Money Monster

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jodie Foster/Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito, Caitriona Balfe and Emily Meade

Jodie Foster's Money Monster is one of those films that courts audience outrage; condemning greed and graft while depicting its hero as a victim (mostly innocent) of the rapacious forces that often prey on the poor. The film relies heavily on the stock characterization of the evil CEO to supply its villain. This isn't The Big Short; Adam McKay's excellent film about the housing market collapse from last year, which showed us the origins of the economic tailspin caused by shameless greed. Foster's film would like to think of itself as an intense, searing drama about a common man who loses all his money to a stock investment in a high profile corporation but what unfolds onscreen is nothing of the sort. The story we see is often nonsensical and preposterous. I wish I could say the film made me shake my fist in rage but more often than not, it was used to prop up my head so it wouldn't fall on to my chest.

The plot seems like something that could happen in the real world but never does. Investment TV personality Lee Gates (George Clooney) and his director director Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) prepare for an installment of Money Monster. Gates' show is flashy at times; incorporating dancers and outlandish costumes into segments to mingle dazzle and showmanship with sage investment advice. Meanwhile, a youngish man sneaks into the building where the show is broadcast.

When the young man enters the studio, Fenn and her staff mistakenly believe him to be a delivery boy until he walks onto the set. Gates himself is unsure of his purpose until the man pulls out a gun and discharges it. Though Fenn's first impulse is to cut the cameras, Gates urges her to keep them running. After a few moments, the man; Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell, encumbering himself with the heaviest New York accent I've ever heard) forces Gates to open one of two boxes he brought to the studio. In one box is a vest with explosives, which Kyle forces Gates to wear. Kyle warns everyone that the detonator in his hand is activated by the release of his thumb, which ensures his protection against anyone who dares to approach him or shoot from afar.

As Kyle holds Gates hostage, the drama plays out on television and is broadcast wide. As Kyle explains, the money he inherited from his mother--$60,000--was lost after the company Gates pushed as a sound investment; IBIS, found its stock plummeting following a computer glitch. After Kyle refuses compensatory money offered him by Gates, a plan is hatched to have IBIS Public Relations Director, Diane Lester (the stunning Irish actress Caitriona Balfe) explain the "glitch" on-air when the company CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) can't be found.

When Lester appears onscreen to offer an explanation, Kyle finds her empty Public Relations-speak tiresome, which prompts him to shoot the TV projecting her image.

As the situation grows more intense, the police concoct a plan to have SWAT snipers infiltrate the building and the studio. Meanwhile, Fenn manages to have most of her staff leave the building while she, Gates and a cameraman stay behind.

Shots of people watching the incident unfold from various bars, public places and even Times Square (wouldn't most people be watching on their cell phones? I guess that isn't as cinematic or dramatic as a pub full of patrons glued to a TV) give the audience the sense that the crisis has become a lurid spectacle with a far-reach.

In an attempt to subdue the situation, police Captain Powell (Giancarlo Esposito; doing time as a character that was probably described on page as: Police Captain, blue suit) contacts Kyle's pregnant girlfriend Molly (Emily Meade), who is unaware of the mess her boyfriend is in. But after Kyle and Molly make visual contact, she seizes the opportunity to dress him down before the televised audience; going out of her way to attack his manhood before mocking his attempts to invest. That a pregnant girlfriend would choose that moment to embarrass the father of her child and detail his failings before an audience of ten million seems unlikely but I guess we do live in a confessional culture. Humiliated and dejected, Kyle hangs his head in the studio as SWAT members move into place, hoping to disable the bomb by shooting the receiver in Gates' pocket, which means actually shooting the TV host himself.

The film edges nearer a climactic showdown as Gates is suddenly transformed from goat to hero-seeking-redemption when he deliberately thwarts the SWAT operation by avoiding the bullet. Shortly thereafter, he and Kyle leave the studio and enter the street, where they hope to face Camby in a prearranged meeting.

Earlier, we learn the glitch wasn't an electronic error but a human one, caused by Camby's underhanded stock manipulation involving a mine in South Africa.

In facing Camby, Kyle hopes to force the CEO admit he was wrong. The meeting is pure Hollywood screenwriting hackery, as Kyle is nearly martyred, Gates redeems himself and Camby's nefarious shenanigans become broadcast for the world to see and hear.

In the real world, a CEO like Camby would never admit to a poor slob like Kyle his wrongdoing and he certainly wouldn't have to fear the law. As we saw in The Big Short, people get rich from catastrophic losses and not only do they get away scot-free, they prosper. Foster's film is naive enough to believe the Cambys' of the world get their comeuppance. Jodie, where have you been the last ten years?

The movie reduces its characters to tiresome cliches: the angry everyman victimized by a robber baron, the man who recognizes the hero's virtue and his own culpability, thereby ensuring his redemption and the robber baron himself, who is ultimately brought low, because damnit, the unscrupulous rich just can't get away with their crimes. This is old fashioned hogwash and wishful thinking...at least in this day and age.

Much of Foster's film is just a newspaper headline heated to scorching temperatures and stretched into a narrative. The performances are adequate (Roberts herself is Queen of Adequacy) but nothing more. The film can't even be troubled to properly allow its martyr to achieve proper martyrdom.

Money Monster isn't the worst film of the season. In fact, it isn't a terrible film at all. It's a lot like Jack O'Connell's New Yorky accent; overdone, unconvincing, and just plain silly.

Hail, Caesar!

**Spoiler Alert**

Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen/Starring: George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Alden Ehrenreich, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

Joel and Ethan Coen have made exceptional films in their careers and some irredeemable time-wasters. One can count a fair number of comedies in their oeuvre but for me, I've always preferred their dramas, which sometimes contain their brand of dark humor. I realize my low opinion of their comedies is in the minority. People insist Raising Arizona, O Brother, Where Art Thou and Burn After Reading are hilarious but they only leave me cold. (I've heard some movie lovers even suggest that The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers are funny... not to me.) I'm still not wild about The Big Lebowski but I think Jeff Lebowski is a comic master creation. The Coen Brothers' comedies are too self-aware to be truly funny.
That being said, I found their new film; Hail, Caesar to be unfunny, unfocused and unfailingly tedious. I heard one woman laugh through the entire film but there is always that one person in the audience who can be counted on to find every gag and comic situation funny even when they aren't. In spite of the woman's compulsive laughter, the patrons in my immediate vicinity--and in most of the theater--were mostly silent. So it goes; everyone is entitled to laugh; it certainly isn't a crime, but maybe it's a case of sour grapes on my part, who knows?.

The Coen Brothers celebrate/skewer old Hollywood; the characters and genres that ruled the screen and the dramas that raged off of it.

Capitol Pictures' production manager Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) broad job description makes it necessary for him to also manage scandals that threaten to ruin actor's lives and derail movie projects. When the film begins, we see him visit a home where an intoxicated, high-profile actress is being photographed pornographically. Mannix, who seems accustomed to damage control of this ilk, manages to keep the situation from becoming headline fodder by pulling the starlet from the scene and paying off a couple of cops who arrive on the scene. When not defusing near-disasters, Mannix tends to studio production business. One film over which he presides is a big-budget, Ben-Hur-like epic called Hail, Caesar, which stars Hollywood mega-star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney).

During production, Whitlock is kidnapped; leaving Mannix to contend not only with a crime, but a situation that could conceivably become a media typhoon. Compounding his woes are the cost overruns Whitlock's absence creates for the the film. And yet another of Mannix's vexations are the Hedda Hopper-like, twin gossip columnists; Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton, sporting great alliterative names); who skulk about the studio lot, sniffing for scandal and gossip.

But we also meet the film's other dramatis personae, like Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), the singing cowboy of the big screen, who Mannix eventually recruits in his effort to find Whitlock and DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson); an Esther Williams-like star whose personal troubles become studio troubles. We also meet Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum); a song and dance star who later plays a part in the kidnapping drama.

Whitlock awakes in a posh, seaside home and after wandering around, he finds his kidnappers, who turn out to be a disgruntled group of screenwriters who are fed up with the industry's obeisance to the bottom line. The audience learns what it may have suspected all along; the group's agenda is strictly communist.
Meanwhile, Mannix assembles a cash payment after receiving the group's $100,000 ransom note while trying desperately to keep the kidnapping from leaking to the studio, the public and the press.

The film reaches for laughs when Hobie becomes a substitute cast member for director Laurence Laurentz's (Ralph Fiennes) tux and gown drama; a movie for which his Texan accent and cowboy persona are hopelessly ill-suited. The film's most inspired comedic scene is Mannix's meeting with local religious figures to ensure the movie's subject matter offends neither Christians nor Jews. The exchanges between the rabbi and catholic priest are peppered with a few barbed, comments about scripture.

As the mystery behind the kidnapper's intent comes to light, Whitlock becomes an ardent believer in their cause before eventually returning to the set of his movie.

The various secondary character's stories never add up to much, particularly DeeAna Moran's and Hobie Doyle's, who are more representations of old Hollywood types than people.

The Coen Brothers' film seems like an opportunity to poke fun at the anti-communist hysteria of the time. We see a boat containing Whitlock's captors and Burt Gurney approach a Russian submarine, which surfaces near the California shore, awaiting the bag containing the $100,000, which is being offered up as a gift. The absurdity of the scene seems to reflect the outrageous, right-wing, Cold War paranoia that held America in its grip during that period.

I suppose the film will seem funny to those who are attuned to the Coen Brothers' sense of screwball. I went into the movie expecting to laugh but unfortunately, their film fell flat. It isn't the first time I've had that reaction to one of their comedies and it may not be the last.
I'll move on now and hope their next movie will be more fun than this slog.

Tomorrowland

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Brad Bird/Starring: George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Peel

It's hard to say whether Tomorrowland is a Disney flick or director Brad Bird's film because at times it seems the futuristic city seen therein is little more than a re-imagined DisneyWorld. The film also seems like a plug for its theme parks. Even in a scene where a child named Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) walks into the 1964 World's Fair with his jet-pack prototype, we see Disney's It's A Small World exhibit, replete with the signature song. Talk about a product placement! And try as this talented director (Ratatouille, The Incredibles), might, I couldn't help but feel that the film was nothing more than a story smothered in a corporate infomercial. But we may give ample credit to Bird for pulling a mildly watchable (remember my mantra: mildly watchable can never be equated with good) story from a George Clooney-hosted theme park ride.

But the film takes a shot at a story, as a young woman named Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) tries desperately to prevent a NASA launch pad from being dismantled. Her father, Eddie Newton (Tim McGraw); a NASA engineer, is facing unemployment after his project is complete. During one late night stealth mission on the grounds (is NASA security so lax?), Casey is caught and arrested. Freed on bail, she collects her belongings at the police station, only to find a button with a prominent "T" on the face. Upon touching it, she is instantly transported to a wheat-field where she sees the Oz-like skyline of Tomorrowland; a futuristic city gleaming on the horizon. But Casey also finds that she is transported back to our world when she lets go of the button. The phenomenon naturally startles her and when she tries to demonstrate it for her already angry father on the way home from jail, it fails to work for him.

Finding a large field in which to re-activate her button, she is able to re-visit Tomorrowland and wander around the city. She sees people zipping around in high-tech jet packs, monorails gliding through the air without actual rails and many other wonders which leave the visitor dazzled. Unfortunately she also finds a miniature, digital readout on the button that is rapidly counting down to zero. When it does just that, she is transported back to our world and unable to reactivate the button.

Through her sleuthing, she finds the pin is actually a replica of one sold at the 1964 World's Fair. Her brother locates a store in Houston that carries the pin, which she travels to while her father believes her to be on a camping trip. The place that carries it is a funky, sci-fi collectible establishment run by two offbeat characters played by Kathryn Hahn and the Keegan-Michael Peel. They immediately become suspicious when she shows them her pin and when she tries to leave they lock the door before targeting her with high-tech blasters. As she races through the aisles trying to elude them, a young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) arrives to dispatch the two owners, who we learn are actually robots. Athena warns Casey they need to hurry away before dangerous operatives arrive who intend to kill her. As the two escape, Athena tells Casey the operatives have been sent by a man named Nix who is intent on tracking down the "chosen"; those who have been invited to Tomorrowland via the pin.

Athena suggests Casey visit a previous occupant of Tomorrowland; a man since exiled from the place for inventing something deemed very dangerous though what it is isn't immediately divulged. When Athena drops (almost literally) Casey on the driveway of said inventor, she approaches his unprepossessing abode, only to find he has no intention of allowing her in. When she tricks him and gains entry, she finds his home is a paranoiac's dream; surveillance gew-gaws and computers galore and an advanced security system. The man; Frank Walker (George Clooney), who we saw as little boy in the 1964 World's Fair; learns why Casey has shown up at his doorstep. He also discovers Nix's operatives have discovered his hideout. Frank and Casey manage to escape with the help of his ingenious techno-wizardry but not before Nix's thugs violently renovate his home.

In time, Frank explains that a machine of his design previously used to show people the possibilities of the future has since been re-purposed to show people disasters and war and everything negative. As a consequence, humanity is overcome by its own dark vision of the future, making it necessary to destroy the machine before the world is destroyed by man-made catastrophes. In order to accomplish this, Frank, Casey and Athena must defeat Nix and his minions, which involves finding a way back to Tomorrowland, whose entrance has since been destroyed.

And so the stage is set for a blah blah climax that only Disney could conceive. And in the end, we get an optimistic It's a Small World reprise of sorts with a host of multi-ethnic young folk answering the call to become mankind's visionaries.

Okay, so I get Disney's agenda to leave us with an upbeat, cheery coda but I'm not sure how the army of Tomorrowlanders will deal with the REAL problems gripping our world. If I sound like an incorrigible cynic, that's because I am and no amount of young folk appearing in a wheat field with Tomorrowland in walking distance can convince me that creative imagineering is enough (though I guess it's at least a start). I'm all for celebrating and fostering ingenuity but what the film peddles seems more like Disney's all-you-can-eat lip-service with some platitudes one might buy in Epcot Center.

George Clooney's charisma keeps the film from completely sinking and he probably comes along just at the right time because Britt Robertson, with all her hysteric hamming, is too feeble a presence to carry the story.

The film isn't beaten into submission with CGI the way The Avengers is, which is one positive assessment I can make about the movie.

If the trailer seemed monotonous to you, you'll be pleased to find the movie isn't as bad as that but whether one wants to spend ten bucks to arrive at this revelation is a decision best left to you. That's right, folks; I have seen the future--more specifically Tomorrowland--and it looks like DisneyWorld with glassy towers. All the film needs is a Mickey Mouse with the advanced AI seen in Ex Machina to fully realize its true marketing potential.