold and Bobby, they provided a really excellent pool of material that I felt was inspired by the industrial backdrop of Ukraine. It’s interesting because there are definitely darker, bleak and intense moments, but there also these moments of hope in the score. There are moments that bring such character to the film. It was great working with him (Atticus) creatively. It wasn’t just like, “Hey what are your thoughts on the score?” I looked to him a lot for feedback on picture and on the edit, and he was very involved and very helpful. I respect his creative sensibilities a lot.
BK: The documentary also has the wonderful privilege of being executive produced by Terrence Malick. How did Malick become involved?
SH: With our last film we had worked with Nicolas Gonda who is also an executive producer on this film, and he is Terrence Malick’s producer. So we worked with Nicolas and, similar to developing a relationship with Atticus for the film, we had some work in progress and basically pitched the idea of creating an executive producer relationship for Nicolas and Terrence Malick. They took interest, so that’s basically how it happened.
BK: How many years did you shoot this documentary over?
SH: The film covers years, and a lot of that is due to Gennadiy’s archival footage. He had footage from 2001 to roughly 2008, and then we came into the picture in 2012 and shot. I wrapped the edit at the beginning of 2015, but I was still pulling news sources and things like that. So we were with the story for three and a half years.
BK: Are there any movies for you that helped influence the style of this documentary?
SH: I think more in postproduction. There’s a movement within documentary and creative nonfiction to make documentary films seem more dramatic and entertaining or to just push the creative boundaries of documentaries, so I like those ideas and those sensibilities. My last film was kind of a happy accident. I was sort of rebelling against polished productions because I had been doing commercials and music videos for years, and I wanted to do something that didn’t matter what the picture looked like and was more heart. I didn’t know very much about documentaries towards the end of that. I was like, what if I could care about the image but still give it heart or authenticity? So that was sort of what drove a lot of my creative decisions with “Almost Holy.” I wanted it to be more classic filmmaking. I didn’t want to bring the slider or certain things. I just wanted it to feel like a classic film with just traditional lockdowns and nice shots as much as possible. We were on the go a lot so that didn’t always work out, but even with when people were talking I made sure we always had two cameras running to film it like a narrative film so that I could cut dialogue later so you could feel the conversation like you would in a film.
BK: That’s interesting because a lot of directors come from the world of music videos and commercials, and it seems to be that that world is more about style than anything else. So to escape from that has got to be very fulfilling in a sense when you come to a documentary like this. Would you say that is the case?
SH: Yeah. With the last film that was very much the case, and then with this one it was kind of like marrying the two worlds. I have these years of experience with the crew that I work with, and these guys are very talented. What if we applied all of that in a running gun setting? Everyone adapted very well to it. We were in places where we had a minute to set up our shots and we would be stuck on a lens and we just made do, but I feel like it was very rewarding. It was hard, it was really hard. It was basically five filmmakers and then six people with the translator trying to make this happen. We had an insane amount of gear, but everyone pulled their weight and I think they did a fantastic job.
I want to thank Steve Hoover for taking the time to talk with me. Please visit the “Almost Holy” website to find out how you can view it (www.almostholyfilm.com).
There are marathons, there are ultra-marathons, and then there is the Barkley Marathon. If you haven’t heard of this one that’s okay because, like “Fight Club,” the number one rule is you don’t talk about it. But that’s bound to change after you watch the documentary “The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young” (please take its subtitle seriously). It sheds light on this race which has developed a cult following over 25 years and gives its participants 60 hours to complete the equivalent of five marathons. Once you watch it, it will be very easy to understand why, out of the hundreds who have run it, only 13 people have actually completed the entire thing.
“The Barkley Marathons” introduces us to the event’s co-founder, Lazarus Lake, a man who is as idiosyncratic and unpredictable as the race itself, and he approaches the proceedings with an almost devilish sense of humor. Hundreds of people apply for it, but only 40 are accepted. Those accepted get a letter of condolence informing them they have been selected and only have to pay an entrance fee of $1.60 and bring with them a t-shirt or license plate from their home state or country. It all takes place at a park in Tennessee where the start time is not revealed right away, and the race begins at a yellow gate when Lazarus lights up a cigarette. What happens from there is really something to witness.
Directing this documentary were first-time filmmakers Timothy Kane and Annika Iltis, both of whom had worked as camera assistants on “Mad Men.” I got to speak with them and they described what inspired their decision to find out more about the Barkley Marathon and of the numerous challenges they faced throughout filming.
Ben Kenber: The documentary was inspired by an article you read called “The Immortal Horizon.” What was it specifically about that article which spoke to you the most?
Timothy Kane: Well when we read it we didn’t know anything about the Barkley at all and had never heard of it. We also didn’t know anything about the author, so everything was kind of new to us. We read it in the Believer magazine and what we learned was that Leslie (Jamison) was really, at that time, just a fiction writer and this piece on the Barkley was her first journalistic nonfiction piece. So when we read it, it really had a narrative style to it. It read kind of like fiction that it made it even, you know, more impossible to believe than just the facts do alone. Her writing really piqued our interest and made us want to get on a plane and go to Tennessee and find out what it was all about.
BK: I heard it was really hard to track down Lazarus Lake. How did you manage to find him?
TK: Well that’s sort of inside information.
Annika Iltis: Yeah, we’re trying to keep their anonymity as much as possible. In the opening of the film we say we’re going to tell you the truth but the truth is malleable. As much as it is a documentary and everything that you see in there happened, we tried to keep the Barkley world the same as when we started the film, and I think part of that is keeping Lazarus’ privacy and Raw Dog’s privacy as much as possible. Of course we know this film will probably change that.
BK: The way people describe the Barkley Marathon, it’s a lot like “Fight Club” in that the number one rule is you don’t talk about it. There must been a lot about the marathon that you could not include in this documentary, but how much of it percent wise did you manage to get in this film?
AI: In terms of like the geography of it, a very small percentage. I think it’s hard to say even what percentage it would be because over 26 miles of the loop, or 26.2 miles, we had about seven camera operators during the shoot. We moved around a little bit, but we did everything with Lazarus’ blessing and we only went to places that he was happy with us going to and that wouldn’t affect the runners’ navigation and that wouldn’t affect the race as much as possible. But we weren’t interested in running alongside them. That was never something that we wanted to do. It wasn’t something that we’d want to watch either. A lot of the action really happened around the gate. What we got was great for the film we were making.
BK: Regarding the seven camera operators, were they ever visible to the runners or were they put in spots where the runners couldn’t see them?
AI: They were visible, but all the places that they were placed were places where that were obvious points along the course. So navigation wise it was very obvious to where the runners knew where they were along the course that when they saw a person with a camera, they weren’t like hey there’s a person there so I must be going in the right direction. They knew where they were. And there weren’t many of us; it was a very skeleton crew. We kept it simple, and because of that we were able to get a deep part of the action without overwhelming people.
BK: What was the most challenging part of making this documentary for you two?
AI: (Laughs).
TK: There were so many things. Annika, one of the first things she mentioned was the vastness of the terrain. Trying to navigate around it was a challenge, and trying to be at the right place at the right time over a 20-mile square area through six or seven mountain ranges, that was a major challenge. It was a challenge to gain the trust of the runners. That was a big thing early on for us to try to make sure that they understood what we were trying to do. We’re trying to be as respectful of them as possible and to not affect their race. They worked hard to get there and we were just guests, so we didn’t once do anything that would jeopardize their experience.
BK: Were the runners open right away to being filmed or did that take a lot of trust building tween you and them?
TK: We did on the first registration day a lot of interviews and Annika was instrumental in getting a lot of those, and at that point there were definitely some people who were maybe nervous about the race coming up but were not sure what we were doing. In hindsight I’d say there was a little bit of hesitancy, but once they started running I would say that everybody was so focused on what they were doing that they really didn’t take much notice of us which was good for us.
AI: And once they knew what kind of film we wanted to make, which was basically capturing the soul and spirit of the Barkley more than exposing its secrets, then people were on board.
BK: It was interesting because part of me wanted to see more of the course, but after a while it’s easy to understand why you don’t see that much of it. Plus, it is said that the course changes from year to year.
AI: Yeah it does change most years. We were lucky to have one of the runners; he was going to wear a Go Pro camera throughout the course and offered up his footage, so we got to see parts of the course through that. But honestly to keep the narrative structure of the film and the pace of the film, we really wanted the film to feel like you were actually there watching this race that weekend and feel like you are part of the Barkley. So to keep that going I don’t think we could’ve put more of the course in there because it just would have been more running footage and more landscape footage, and we weren’t interested in that. We wanted to keep the narrative pace up.
BK: But even though we don’t see much of the course though, we do see what it does to the runners’ bodies as they come back with dozens of scratches on their legs. It doesn’t take long to feel how painful those scratches are.
AI: Yeah, that’s all from the briars. They are pretty rough and there’s just so many hours running on your feet and with moisture. You see that part in the film. It’s very difficult on the human body but also mentally for the runners, so we tried to capture that as well.
BK: Another thing I liked was how it showed that even though many of the runners don’t finish the Barkley, you still have to pat them on the back because at least they still gave it a shot and finished one loop. There’s something to be said for that.
AI: I think anyone who actually makes it to the starting line there has already accomplished a lot because that’s not the easiest thing to get there. Part of what was really important to us while we were focusing in on different people was including people with the varying idea of success and failure. We wanted to make sure that we showed all of those points because it is a very personal thing how people view their own accomplishments there, and that was a big part of the Barkley and why we focused on the various people that we did.
BK: Have you kept in touch with any of the runners since finishing this documentary?
AI: Oh yeah, we are in touch with quite a number of them. We’ve been back to the Barkley almost every year. We missed last year, but almost every year since we get in touch with a lot of folks, we see the ones we can and, as silly as it is or maybe not, we feel sort of a part of this thing now because it’s a very unique experience and having been there for three years is something we look forward to every year. I think the people that we’ve met in the experience of making the film is really, for us, the greatest accomplishment probably.
BK: It would be interesting to see a sequel to this documentary showing what the experience of running the Barkley has had on the runners’ overall lives, and that’s regardless of whether they finished it or not.
AI: It’s interesting because honestly I don’t think it really affected most of their lives very much, and that’s because it’s a very personal thing that they do. Most of the people who go out there are not doing this for any sort of a claim by any means. They are doing it for a very personal reason. Most of them have high level degrees in science and engineering, they have regular lives and they go back to work on Wednesday or whatever day of the week it is. They can talk about their experience, but I think in their daily lives this is just something that they did and then they go on and do the next thing which is amazing but that’s the kind of person who goes out and tries this.
BK: Did either of you have to pay the $1.60 fee or a license plate in order to get permission to film this documentary?
AI: (Laughs). I don’t think we did actually. We talked about it. We did bring lots of chocolate. We paid a lot of other tolls probably over the past four years to get through all the hurdles that we had to get through, but Lazarus did not require any of those items from his (laughs).
BK: Both of you came to this project after finished filming season five of the show “Mad Men,” and you’ve said that this was a great opportunity for you to create your own material. How fulfilling was it to go from working on someone else’s material to working on your own project?
TK: It’s hard to say. It’s almost like we are still so close to it. We are still in awe of so much of the work that’s going on that it might take a little bit of time to pass before we can really look back on it and see what we learned from it. We certainly learned a lot, but in terms of doing a film it’s something that we sort of dove into and it’s basically taken up all of our free time for four years the way a passion project does I guess. It’s really pushed us to new limits. We had a lot of creative battles back and forth with each other, and those things are interesting and hopefully we’ve grown as people and as filmmakers.
BK: Many documentary filmmakers I have talked to have said that it usually takes a number of years for their project to come to fruition in terms of filming it and then finding distribution for it. Did you have any idea of how long it was going to take to make this documentary?
TK: We had no idea, but we didn’t put a time limit on it because the nature of our work, being sometimes 70 hour weeks, we would have to take full chunks of time off, like six months at a time. In some ways we were tired of working on the movie every day, tired of talking about it at work trying to push something forward, but in terms of moving forward with the narrative of the editing or whatever needed to be it was very difficult to start something because we had such little time. You would start something and then all of a sudden you would have to get ready to go to sleep or go to work. I think if you had told us it was going to take four years we may have thought twice about it. But we do get this from everybody that does documentaries, and as a matter of fact a lot of people told us that’s not long at all.
AI: That’s like an average actually. We’re probably on the short side of the lifespan of a documentary in terms of getting it out there.
I want to thank Annika Iltis and Timothy Kane for taking the time to talk with me. Please visit the doucmentary’s website at www.barkleymovie.com to find out how you can watch it.
It was the teaming of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass which made me almost completely forget that “Green Zone” was yet another movie about our war in Iraq. I find myself, as well as many, avoiding this subject at the movies because we spend our days thinking about what goes on over there and of how we want this war to be over with already. But this director and actor were major forces behind some of the most exciting action movies of the past decade with “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” Furthermore, the composer of the Bourne trilogy, John Powell, is on board as well to give “Green Zone” an even bigger kinetic kick.
“Green Zone” was apparently inspired by the 2006 non-fiction book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, but the end credits state the movie is actually a work of fiction. Still, while it is not exactly “based on a true story,” “Green Zone” still feels like one of the more logical and honest commentaries about our mess of a war in the Middle East.
Matt Damon stars as Army Chief warrant officer Roy Miller, and we see him with his unit as they investigate a warehouse believed to contain WMD’s. Turns out it doesn’t, and we quickly find this is not the first time Miller and his men have come up empty. As a result, Miller begins to doubt the intelligence reports provided to the troops from a “reliable” but anonymous source. Endlessly curious about why he and every other military officer are not finding any weapons, Miller starts his own investigation into the matter. At the same time, forces around him continue to try and contain a potentially combustible situation that may soon become impossible to control.
It’s no wonder Greengrass chose to work again with Damon on this film. Ever since “The Bourne Identity,” we have had problem accepting Damon as an action hero. What makes Damon perfect for this role is that he never descends into some clichéd portrayal of a soldier who thinks he’s all badass. Roy Miller is a down to earth kind of guy who is sincere in his quest to keep America safe from enemies foreign and domestic. Never does he try to be a hero or show off how macho he is.
You have the soldiers coming up empty, you have the CIA knowing they will come up empty, and you have special intelligence officers who know far more than they are willing to let their own military know about. Also, you have investigative reporters writing articles on Saddam having started up weapons programs again even though they have never been told who their source is. They have to take the word of an official who ends up leading them around in circles.
Now there are a lot of people calling this movie “anti-American” and “anti-war,” but I couldn’t disagree more strongly with that assessment. Many recent war movies are more respectful to the troops than some bother to realize. As for those who assume that it is appallingly “anti-American” as it shows Roy Miller going rogue, I wonder if they had that problem when Jack Bauer does the same thing on “24.”
If anything, the recent war movies have been more anti-mercenary than anything else. Be it “Green Zone,” “The Hurt Locker” or even “Rambo,” mercenaries are shown stepping all over the soldiers if they have to, and we know they get paid twice of what the average soldier makes each year. The soldiers in these films have been presented as far more prepared and patriotic in their commitment to protecting our country. If that isn’t pro-troop, I don’t know what is.
There is also a complexity to both the American and Iraqi characters throughout the film. You figure everyone would be on the same team regardless of what side they are on, but you see all the infighting tearing each side apart as they delude themselves into believing they are winning. One pivotal character in “Green Zone” is Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), an Iraqi who Miller befriends and later becomes his translator. Hollywood has often been accused of presenting Middle Eastern characters as nothing more than terrorists, but Freddy is not like that. Freddy wants to help his country and risks his own life to try to help the Americans while not necessarily welcoming them. He becomes the symbol of those Iraqis that feel wronged by their leaders and of how infuriated they are about the endless damage left in their wake. From a distance, it becomes clear both sides are confused and completely unsure of what to believe.
In some ways “Green Zone” is a criticism of American military involvement in other countries, but director Greengrass doesn’t necessarily hit you over the head with that. Still, during the scene where Miller comes face to face with General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor, who gives the role a strong menacing quality), he learns the truth of why American military forces are really in Iraq. Al-Rawi is one of the bad guys, but he is also a victim of being in the position he is in. In other words, Al-Rawi is going to take a fall because the United States government wants Saddam.
When Al-Rawi asks Roy Miller if he thinks American forces can seriously change anything in Iraq, I was reminded of a scene in Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” where a helicopter pilot is being held by Somalia warlords who question the military’s involvement in their country:
“Do you think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down our weapons and adopt American democracy? That the killing will stop? We know this. Without victory, there will be no peace. There will always be killing, see? This is how things are in our world.”
Throughout his career, Greengrass has never been afraid of dealing with topics which are very touchy. With “Bloody Sunday,” he captured the horrible events of January 20, 1972 when British soldiers clashed with Northern Ireland protestors fighting for their freedom. Then there was “United 93” which dealt with the events of September 11th and of how the passengers on that fateful flight were the first to deal with a post-9/11 world. With “Green Zone,” he defies those who think movies should just be an escape and not a forum for national conversation. It’s an action movie designed to be as thrilling as it is enlightening. His aim is not to show how America divided itself from the rest of the world with this invasion, but of how it created sharp and highly sensitive divisions in America itself.
In addition to Damon, there are other actors who bring their considerable acting talents to “Green Zone.” Brendan Gleeson is perfectly cast as Martin Brown, the CIA Baghdad bureau chief who has seen it all. Still, he is trying to cut through the BS hindering his efforts to control the situation in Iraq. Amy Ryan is excellent as Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent Lawrie Dayne. Her character has written many articles regarding weapons programs being continued in Saddam’s regime, but we see her doubt the source given to her. Most reporters in movies these days are despicable, but Ryan makes this one empathetic as she comes to discover the truth which contradicts all she has reported. The always reliable Greg Kinnear is also well cast as Clark Poundstone, a member of Pentagon Special Intelligence who knows far more than he lets on. It’s no secret these characters are based on real people, but the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
“Green Zone” isn’t as viscerally exciting as the Jason Bourne movies, and it won’t go down as the definitive Iraq war movie (“The Hurt Locker” holds that distinctive honor), but it is still edge of your seat entertainment. But not to worry, Greengrass films the action in a way that doesn’t make it all that hard to tell what’s going on.
Another key scene that comes to mind is when Roy Miller goes out to investigate a lead, and Kinnear’s character ends up cutting him off. As he walks inside the CIA headquarters in Baghdad he tells Miller, “You shouldn’t have been playing on the wrong team.”
It makes me wonder, when was the last time all of us Americans were on the same team?
“Don’t Think Twice” starts off with a black and white montage of improvisation groups at work onstage. The important thing to notice is how the actors work together as a group and accept the ideas given to them. It’s never about trying to be funnier than the other person because that just throws the whole dynamic off. You simply work together and let the scene you have created flow from one place to the next, and if you are lucky you will reach comedy nirvana for yourself and the audience. But there’s always that one rule you most follow the most during improv: don’t think. Thinking just screws you up.
This movie completely understands the improv dynamic, and it’s no surprise it was written and directed by an actor, writer and a comedian, Mike Birbiglia, who has been in groups like those before. Birbiglia plays Miles, the senior member of an improv group named The Commune which has long since gained a strong following in the New York area. All the group members care for each other very much like family and live in the same building together. As they continue to perform and develop their talents, they keep pursuing what they see as the comedy holy grail, a comedy variety show called “Weekend Live.” Clearly, this show is a not so subtle stand in for “Saturday Night Live” as it promises fame and fortune for all those lucky enough to be cast on it.
Then one day two of The Commune members, Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) and Samantha (Gillian Jacobs), get called to audition for “Weekend Live,” and we know this is going to change everything for everybody no matter what happens. Jack ends up getting cast and his friends are happy for him, but once they see him on the show their excitement fades as they begin to wonder why they aren’t as successful as him. Another Commune member, Allison (Kate Micucci) wears a t-shirt that says “Friends Forever” on it, but you quickly get the feeling that this won’t be the case as the movie goes on.
All the characters in “Don’t Think Twice” are wonderfully realized by Birbiglia and the actors he has cast. There are no good or bad guys here, just a group of friends trying to support each other the best they can. It’s great that they have this support group as show business is always fiercely competitive, and what keeps them going is their love of acting and especially improv. Still, a number of roadblocks are put up in their general direction as the theatre they perform in gets sold, and they move into a more expensive venue they are unable to fill up. Also, their biggest fans are more eager to see Jack back in The Commune than to watch a Commune show without him.
I love everyone here is genuine in following their passion, and you see the price they pay for pursuing such elusive dreams. They work day jobs that are demeaning to say the least. Bill (Chris Gethard) in particular has a job at a local supermarket handing out food samples to customers who are typically quick to avoid him. He later remarks at how he had all the lead roles in his high school plays and now feels like his father looks at him as a loser. Like the others in the group he has no real interest in a desk job or any other 9 to 5 job, but the time is coming where he may have to question whether it is worth it to continue on the path he has chosen for himself.
It’s no surprise that everything “Don’t Think Twice” reaches a climax as feelings of bitterness and resentment come right up to the surface. Jack has gained a lot of fame in a short period of time, and he tries to help his friends out by passing their writing samples along to “Weekend Live’s” Lorne Michaels-like manager who instead urges him to write for himself. Miles feels he is owed a spot on “Weekend Live” and thinks he has been cheated out of what is rightfully his. Everyone else comes to see what they have sacrificed to be a part of The Commune, and now they wonder if it was worth the price. This makes the movie more intense as you know these people will eventually explode at one another, and you hope the damage isn’t too great that it can’t be repaired.
Now many other movies like this one would have ended on a note of bitterness to where enemies are made and friendships are forever destroyed, but Birbiglia doesn’t do that here. While failure is not an option for many starving artists, for others it is. Or perhaps they shouldn’t look at this as failure and instead as a chance to redirect their energies. This could have been an infinitely pessimistic movie, but Birbiglia manages to soften the blow in a way that feels honest and genuine. He shows us people who start to wonder if it is time to move on to something, but they never lose their love of improv. They all may not be able to make a living off of performing, but they don’t have to give up on it either.
My hat is off to the actors who have clearly been through the various ups and downs of an acting career and been involved with groups like these. Keegan Michael Key is terrific as the breakout cast member who struggles to exist in a high-pressure showbiz world that is not as welcoming as The Commune. Gillian Jacobs is also a standout as one who is so committed to her group that the thought of leaving it feels so wrong to her. Birbiglia is perfect as the improv teacher who occasionally sleeps with his students who eventually find him to be a 40-something weirdo, and the fact that he is actually 36 doesn’t seem to help matters. Kate Micucci, Tami Sagher and Chris Gethard also have their wonderful moments as the supporting players who are desperate to validate their worth in the eyes of others.
I apologize if I make “Don’t Think Twice” sound like a depressing picture because I certainly don’t mean to. It’s a movie as moving as it is funny, and some parts of it are very funny. It has a lot of hope in it even as it deals with the increasing odds against making it in show business and how New York real estate has gotten far too expensive for any artist of any kind to live there. It also shows how your love for your art and your friends is undying and always helps you through the toughest of times. It’s a heartfelt movie that is genuine in its emotions, and its lessons on improvisation are true and to the point.
Some consider “The Bourne Legacy” to be a cinematic cheat, nothing more than a greedy attempt by Universal Pictures to continue a hugely successful franchise without its main stars (Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass). Truth be told however, Universal has done a good job making it clear to audiences that this movie is not out to replace the character of Jason Bourne or have an actor other than Damon playing him. Even though it doesn’t break any new ground in the franchise and threatens to pale in comparison to the trilogy of films which preceded it, “The Bourne Legacy” proves to be an exciting action flick that finds its own rhythm and goes with it.
Describing this movie is a little complicated as it cannot easily be called a sequel or a prequel. This one is really more of a parallel story or a “parallel-quel” if you will. Like “Paranormal Activity 2,” it surrounds the events of the movie which came before it, “The Bourne Ultimatum.” With Jason Bourne systematically taking apart Operation Blackbriar, “Legacy” looks to pull back the curtain to reveal there were several other secret government programs which trained American soldiers to do their dirty work. The program focused on here is Operation Outcome which has employed Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), an agent who’s not suffering from amnesia but one who knows he is as easily expendable as Bourne.
In differentiating Aaron Cross as a character, Outcome agents are shown to be more like mice in a science lab as they are given certain kinds of medication which give them increased mental and physical abilities. There are no red or blue pills like in “The Matrix,” but instead green and blue ones which Aaron needs to function. If he misses a dose or doesn’t have access to a refill, he will go into serious withdrawal and could die. Anyone who has had experience with certain medications can certainly understand how bad the withdrawal part can get.
When the situation with Bourne gets as explosive as it did in the last film, retired Air Force Colonel Eric Byer (Edward Norton) is brought in to contain the situation and decides the Outcome agents need to be eliminated for the government’s own protection. So despite the agents’ allegiance to their countries, they are stabbed in the back and assassinated in the coldest way possible.
Aaron narrowly escapes an assassination attempt and ends up going on the run to escape detection and to find some more of those pills. This has him traversing through the Alaskan wilderness while being chased by wolves and going all the way to the Philippines. Joining him in his exploits is Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), one of the doctors who helped Aaron achieve such amazing abilities. The setup does have a ring familiarity about it as Marta, like Marie in “The Bourne Identity,” sees her life get turned upside down and is forced to go on the run with Cross. But whereas Marie was an individual who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marta does have a stronger purpose as Aaron needs her to stay alive.
I could spend a lot of time comparing “The Bourne Legacy” with the three previous films, but I would rather not. Those three movies set a new standard for action movies which is extremely hard to top, and that makes certain comparisons somewhat unfair. Greengrass at one time joked that doing another Jason Bourne movie might as well have him calling it “The Bourne Redundancy,” and that could have been the case here. Indeed, the setup is the same with two characters on the run from a government that has betrayed them, but Tony Gilroy does ground this story in a reality that wasn’t as present in the previous movies.
Gilroy has already made himself well known as one of the main architects of the Jason Bourne movies with his involvement in writing the screenplays for them, but his talents as a director were established before “The Bourne Legacy” with “Michael Clayton” which was one of 2007’s best movies. He does solid work in making this particular Bourne movie stand out from the others, and he doesn’t have the camera shaking all over the place.
Renner creates an intriguing enough character in Aaron Cross that makes us want to follow him some more in the future. Renner has long since acquitted himself as an actor in movies like “The Hurt Locker,” “The Town” and “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” and with “The Bourne Legacy” he gets a lead role in a motion picture worthy of his talents.
And while her character yells more than she should, Weisz is Renner’s equal in one scene to the next as she is thrown into a situation which changes her life permanently. Weisz is a powerful actress to say the least, and she keeps us hanging on during the movie’s more intense sequences.
Edward Norton creates a down to earth nemesis with his character of Eric Byer. While Norton is not always known as one of the easiest actors to deal work with, we know he will always give a multi-dimensional portrait of each character he plays. Eric is not a man driven to do evil, but one whose patriotism forces him to do extreme things in order to protect his country.
You also have to acknowledge actors like Oscar Isaac, Donna Murphy, Zeljko Ivanek and Stacy Keach who take their small roles and made them into compelling characters. Other actors who show to reprise their roles, however briefly are David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Scott Glenn, and Joan Allen who once again proves with a single line that Deputy Director Pamela Landy is not a person to be messed with.
I missed John Powell’s brilliant music from the past three movies, and the scoring duties this time are left to Gilroy’s frequent composer James Newton Howard. Powell created adrenaline pumping music for the previous three movies that fused orchestral and electronic elements together to thrilling effect. Having said that, Howard is an excellent composer in his own right, and he does give the movie the kinetic score it deserves.
With “The Bourne Legacy,” Tony Gilroy gives us a new chapter in this franchise which in some ways is more realistic than the ones which came before. This may take fans for a bit of a loop depending on what they expect, but it still manages to deliver the goods all the same. Still, it would have been nice for Aaron Cross to have his own theme song instead of Jason Bourne’s (“Extreme Ways” by Moby). How about “Renegade” by Styx? That would work.
Few movie going experiences in 2016 will be as hopeful or as emotionally draining as the documentary “Gleason.” It takes a good long look at the life of former NFL player Steve Gleason, a defensive back for the New Orleans Saints, who was best known for blocking a punt from the Atlanta Falcons on September 25, 2006. This game marked the first time the Saints had been back to their home stadium since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, so it made their welcome back celebration all the more thrilling.
In 2011, Steve was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gerig’s Disease, an incurable disease which slowly robs the body of all its motor functions and eventually leads to death. It was around that time that he also discovered his wife Michel was pregnant with their son, and this led him to start a video diary for their unborn child so that he could leave as much of who he is as a person to him before the disease takes its toll. While his situation is bleak, Steve still lives life to the fullest and is determined to be there for his wife and son no matter what.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with the director of “Gleason,” Clay Tweel, while he was in Los Angeles. Tweel previously directed “Make Believe,” a documentary which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 LA Film Festival, and “Finders Keepers” which premiered to rave reviews at Sundance in 2015. For “Gleason,” Tweel had to go through 1,500 hours of footage to give us the documentary that is now arriving in theatres everywhere. He explained how he managed to whittle down that footage, how “Gleason” compares to the film “The Theory of Everything” which also deals with ALS, and of how the health struggles of a family member and the late, great Muhammad Ali inspired him to get the director’s job for this.
Please check out the interview above, and please be sure to see “Gleason” when it arrives in theatres on July 29, 2016. You can also watch the trailer below and visit the website at www.gleasonmovie.com.
The Ultimate Rabbit 