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Gareth von Kallenbach (965 KP) rated Jason Bourne (2016) in Movies
Jun 19, 2019
Thankfully Writer/Director Paul Greengrass has returned with Damon to in the new film “Jason Bourne” The film opens with Bourne in hiding and living off the grid in Greece. He sustains himself by taking part in full contact matches and has regained more of the memories he has forgotten since the events prior to the first film.
His former associate Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) has managed to hack into the government and has obtained numerous files about covert operations including a new and greater program as well as information about Bourne and his father.
The leak catches the attention of Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and he tasks ambitious Agent Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) to find and stop Bourne and Parsons.
At the same time, Dewey is working with a software developer to ensure that the government has unlimited access to all the users of his software in order to maintain surveillance upon them. Uncomfortable with this arrangement the developer (Aaron Kalloor) threatens to expose what the government has been up to at a big software expo in Las Vegas before a worldwide audience.
With this new threat and Bourne resurfaced, a cold and deadly assassin is dispatched and in locales ranging from Greece, Berlin, London, and Las Vegas as Bourne attempts to get the answers he wants and to settle some old scores with danger all around him.
The film takes a bit to get up to speed but once it does it delivers the action and political intrigue that fans of the series have come to expect. Naturally it does at times require a few leaps of faith but in the end, Bourne is back better than ever and Damon reminds us of how much he owns this character with her performance. Here is hoping we do not have as long a wait for him to return in a new Bourne adventure.
http://sknr.net/2016/07/29/84102/
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Manchester by the Sea (2016) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
‘Family troubles’ is a common trope for the movies, and I was strongly reminded at times in watching this movie of a multi-Oscar winning classic of my youth: Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People” back in 1980. In that film the relationship between parents (Mary Tyler-Moore and Donald Sutherland) and their teenage son (Timothy Hutton) is rocked by the accidental death of another family member. Similarly, in “Manchester by the Sea” a drifting handyman Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck, “Triple 9“, “Interstellar“) gets the shocking news that his only brother Joe (Kyle Chandler, “The Wolf of Wall Street“) has suddenly passed away, leaving behind a mid-teens son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) with no-one to look after him.
With the other option being an unstable and ex-alcoholic mother Elise (Gretchen Mol) – now divorced and living in a strictly pious household with new husband Jeffrey (Matthew Broderick) – Joe has legally plumped for naming Lee as the boy’s guardian. This is much to Lee’s surprise and annoyance. For Lee is a man-adrift: an antisocial loner with a very short fuse. Having any sort of responsibility is not in his game plan.
With the ground too frozen to bury his brother, Lee is forced to remain in Manchester-by-the-Sea for a few weeks: a town he can’t stand and a town that, for some reason, can’t stand him. Can Lee’s attitude be softened by his lively and over-sexed nephew? Or will he just continue his emotional and social decline towards a gutter and a brown-bag?
Where this film surprises – with a strong kick to the gut – is that while I have described the high-level story in the paragraphs above that the trailer depicts, there is a whole other dimension to the tale that is hidden and truly astonishing. No spoilers, but if you are not shocked and moved by it, then you need your humanity chip reset.
Casey Affleck is Oscar-nominated now for Best Actor and I would love to see him win for this. I had a real go at his brother, Ben, for a lack of facial variation in his performance in “Live By Night“. Here, while Casey has a similar dour and pretty rigid demeanour, his performance is chalk-and-cheese compared to Ben. He channels a shut-down rage in his eyes that is both haunting and disturbing in equal measure.
Young Lucas Hedges – overlooked by the BAFTAs (he is in the “Rising Star” category) but yesterday nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar – is equally strong, burying his teenage grief in guitars, sex and smart phones in a highly believable way.
Supporting roles are equally strong, with Michelle Williams – albeit only having limited screen time – delivering truly memorable scenes, notably the street encounter with Lee (as featured on the poster) which is electrifying. She is also Oscar nominated for the role.
What really makes these performances shine is the elegant directing by Kenneth Lonergan, better known for his screenplays on films like “Analyze This” and “Gangs of New York”. He gives the actors time… lots of time. A typical example is when young Patrick walks into Lee’s bedroom and stares at some photos on his bedside table before walking on. It must be a good 20 to 30 seconds used, but time really well spent. The film spectacularly uses flash-backs to great effect, with the only visual notification that you are in a different time-zone being the living and breathing appearance of Joe in the shot.
Lonergan also writes the screenplay, and I mentioned in my introduction the humour used. There are some outright belly laughs in this film, which feels incongruous with the morbid subject matter but which also feels guiltily appropriate (we’ve all surely had an experience where a tense funeral mood is lightened by an uncle loudly farting at the back of the church, or similar!).
Manchester-by-the-Sea is a picturesque place in Massachusetts, and the camera work by Jody Lee Lipes (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”, “Trainwreck”) lovingly makes use of that. There is incredibly crisp focus, with the opening boat scene looks like it is hyper-HD.
This is a truly stunning film, and one that will live with me for many years to come. For that reason it receives my highest accolade together with my best wishes for success at the forthcoming Oscars. If you haven’t yet, go see it.
From Little's Law to Marketing Science: Essays in Honor of John D.C. Little
John R. Hauser and Glen L. Urban
Book
John D. C. Little of MIT's Sloan School of Management is famous for his contributions to operations...