Being George Clooney (2016)

After watching Downfall, I needed something lighter.  I wanted something that wasn’t as intense.  One of the movies I came across was Being George Clooney.  The description said that it was about the voice actors that lend their voices to George Clooney’s roles in other countries.  I wondered how they could get 90 minutes out of something that seems so simple.  It turns out that dubbing is more complicated than I thought.

In America, we’re used to subtitles.  Anime fans even debate the merits of subtitles versus dubbing.  In other countries, the audiences prefer dubbing.  In fact, Italy mandated dubbing so that Italian audiences wouldn’t hear the language of the enemy.  There is a cultural preference for hearing your own language, even if the movie is from another country.

A lot of effort goes into the translation.  It’s not enough to get the words right.  Matching words to lip movements requires a dubbing director.  It seems relatively easy going from English to a language like German.  Both are close to each other linguistically.  When going to Hindi, idioms become more difficult to translate.  One dubber was called in to translate medical terminology and was asked to dub for Clooney on ER  because his voice was so similar.

Each of the various voice actors come across as being friendly.  They enjoy what they do and even get varying degrees of fame for it in their respective countries.  Some have a following.  Italy even has a category for it in their version of the Academy Awards.

The studios don’t always recognize the actors’ efforts.  Even though the international market can be twice as big as domestic, most get paid very little.  Often, their names are left out of the credits.  If they do appear, it’s at the very end.  This, despite dubbing being as much a part of the movie experience as anything else.  Movies probably would not do as well internationally without the efforts of the voice talent.

I was wondering why they chose George Clooney for the title, but the documentary doesn’t stick with just him.  Most of the voice actors interviewed voice Clooney’s roles.  However, we get to see other motion pictures, like Transformers and Seinfeld, translated.  All of the voice actors love what they do and seem to like the man they’ve become associated with.

Overall, it was an enjoyable hour and a half.  It does give you a new perspective on something you might not otherwise think about.  One of the advantages of Netflix is that I get to watch movies like this.  I’d recommend watching it.

IMDb page

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

It seems like there’s always some major celebrity event going on.  There are divorces, arrests, tyrades, feuds and all manner of other things to fill the magazines and tabloids.  This isn’t to say that all of it is true, but there is the ever present celebrity gossip/news.   Growing up, I asked my mother why it seemed like stars from her childhood didn’t seem to have any scandals.  Did celebrities not have affairs when she was my age?  Did they simply not make it into the history books?  The truth was that studios had people like Eddie Mannix.

Eddie Mannix is head of physical production for Capitol Studios.  He deals primarily with damage control.  The movie is set in 1951 and Capitol is making a movie called Hail, Caesar of all things.  Hail, Caesar stars Baird Whitlock, played by George Clooney.  Whitlock isn’t that bright.  He can act alright, but he manages to get himself kidnapped very easily by a group of Communists calling themselves The Future.

When Whitlock wakes up, he starts to hang out with The Future not realizing that they’re asking for $100,000 in ransom.  Mannix not only has to deal with the ransom demand, but he has to contend with competing gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker.  (It doesn’t help that they’re twins.)  Add to this a pregnant actress who doesn’t seem to be in any rush to marry the father.  His solution is to have her put the child into foster care so that she can adopt the child without public finding out she‘s the mother.  Oh, and there’s the Western star, Hobie Doyle, who’s forced by the studio to star in a period piece.   Doyle has no business being in a period piece and everyone knows it, but it’s what the studio wants.  This makes an offer from Lockheed very appealing, as he’d be done with all of the stress.

I was able to watch the movie on a flight back to Miami a few weeks ago.  I kind of wish that my parents had watched it, as well, because I suspect that a lot of the context is lost on me.  Apparently, there was an actual Eddie Mannix who worked for MGM.  It appears that the similarities are tenuous, but most of the characters do seem to have real-life counterparts.  The real Mannix did try to cover up a pregnancy of an actual star.  Many of the problems that he had to deal with actually did happen to someone, at least on a superficial level.

A good deal of the context was lost on me, as I grew up in the 1980s.  This isn’t to say the movie can’t be enjoyed by younger audiences.  It’s just that I don’t think Westerns have ever been really big in my lifetime, at least in the sense that they were big for my parents when they were growing up.  There are many one-off scenes that mirror actual scenes in movies or pay tribute to a particular style of film.  I don’t think there are any similar styles in production today.

I wish I had someone to discuss this with, particularly someone who knows more about that era.  I don’t know how much was lost on me, exactly, or how it would have affected watching the movie had I known more.  The movie was still entertaining to me.  It was fun watching Josh Brolin and George Clooney play their respective roles.  I also caught a few cameos from actors like Jonah Hill and Robert Picardo.  (I know.  I can’t help but point out Trek actors in non-Trek roles.)    The fact that it was set in 1951 didn’t bother me at all.  I do wonder, though, what the present day will look like in movies sixty years from now.

IMDb page

Tomorrowland (2015)

There are all sorts of source material for movies.  Books are a natural choice, as the plot and structure are already there.  TV shows are also popular for a similar reason.  I’ve always wondered what the most difficult source material would be in terms of pulling a feature-length film.  Battleship is a good candidate for this, as it came from a board game.  I have to admit that I would have pegged Tomorrowland as a close second.  The movie seems to draw its name from the similarly named attraction found at the Disney parks.  You can see the influence in the sets and designs, but the story is largely original.

It begins with Frank Walker and Casey Newton telling their story, ostensibly to the audience.  Frank insists on beginning the story with his trip to the 1964 New York World's Fair.  A young Frank has a jet pack that he invented.  He shows it to an official named David Nix, but Nix dismisses the prototype, as it doesn’t actually seem to work yet.  Frank does draw the attention of a girl named Athena, who gets him passage to the futuristic Tomorrowland.

Cut to the present where Casey’s trying to sabotage some NASA equipment.  Her father works at the base, which is being decommissioned.  Yes, it’s futile.  Yes, it gets her arrested.  However, after being released, she comes into possession of a pin similar to one Athena gave to Frank.  Casey is now obsessed with finding Tomorrowland, even after the pin’s battery runs out.  Her only hope to actually get there (and, possibly, to save the world) is to find a now-grown Frank, who has been expelled from Tomorrowland.

I found the movie to be more of a balance than I expected.  I thought that it would either take place mostly in Tomorrowland or mostly in our world, but the movie made the transition midway through the movie.  Because of this, the movie didn’t drag.  I knew that if the movie relied too heavily on our world, the movie would rely too heavily on suspense.  If too much time was spent in Tomorrowland, there would be a risk of it being all starry-eyed wonder, which could get boring quickly.  (I still would have like to see a little more of Tomorroland.)

On that note, I had also wondered how optimistic the movie would be, since the Tomorrowland attraction is supposed to be about making advancements that benefit mankind.  The movie used that optimism and balanced it with an invention of Frank’s that went too far.  We have the option of building a brighter future, but we have to be careful about it.  Not every invention should see the light of day.

Instead of a good-versus-evil theme, we get a dreaming-versus-apathy theme.  The real world is full of people who just go through the motions.  They worry about paying the rent and taking care of families.  Tomorrowland is shiny and is all about potential and advancing society.  Granted, each world isn’t entirely what it seems, but the question becomes at what point do you give up on your dreams?

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

There are cases where getting exactly what you asked for is the worst thing that can happen.  Take, for example, Bob Wilton.  He’s your average newspaper reporter from Ann Arbor.  His life is about as exciting as you’d expect.  This may be why his wife is leaving him for his editor.  Bob needs something big and he needs it now.  Unfortunately, the biggest story he can find is Gus Lacey, the town wacko.  He has all sorts of stories about remote viewing and the Loch Ness Monster.  What’s Bob to do?

He decides to get himself over to Iraq.  It’s 2002 and a good, manly story is bound to head his way and help him win his wife back.  He gets as far as Kuwait, where he meets Lyn Cassady.  Lyn Cassady happens to be one of the names that Lacey mentioned, giving Bob an in.  Cassady is able to expand on The New Earth Army, giving Wilton all sorts of information.  (Maybe Lacey wasn’t such a wacko after all.)

Cassady is able to get Wilton into Iraq, which isn’t necessarily a great thing.  It isn’t long before Cassady and Wilton get stranded and subsequently abducted.  Cassady is able to get them both out of trouble, all the while telling Wilton about the project that he was involved in.  Wilton gets his story, which he’s able to bring back and tell.

The movie is based on a book that accompanied a three-part documentary.  From what I can tell, the book was more nonfiction where this had more of the Hollywood treatment.  It begins with “More of this is true than you would believe.”  This may be, but there is an absurdity to the movie.  Not everyone is going to take psychic warriors and remote viewing seriously, as it tends to be difficult to replicate.  (Cassady is shown as a prodigy, but then again, he is the one telling Wilton the story.)

There are a lot of big names in the movie.  Ewan McGregor plays Wilton.  George Clooney plays Cassady.  You also have Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey as former members of The New Age Army.  I didn’t feel like anyone was out of place or anyone’s talents were wasted.  The movie simply wasn’t what I expected.  It’s not a particularly deep-message kind of movie.  It’s not something where you come away feeling like you learned something.  Instead, it’s about someone who had to go on a journey.  At times, it felt like it dragged a bit.  There wasn’t a lot of suspense or urgency.

It’s strange to think that this was actually based on truth.  There apparently was a First Earth Battalion.  Many of the characters are based on real people.  The thing is that there’s no real sense of urgency.  There are no countdowns.  There’s no bomb waiting to go off if they cut the wrong wire.  Wilton gets that Cassady is looking for someone, but there’s no rush.  It sounds like the kind of story you’d tell at a party or something.  (“So, then they guy let us use his car…”)

Fortunately, Clooney and McGregor are able to carry the movie.  It’s entertaining enough that I was able to watch the movie for the entire 93 minutes.  Still, it was one of those movies where I was waiting for an explosion.  I was kind of hoping for something big to happen.  It’s hard to recommend.  It was good, but it wasn’t great.  If you can get it streaming or it comes on HBO, go for it.  Otherwise, I’d probably recommend waiting.


THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS - HD Trailer

Gravity (2013) Review

I had seen the coming attractions for Gravity.  It was the kind of movie I’d be interested in seeing, but not necessarily in renting.  When my parents got it from Netflix, they kept it over the weekend, giving me a chance to watch it myself.  The story goes that Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, and Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, are making repairs to some orbiting equipment.  When disaster strikes, they have to make it to the International Space Station to get home.  I was mostly curious to see how they made a 91-minute film from this.

Normally, I’m accustomed to going into greater detail about the plot, but there’s not much to describe.  After the Russians destroy one of their own satellites, the debris destroys the shuttle that Stone and Kowalski were planning on taking back home.  Kowalski has thrusters, which he can use to get the two of them to the ISS, which has escape pods.  Unfortunately, one has been used and the other is in no condition to be used safely, making the only remaining option a nearby Chinese escape pod.

Much of the movie comes from suspense.  Unless they can make it to an escape pod, there are three ways the movie could end for the two characters:  They could drift off in to space and die a cold death, they could drift towards Earth and die a fiery death during reentry, or they could continue in orbit and hope the debris doesn’t get them.  Unfortunately, Kowalski wasted a lot of his jet fuel having fun around the equipment they were supposed to be repairing.  (I can’t say I blame him.  I wouldn’t expect Russian space debris, either.)

I could also see this being a vehicle for 3-D effects.  I’ve always hated that DVDs tend not to have a 3-D version.  I imagine that the big problem is not wanting to have to ship special glasses.  Then again, it might be something that they could sell separately.  (Maybe free 3-D glasses with an upgrade?)  I would have like to have seen this movie in 3-D.  I probably would have watched that version if I had been given the option.

There was some notoriety when Neil deGrasse Tyson pointed out a few mistakes that the movie made.  )He later pointed out that the movie got a lot right, including how the debris behaved.)  Admittedly, though, a few liberties were taken for the sake of the story.  I don’t think it would have been as suspenseful if they had stuck to all the laws of physics.

I should warn you that people do die.  This isn’t ruining anything, as it happens in the first few minutes.  I bring this up because we get to see them after they’ve been killed and it’s not pretty.  If you’re squeamish about this at all, you may want to consider that.  Overall, I would probably only recommend this to someone if they’re a fan of Bullock of Clooney.  I probably wouldn’t have watched this if my parents hadn’t rented it.