Dir. Paul Thomason Anderson
(2012, R, 137 minutes)
The first line I wrote in the notes I took following The Master was, “I don’t know what Paul Thomas Anderson is getting at.” But the more notes I took the more I sorta think I figured it out. The subtextual meaning of the film hinges on one scene, which I can’t describe without revealing too much, though even if I gave it away my interpretation is probably open to interpretation.
Dir. Bennett Miller
(2011, PG-13, 133 min)
I’ve always wondered about the financial inequality allowed in Major League Baseball. When one team is allowed to spend two, three, or four times as much money as another just because it can, thereby allowing it to outbid all other teams for the best players, doesn’t that hurt the integrity of the game? Teams are not regional clubs but corporate entities able to tip the scales based on the cost of its payroll; consider what happens to the mom-and-pop shops when Walmart moves to town. Are all team sports like this?
Dir. George Clooney
(2011, R, 101 min)
The Ides of March is a mostly effective political drama with something missing, and it was hard at first to put my finger on exactly what that is. Director George Clooney made a terrific directing debut in 2005 with Good Night, and Good Luck, another politically driven film, that one about Senator Joe McCarthy and his communist witch hunt. This film is not as taut; it’s intelligently written (Clooney wrote the screenplay with his Good Night collaborator Grant Heslov, along with Beau Willimon, based on Willimon’s play Farragut North), but scenes don’t build with quite enough tension or energy. The Social Network was another recent film that consisted mostly of people sitting in rooms talking, and by contrast this film shows how well David Fincher orchestrated his scenes.
Dir. John Patrick Shanley
(PG-13) ★ ★ ★ ½
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, based on his Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play, develops powerful subtext without having to call attention to it. There are hidden truths under the surface of what the characters say and do. We can see the shadows lurking in the nuances of the screenplay and in the performances of the fine ensemble. Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn’t seem innocent; he is too cagey and indirect in his denials of wrongdoing. Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) is certain that he is a child molester, and she is certain because she saw him grab a boy by the wrist. Such slight evidence for such a serious charge — for her as well, there is more than meets the eye.
Dir. Charlie Kaufman
(R) ★ ½
“Synecdoche” is defined by Merriam-Webster thusly: “a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage).” I quote it in full because I don’t think I could boil it down. It’s one of the most confusing definitions I’ve ever read. The dictionary entry needs its own reference guide. Or maybe it’s just been too long since high school English.
Filmic 