The Trial of the Chicago Seven: Unbelievable, but true

The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug use

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.20 

Well, this one couldn’t be more timely.

 

Defense attorney William Kuntsler (Mark Rylance, center) and co-counsel Leonard
Weinglass (center left) do their best to protect the defendants — from left, Bobby Seale
(Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis
(Alex Sharp) — from the blatantly biased behavior of their courtroom judge.

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix original, a depiction of events during the notorious “Chicago Seven” trial — which lasted five months after beginning Sept. 24, 1969, following the August 1968 riots outside Chicago’s Democratic National Convention — is by turns mesmerizing, astonishing, scandalous and horrifying.

 

While Sorkin makes no claim to rigid, documentary-style authenticity, it’s important to understand that pretty much everything depicted here — even the most outrageous behavior — did indeed take place. The timeline has been manipulated a bit, and Sorkin clearly punches up some of the behind-the-scenes dialogue for dramatic impact.

 

But be advised: Every time you’re inclined to think, Oh, that couldn’t possibly have happened … you’ll be wrong.

 

The often crackling verbal exchanges are volleyed by a powerhouse ensemble cast dominated by four actors: Eddie Redmayne, as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member Tom Hayden; Sacha Baron Cohen, as Youth International Party (Yippie) co-founder Abbie Hoffman; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale; and Mark Rylance, as defense attorney and civil rights activist William Kunstler.

 

The latter represented the Seven during their kangaroo-court trial before the incompetent, blatantly racist and deplorably biased Judge Julius Hoffman (a chilling Frank Langella).

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is just as compelling — albeit in a more calmly determined manner — as lead prosecutor Richard Schultz, hand-picked for this assignment by newly elected President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell (John Doman, smugly condescending).

 

Jeremy Strong supplies mild comic relief as Yippie co-founder Jerry Rubin, who seems stoned during the lengthy proceeding. The remaining Seven are SDS member Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The MOBE) members David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Danny Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins).

 

Alice Through the Looking Glass: Not such a much

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) • View trailer 
3 stars. Rated PG, for fantasy peril
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.27.16

This film conclusively demonstrates that it’s extremely difficult — if not impossible — to replicate Tim Burton’s signature brand of whimsy.

Mere moments after having traveled through the looking-glass, Alice (Mia Wasikowska)
clumsily triggers a crisis that "all the king's horses, and all the king's men" will have to
repair. Which is par for the course, for this film's dim-bulb Alice.

It’s not merely a matter of Burton’s directorial finesse; he’s also a shrewd judge of source material, and how it should be shaped. Either he carefully selects equally talented screenwriters, or he’s actively involved in how a script reaches its final draft; either way, the result — time and again — is weirdly droll, oddly endearing and invariably, if improbably, entertaining.

And — here’s the important part — meticulously structured, and consistent within its own fantasy universe.

None of which can be said about Alice Through the Looking Glass. Linda Woolverton’s script is a mess; her slapdash plot begs, borrows and steals from sources as varied as H.G. Wells, Frozen and the Back to the Future trilogy.

James Bobin’s direction is uninspired and lifeless. Somebody apparently thought he’d be right for the job, on the basis of his having helmed the two most recent Muppets movies. At the risk of stating the obvious, human characters need more directorial guidance than Muppets, who get most of their personality from their unseen “muppeteers.” Alice (Mia Wasikowska) and her various co-stars get very little guidance here.

Granted, this sequel to Burton’s Alice in Wonderland looks equally fabulous. Dan Hennah’s production design is opulent, imaginative and richly colorful: no surprise, as he’s a veteran of all three Hobbit chapters. Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood is a carryover from the first Alice, and her efforts here are equally creative, often amusing and sometimes flat-out beautiful; Alice’s kimono-style outfit is particularly fetching.

And, yes, the special effects are excellent, if overused ... and that’s part of the problem. As just one example, Bobin wastes an awful lot of screen footage with repeated sequences of Alice sailing through the “oceans of time,” and repetition does not make such journeys more interesting. Quite the opposite.

Les Misérables: A slightly tarnished dream

Les Misérables (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.26.12

Anne Hathaway’s performance, by itself, is worth the price of admission.

Having finally realized that his failure to intervene earlier has cost Fantine (Anne
Hathaway) her dignity and a great deal more, Valjean (Hugh Jackman) promises to do
better. Sadly, aside from the fact that his actions on Fantine's behalf likely will be too
late, he doesn't even know about her young daughter, also in desperate need of rescue.

Her climactic solo on “I Dreamed a Dream” may be the best musical moment ever captured on film. Nay, one of cinema’s finest five-minute scenes, period.

Words cannot convey the power of her performance, which director Tom Hooper wisely, amazingly, captures in a single long take. Hathaway starts out gangbusters, never taking cover in the multiple edits that have become ubiquitous in too many of today’s lesser musicals, and she simply gets better, stronger, more poignant and powerful as the tune continues.

This is no standard-issue pause for song; Hathaway emotes throughout, never losing her character’s heartbreaking anguish, instead using the lyrics themselves, pouring body and soul into every syllable, as the scene builds, and builds, and builds, until achieving a level of intensity that grabs us by the throat. Her work is positively wrenching.

When she concludes, finally, we sink back with exhaustion. Truly stunned. Blown away. Aware of having witnessed a movie moment for the ages.

Wow.

I can’t say that Hooper achieves the same level of excellence throughout all of this long-awaited, big-screen adaptation of Les Misérables, but he certainly draws similarly superb performances from most of his cast. His film is highlighted by numerous show-stopping songs: some solos, others displaying the exquisite harmonies woven into Claude-Michel Schönberg’s often complex score.

Hugh Jackman is well cast as the stalwart Jean Valjean, the tragic hero whose destiny changes first with an act of kindness by a clergyman, and then again after accepting responsibility for an orphaned little girl. Hathaway is sublime as the doomed Fantine; Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter provide ample comic relief as the greedy, grasping Thénardier and his wife.

Their production number, “Master of the House,” is another marvelous set-piece, this one an imaginatively choreographed display of larcenous behavior that evokes fond memories of Fagin’s “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two,” in 1968’s Oliver!