10 Cloverfield Lane

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Dan Trachtenberg/Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr.

It is always a treat when a plot doesn't immediately reveal secrets but slowly teases them out; keeping the audience on tenterhooks. It is even better when a story seemingly reaches some kind of resolution, only to shift into a higher gear; revealing a larger problem the protagonist must confront. 10 Cloverfield Lane, the smart and thrilling new film by first-feature director Dan Trachtenberg, does just that. Just when the heroine, Michelle (wonderfully played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) thinks she's overcome one terrifying ordeal, a more frightening problem presents itself. Trachtenberg's film, which bears only a titular resemblance to the 2009 film produced by J.J. Abrams, feels like two halves of two good films spliced together to form one really good one. His film is a mix of several genres, all of which form a seamless, effective narrative.

The film doesn't dawdle as the story's pace carries us quickly along. Michelle has just broken up with her boyfriend and has left their home behind. While speeding away, she finds her car has been violently forced off the road. Upon awakening, she finds one knee in a brace and herself chained to a wall in what looks like a basement. She also finds herself in her underwear and hooked up to an IV while her belongings are in sight but out of reach. Using the IV stand, she is able to collect her possessions, including some matches, which she uses to light a fire, which she thrusts into the ventilation duct in hopes of drawing attention from someone on the outside. Hearing the sound of heavy footsteps, the door to her locked room opens jarringly to reveal her captor; a rotund man named Howard (an exceptionally creepy John Goodman) who calmly informs her that he saved her from the wreckage that was her car. Frightened and unsure of Howard's intentions, Michelle begs for her own life. She also asks for her freedom while promising not to inform the authorities about her abductor. What Howard explains to Michelle is particularly strange, as he insists that something catastrophic has occurred outside; a nuclear attack that has rendered the outdoors irradiated and uninhabitable. He also tells her she is safe inside a survivalist bunker; a refuge of his own design built specifically for the predicament in which they find themselves.

The next day, Michelle finds she is allowed to leave the room and upon doing so, she meets another occupant; a youngish man approximately her age named Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who wears one arm in a sling. She asks if he too was kidnapped but he insists his presence is strictly voluntary; as he begged Howard to allow him entrance into the bunker. He also mentions having done work for Howard in the past.

As Howard introduces them to the larger living area of the self-contained bunker, questions about his motives dog Michelle and Emmett (as well as the audience). Is Howard on the up and up; has a nuclear exchange with the Russians really come about or has an alien presence he refers to as "martians" arrived for colonization? Michelle naturally remains suspicious and is horrified to hear Howard tell Emmett that an excursion outdoors won't be possible for one to two years with the supposed, widespread radiation. Her suspicions about Howard's claims are further fed by the rumbling sounds she hears emanating beyond the bunker.

Though odd, Howard seems reasonably stable until a dinner conversation between Michelle and Emmett prompts a violent outburst. During his angry tirade, Michelle manages to steal his keys to the outer doors and later, during a tense exchange between she and Howard, she manages to temporarily trap him inside her bedroom while she hurries to unlock the outer doors. A terrific, nail-biting scene where Michelle desperately tries to remove the various locks to the outer doors with Howard in hot pursuit is particularly thrilling. When she shuts the inner door behind her, Howard begs her not to open the outer door. But when she looks through the window, she doesn't see carnage and a devastated landscape but sunshine and cornstalks swaying in the breeze; though moments later, a woman approaches the glass. As she pounds desperately on the window, demanding to be allowed inside, Michelle notices facial injuries, as if the woman had been exposed to radiation. Horrified by the woman's appearance and her violent, angry pleas, she returns inside, satisfied that Howard's claims have been corroborated.

At this point, the story becomes deliciously complicated. Not only must Michelle and Emmett contend with a violent, paranoid psychotic but with a world that may no longer exist as they knew it. The idea of characters being held prisoner by a madman and nuclear fallout makes a multiple-crisis plot irresistibly fun. But the screenwriters cleverly dole out more surprises and mysteries as the story unfolds. Again, we're left with more questions about what might actually be happening in the outside world and what other motives Howard may have for keeping Michelle and Emmett imprisoned.

The tension between Howard and Emmett and Michelle comes to a head when he discovers the two have been secretly designing an environmental suit from a shower curtain and plastic soda bottles. A shocking development makes it necessary for Michelle to plot an escape, which eventually propels the story from the horror genre to something conspicuously sci-fi. The surprise awaiting her (and the audience) is unexpected.

To reveal more about the story would be criminal, for much of its dark charms involve the element of surprise.

A chunk of praise for Trachtenberg's terrific film can be awarded to John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who bring their brilliant best to their respective roles. One may hope the role of Michelle is a breakthrough career move for Winstead, who has yet to crack the hard nut of stardom. She is perfectly cast for the part of a smart, resourceful, and tough woman; one who deals with every setback and harrowing development with pluck and grit. Goodman, ever the pro, is deeply creepy as Howard.

Trachtenberg, in his directorial feature debut, shows an old hand's talent for staging action. His camera work is taut, economical and to the point but he crafts suspense and horror from a story whose genre leanings are never fixed.

10 Cloverfield Lane is nice little pastry for Mid-March. One can only hope it finds an audience before super-hero films begin to trickle into movie houses. An imaginative, well-conceived flick deserves as much screen-time as Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice will undoubtedly receive. If that $250 million juggernaut can deliver a worthwhile cinematic experience, we'll know it soon. We already know what Dan Trachtenberg can do with a meager $5 million budget and a talented cast. Imagine what he could do with a Jupiter-sized budget.

Trumbo

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jay Roach/Starring: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Diane Lane, Louis C.K., John Goodman, Elle Fanning and Michael Stuhlbarg

The sordid history of the Hollywood blacklists has been well documented and dramatized in cinema. Two notable films on the subject; Martin Ritt's The Front (1976) and Irwin Winkler's Guilty by Suspicion (1991); come to mind. But unlike the aforementioned fictitious films, director Jay Roach's Trumbo is based on the real-life experiences of a legendary screenwriter who endured the unforgiving and unconscionable political witch-hunts that left so many unemployed and unemployable. Dalton Trumbo, played beautifully and with much artistry by Bryan Cranston, stands as one of the more talented writers in movie history but because his communist ties were seen by the House Un-American Activities Committee as suspicious and possibly seditious, he, along with other screenwriting peers, were barred from submitting work to the studios. Deprived of their livelihood, many found their economic situations severely stressed and their lives and reputations ruined by one of the more diabolical political movements in American history.

In Trumbo, the screenwriter's experiences serve as a testimony to the indignities and humiliations visited on a group whose membership in the communist party was borne of humanitarian concerns.

Early in the film, we see Trumbo sitting before legendary studio executive Louis B. Mayer, basking in praise and the promise of being the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. Unfortunately for Trumbo, a new contract comes with an ominous warning about his political affiliations. Unconcerned, he spends his days writing and enjoying time with his family and screenwriting friends.

But we also see the machinations of anti-communist forces, led by the powerful Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and a government committee hellbent on expunging traitorous elements in the film community. In one scene, Hopper stands before a full auditorium of like-minded "patriots" with actor John Wayne (David James Elliott). After rousing the audience with bile-spewing rhetoric about political subversives in Hollywood, Hopper and Wayne encounter Trumbo and his fellow-screenwriters outside the auditorium, where their leaflets about constitutional rights are left untouched by the those exiting the venue. Wayne and Hopper are unmoved by and dismissive of the writer's pleas for tolerance, while Trumbo counters Wayne's bullying with a biting question about the actor's war service.

But Trumbo finds more powerful forces marshaled against him, as a subpoena served to him during a family picnic demands that he testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington D.C. to address issues about communist propaganda finding its way into Hollywood films. Refusing to answer questions they deem intrusive, Trumbo and his screenwriting cohorts--known as The Hollywood Ten--are convicted of contempt of Congress and subsequently arrested.

We see Trumbo in the following scene standing before a prison guard. He is forced to strip naked, exposing his privates for examination. The degradation he endures for his views says much about the political climate of the time. In prison, he is hardly exempt from the hard labor demanded of inmates.

While serving his time, Trumbo stays in contact with his wife Cleo (Diane Lane) as she tries to hold the family together. Trumbo (and the audience) experiences a wonderful moment of comical irony when he discovers the man who led the witch-hunt against him in Hollywood is also serving time in the same prison for tax-evasion.

But upon being paroled, Trumbo discovers his problems have only begun. He finds being blacklisted to be another punishing sentence as he is effectively shut-out from Hollywood. Public humiliation becomes common. Trumbo is accosted in a movie theater after a patron sees his face in a newsreel about The Hollywood Ten, whereupon a drink is splashed in his face.

Trumbo finds a way around the blacklist by writing scripts with non-blacklisted writer's names on his work. He writes Roman Holiday but attaches the name of his screenwriting peer Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk} on the front page. Though his screenplay wins an Oscar, Trumbo is unable to accept the award while Hunter is loathe to keep the statue.

Soon Trumbo discovers writing under a pseudonym to be an effective way of earn a living. As the Trumbo family is forced to move into more modest digs, Dalton is also forced to work for a schlock movie company run by brothers Frank (John Goodman) and Hymie (Stephen Root) King, who churn out low-budget pot-boilers. Though Frank and Hymie make objections about not being able to afford Trumbo, the writer gladly accepts lower pay to keep his family fed. Unlike the major studios, the King brothers don't see the Black List as an impediment to hiring a black-listed writer. Friend and fellow blacklister Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.) sees his writing junk-scripts as insulting while Trumbo sees writing under a pseudonym as an effective way of circumventing the blacklist. Soon Trumbo enlists the talents of his fellow blacklisters for the King brothers, sometimes with humorous results. One scene that is particularly funny involves a space alien story over which Frank and Arlen lock horns.

As betrayal is the overarching theme in the film, we see its many incarnations. One instance involves screen legend Edward G. Robinson; who proves to be a sympathetic ally to Trumbo and his friends before he too is forced to sit before a committee to answer questions about his dubious affiliations. Other liberal figures in the industry pledge fealty to the Trumbo and his fellow communists, until they also turn their backs on the vilified Ten.

We also see how betrayal can take the form of familial alienation. Trumbo's obsessive writing schedule drives a wedge between himself and his family. Though Cleo feels he is guilty of neglect, the person it affects most acutely is his daughter Nicki (Elle Fanning). She tries to get her father to join the family gathering for her 16th birthday, only to find him in the bathtub with his typewriter; hostile to all entreaties.

Trumbo's career takes a dramatic turn when he discovers actors and directors who are willing to defy the blacklist to work with him and more importantly, include his name on scripts. Two such people; Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger, help dismantle (though not eradicate) the Committee and Hedda Hopper's influence, thus extricating Trumbo from the blacklist's pernicious hold.

If the film ends with vindication, it also carries the bitterness of injustice. Though we see Trumbo accepting an award years after the blacklist's wane, he is quick to point out that all who suffered through its noxious influence were forever changed by it, mostly for the worse. Closing subtitles inform us credit for Trumbo's work on Roman Holiday and The Brave One, both Oscar-winning screenplays; were awarded only later; the former posthumously.

The film's showcase is Bryan Cranston, whose performance here should soundly establish him in movies. Cranston shows us a highly principled man whose unwavering loyalty to his colleagues and his unassailable political convictions came with a fiery resolve. He is a wonder in this role.

But one can't walk away from the film not having noticed Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Louis C.K. and Michael Stuhlbarg all doing exceptional work as well.
John McNamara, whose writing credits have been mostly relegated to television, contributes a solid, intelligent script. His dialogue is smart and witty and his hero wonderfully nuanced.

The Hollywood Black Lists will forever inspire dramas; it's a subject that never seems to get musty. Jay Roach's film proves the history can still be mined poignantly. The film also shows that Dalton Trumbo was long overdue for a biopic of his own.

The Gambler

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Rupert Wyatt/Starring: Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Alvin Ing, Brie Larson, Jessica Lange and Michael Kenneth Williams

I'll never quite fathom remakes. Unless a director or producer feels the original was an utter pile of bat guano demanding re-tooling, then I suppose the effort makes sense. But Hollywood history is littered with cinematic rubbish some producer or director felt needed to be retold or made current. I've seen very few remakes that best the original. And what do such ill-conceived endeavors often produce? Useless, vacuous, retreads that lack the original film's dramatic power, wit, humor, charm or spirit.

So movie screens are carrying director Rupert Wyatt's remake of the 1974 film of the same name and I again find myself asking rhetorically: Why? And why The Gambler? Did James Caan not perform his part well, or did the film suffer in some way that made Wyatt or the current producers (Wahlberg among them) itch? Was there an impassioned movement, membership a million strong, clamoring for a remake? If so, why was I not made aware of this? I suppose I could devote a blog-post solely to questions regarding remakes but I won't exhaust your eyes with something so pointless.

Mark Wahlberg plays Jim Bennett, literature professor, author and pathological gambler. When we first see him, he is having a run of luck at a blackjack table in an illicit gambling establishment. Rather than playing sensibly, Bennett transfers his winnings to the roulette table, where he places all his chips on black, but the ball falls on red. His all or nothing approach to gambling is his MO in the film, which brings him misfortune and trouble.

Bennett's freewheeling gambling habit leaves him with prodigious debts to underworld figures who become a ubiquitous presence in his life. A Korean kingpin named Mr. Lee (Alvin Ing), whose illegal gambling houses Bennett frequents, allows the professor to run up a $250,000 debt, which he demands in seven days time. Another shadowy wraith to whom Bennett is indebted is Neville Baraka (Michael Kenneth Williams), who is keen to level his own threats.

When not gambling, Bennett teaches literature at a local university and in his class is a young woman named Amy Phillips (Brie Larson, in a thankless, underwritten role), who is employed in one of Mr. Lee's establishments.

I'm not sure Mark Wahlberg makes a convincing literature professor. I can't picture him actually picking up a copy of Albert Camus' The Stranger or sharing his insights on the book in class. Actually, it may be one of the only books mentioned in his course. Bennett takes up a lot of class-time (and screen time) hectoring his students about their lack of writing talent, though he singles out Amy for her exceptional writing skills. We have to take his word for it; we never see any evidence in the film that would substantiate his value judgement.

A romance between Bennett and Amy percolates, which his dire gambling situation complicates. The relationship is very unconvincing. The lack of chemistry between the two is one of the film's salient failings. Aside from Bennett's lofty praise and her link to his extracurricular life, the relationship is the screenwriter's far-fetched contrivance.

As the days to the deadline are counted onscreen, Bennett seeks out his mother Roberta (Jessica Lange, doing terrific work in a small role), whose wealth offers him his only recourse to debt alleviation. World-weary and edgy, Roberta receives her son's plea for an exorbitant amount with a degree of outrage but she agrees to his request; citing fear of losing another family-member as her means to justifying her action. The subsequent scene in the bank of Roberta and Jim sitting before a puzzled manager is one of the film's best moments (of which there are a scant number).

Rather than eliminate his debt, the self-destructive, volatile Bennett decides to gamble with the money; a catastrophic act that is too mind-boggling to imagine and too painful to watch.

What are the psychological underpinnings of Bennett's gambling? One might say it is merely a gambling addiction but that practical explanation isn't enough to characterize his reasons for such aggressive, manic behavior. It's hardly the thrill of risk, for Bennett doesn't exhibit any elation or high from gambling. A flimsy, existential motivation is subtly posited but no explanation is really satisfying. Except maybe profound stupidity.

Having foolishly and recklessly gambled his mother's money away, Bennett has little choice but to borrow a sizable sum from a dangerous loan shark named Frank (John Goodman), who issues his own vague but ominous threats. But unlike Mr. Lee and Neville, Frank takes a paternal interest in Bennett, though the threats remain.

With the deadline only days away, Bennett hatches a plan that involves offering a basketball star in his class a chunk of cash to moderate his performance on-court to cover the spread on the odds. Bennett's plan to satisfy all his debts with the winnings is risky, dangerous and contingent on the player meeting his end of the deal.

I don't know about the original film--I haven't seen it in years--but this iteration seems more than just a bit silly. Wahlberg's over-the-top classroom theatrics don't resemble that of any literature professor I encountered in college. Wahlberg is a terrific actor given an appropriate role, but his broody-cool demeanor isn't mysterious, just hokey. Brie Larson, whose breakthrough performance in Short Term 12 showcased some fine acting, may as well be a hologram for all that is expected of her in the film. Her motivations are limited to; adore Jim Bennett and then adore him some. The more intriguing performances belong to Lange, John Goodman as the Jabba-the-Hut-like loan shark and Michael Kenneth Williams, who also does much with so little.

Whatever motivates Bennett seems nebulous and nonsensical. Nothing about his character or his predicament is recognizably human. Does he learn anything from his follies? It is hard to say; Jim Bennett remains a cipher to the end.

The ending is what it is; hardly unexpected and unsatisfying. But what does one expect of a remake? I wish I could recommend the original but as I mentioned earlier, I haven't seen it in years so I can't vouch for its quality here.

I'm sorry to say this will be the last film for which I offer an impression in 2014. If only my last posting could have been A Most Violent Year, a film I have yet to see but is earning rave reviews. That will have to wait until January. For now, let my final blog-post for the year end with a whimper and a groan, while I hope for better cinematic experiences in 2015. See you there.