In the absence of anything better, the fourth Season of Hell
on Wheels from AMC gets the alphabetical edge over a movie about computing
pioneer Alan Turing.
Hell on Wheels
(Season 4) – 2014 (3.1). Better than the
last season, in this fourth season the UP reaches Cheyenne and seeks a way over
the mountains. The US government sends a corrupt provisional governor who
contends with the pre=existing crime and corruption. Cullen the Reb comes from
being a Mormon captive to being a supposed Mormon with a wife and child.
Returning to Cheyenne he meets again with old cast members, except the freedman
Elam who is missing. An evil Reb from the past also shows up and creates havoc,
an Irish contender returns with reinforcements and a persistent Norwegian keeps
reinventing himself. The low point of the season is when Elam has a life
altering experience and how that turns out. An emotionally powerful high point
is Ruth the church lady working through the marriage of Cullen and a tragedy
involving her foster child and how she resolves her unfulfilled love for Cullen
and her guilt over the way she responded to the tragedy. Brigham Young has a
passing role also.
The Imitation Game
– 2014 (3.1). The story of Alan Turing, one of the most important pioneers in
the development of computers is inherently dramatic and the Oscar winning
script for this movie presents that well with only minor changes involving
peripheral characters. The Brit math genius without people skills broke the
Nazi code thereby shortening WWII by an estimated two years and saving an
estimated 14 million lives. But his life was also a tragedy as he became a
victim of societal ignorance regarding human sexuality. Benedict Cumberbatch
gives an excellent performance.
American Experience:Walt Disney – 2015 (2.9). With
unrestricted access to the family archives the makers of this documentary were
able to supplement the movie and studio footage and give a much more personal
view of the great pioneer of movie animation and builder of amusement parks.
The story is told as a straight chronology showing how Disney and his fortunes
rose and fell with the changes in America. His fierce opposition to
unionization of the industry and his attempts in HUAC testimony to smear union
organizers as communists fit the temper of the time, but also the temperament
of the man. The nostalgically corny movies he was making at the end of his life
are no great loss, but one has to wonder where this visionary man's interest
might have led had he lived another couple decades.
Hell on Wheels
(Season 3).– 2013 (2.9). The construction of the Union Pacific is heading for
Cheyenne and Cullen the ex-reb is contending with Durant the scoundrel to see
who gets to be the chief of construction, a contest that is continuously
evolving. Along the way, Indians as obstacles are replaced by Mormons, old characters
pass in various ways, new characters are introduced and various relationships
grow or wane. The violence level remains appropriately high even as some of the
characters seem to be getting a little more temperate. A credible US Grant pops
up for a time.
The Big Lebowski
– 1998 (2.9). Jeff Bridges nails the role of The Dude, a slacker sucked into a
mystery in this Joel Coen comedy. Well-paced with some creative cinematography
in spots, the movie holds attention and does not show its age, except maybe for
the current political incorrectness of the nutty Vietnam vet (tolerably played
by the now over-present John Goodman).
This Is Spinal Tap
– 1984 (2.9). Documentaries about rock and roll bands typically include scenes
of band members hanging out, partying, rehearsing and arguing. They also
include many statements from the musicians about their artistic ambitions and
pretensions and lots of archival footage from past concerts through the years.
This mockumentary either followed or created the formula, but whatever the
case, it certainly captured it and remains timelessly funny.
Althea – 2014
(2.8). Althea Gibson was the Jackie Robinson of tennis, coming from small town
South Carolina via the streets of Harlem to the pinnacle of women's tennis,
winning championship trophies at Wimbledon (presented by Queen Elizabeth) and
the US Open (presented by VP Nixon) and honored with a NYC ticker tape parade.
This documentary uses archival footage and interviews with people who knew her
through various stages of her career to chronologically present her rise to
prominence and slide into oblivion.
Selma – 2014
(2.8). A fine performance by David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King solidifies
this unevenly paced drama of the 1965 voting rights march in Alabama. There is
a lot of context and many characters involved in the full story and the movie
is limited in the amount that can be covered, but the script is not quite up to
the challenge. The participants in the story are not very clearly identified
especially for anyone not familiar with them beforehand. Sometimes the film
seems to be spouting elementary historical facts while at others it seems to
assume a greater knowledge in the audience. Sadly this 50th
anniversary homage to those who brought about the Voting Rights Act made it to
theaters about the same time the US Supreme Court began issuing opinions
undercutting the law. The discriminatory disenfranchisement tactics portrayed
in the movie now go by the euphemism "voter ID law".
Who Is Harry Nilsson?
– 2010 (2.8). This somewhat overlong documentary about yet another singer
songwriter who came from nowhere to the heights and then faded and mellowed out
is a quite familiar genre of documentary. If you knew who he was, then you were
destined to love the movie. If you did not remember him, then you would be
surprised to learn he is associated with some of your old favorites. Archival
film and lots of interviews are par for the course.
Arthur & George
– 2015 (2.7). Widowed Arthur Conan Doyle is brought out of the dumps by taking
on a real life case to clear the name of a half Persian solicitor falsely
convicted of ritual animal slayings, in this Brit mystery miniseries based on a
true story. The process also clears the conscience of Doyle about his love for
another woman during his marriage. This stylish production lacks a little in
the unfolding of the mystery aspects of the script.
Don't Tell Anyone
– 2015 (2.7). Brought here at age three by her mother from Columbia and now
finishing high school in Queens area of NYC, this undocumented girl comes out
of the shadows and grows into an activist and supporter of other such children
in this low budget documentary. Raising more questions than it answers at first
the movie follows the girl, her mother and her three younger siblings born in
the US, but then her involvement in activism leads to very helpful immigration
law information for the girl and her mother. This documentary is more about the
benefits of speaking out in general rather than about the rights and wrongs of
the US immigration laws.
Just About Famous
– 2015 (2.7). Celebrity impersonators run the gamut of degree of
doppelgangerness [did I just make a new word?], material and talent. This
documentary scratched the surface of exploring the range, from an uncanny
George W. Bush to a just another Elvis. An annual convention of performers
before an audience of booking agents was an ideal place to film their acts, but
though the documentarian did attend and probably film performances, only brief
segments of a few made it into the movie. There was a little info on the man
who started the convention and we saw some of the performers out of character
talking about their pursuit of careers, but we never really learned much about
the people or the business. Just showing their acts would have been so much
better.
The True Cost –
2015 (2.7). A sincere though somewhat amateurish attempt to show the
environmental, human labor and related detrimental costs of producing the mass
market cheap and supposedly fashionable clothing that is quickly discarded for
the next hot fad, this documentary jumps around too much and never supplies any
numbers or expert input on what can be done to minimize the impact. A few
socially conscious fashion entrepreneurs are followed a bit as they talk about
and show what they are trying to do to treat the garment workers in Asia more
fairly and an organic cotton grower in Texas talks about being overwhelmed by
Monsanto but the film leaves us at a loss as to what we can do other than not
buy more clothing.
Go Tigers! – 2001
(2.7). This documentary about the Massillon Ohio high school football team is
no Friday Night Lights. It sort of follows three team captains as the team
seeks a turnaround after going 4-6 the prior year. This town of 30,000 is
definitely nuts for its team – in fact many people are so carried away as to
come off just plain nuts. The movie consists of interviews, game footage and
scenes around school and town. There are some students and townspeople who are
not fanatics, but they are given only a minute or two of screen time. The movie
was about the team, but a more balanced movie about the effect of the team on
the town would have been more interesting.
The Town – 2012
(2.6). If the mystery plot had been left out of this Brit miniseries about a
man returning to his home town after the apparent double suicide of his
parents, there were the makings of a good series. The characters and small town
were interesting, but the resolution of the mystery of whether and why they
actually took their own lives seemed thrown together at the last minute,
leaving the character dynamics as new victims.
The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though
some of the streaming rights may now have expired):
Hell on Wheels
This Is Spinal Tap
The Big Lebowski
Who Is Harry Nilsson?
Just About Famous
The True Cost
Go Tigers!
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