Trust is Hard to Come By

Film: Black Bag
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

As I spend time catching up on several decades of television, I’ve come to realize that I really like a good legal drama. I’m not necessarily keen for cop shows, but give me a bunch of people in a courtroom (aside from the show Suits—I hated Suits), and I’m usually happy to keep watching. This is interesting to me because if you asked me what kind of shows I like, I probably wouldn’t list legal dramas. When it comes to movies, I am much the same way with espionage thrillers. I can’t say it’s a genre/subgenre that I think about a lot, but I’m always really happy to watch a good spy drama. This is relevant, because Black Bag from earlier this year is a very good spy drama.

The key to a good espionage story is essentially the same as a good thriller in general. We have to have multiple possible outcomes. We have to never really be sure of who we can or should trust. Every decision our main character makes needs to feel as if it is potentially lethal, either for themselves or for someone else. Black Bag gives us this with the added drama of the espionage taking place in the context of a marriage and several other relationships.

Institutionalized

Films: Unsane
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on The New Portable.

One of the realities of the horror genre is that if you look hard enough, you’ll find something that will really play on the fears of just about anyone. Being locked in an institution wrongfully is, I would guess, a pretty significant fear of a lot of people. Being locked in an institution with your stalker would be hundreds of times worse. And that’s exactly where we are going with Unsane. Don’t worry—this isn’t a spoiler. All of what sounds like it should be revealed over the course of the film is in the trailer.

Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) has moved from Boston to escape a stalker named David Strine (Joshua Leonard), who attached onto her when she took care of his father during his hospice care. The experience has left her scarred enough that she sees David in places where she is sure he can’t be. Deciding that she could use a little help, she books an appointment for herself at a place called Highland Creek Behavioral Center. She fills out a number of forms and is then taken to an examination room where it is revealed that she has just voluntarily committed herself for 24 hours.

Diamonds are a Thief's Best Friend

Film: Out of Sight
Format: DVDs from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I didn’t know going in that Out of Sight was based on an Elmore Leonard novel, but I guessed that that was the case not too long into the film. There’s a feel to this film reminiscent of Get Shorty, for instance. A lot of Leonard’s main character criminals are too clever by a half. We discover immediately that they are criminals and that they are real criminals, but his good guys tend to be non-violent, smarter than the average, and to have a particular ethical code surrounding them. Leonard also gives us true bad guy criminals who are violent and don’t shy away from committing violence.

But really, with Elmore Leonard good guy criminals, it’s all about being cool. In Out of Sight, our sympathetic criminal is bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney), who is busted when his car won’t start after his last job. Jack does a turn in a Florida prison. He gets out by warning the guards of a prison break by a man named Chino (Luis Guzman), knocking out a guard and wearing his uniform. Unfortunately for him, his escape involves a U.S. marshal named Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). Jack and Karen spend some time in the trunk of a car together while Jack’s getaway is driven by his friend Buddy (Ving Rhames).

Erin Brockovich

Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I think it’s kind of easy to dislike Julia Roberts sometimes. I mean, I think it’s easy to believe that she gets a lot of acting jobs because of her looks. While that may or may not be true (and probably is), it’s easy to forget that she can actually act. A film like Erin Brockovich, for which she won an Oscar, is a case in point. A more cynical viewer might well comment that she won for Brockovich’s characteristically foul mouth or because her cleavage is on display in virtually every scene. Again, that may or may not be true, but regardless, this is a good performance.

The film is the sort of biopic that’s been in vogue for quite some time. Rather than looking at a person’s entire life, the film instead focuses on the seminal moment of that life, the thing that truly defines it. We start with Brockovich (Julia Roberts) looking for work and being on the receiving end of a bad car accident. She hires Ed Masry (Albert Finney) to defend her. She loses the case primarily because of her own outburst on the stand. Desperate and unable to find work, she shows up in Masry’s office and demands a job. Feeling sorry for her, he complies, but offers no benefits.

Sex Sells

Film: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I don’t have a vast amount of experience with the work of Steven Soderbergh. I’ve seen a few of his films and generally liked them, but I can’t say I’ve seen enough to know whether or not I’d rank him as one of the great directors I’ve encountered. Sex, Lies and Videotape is his first feature film. I didn’t see this when it came out (I didn’t see it until today, in fact), but I remember when it came out, because it create quite a stir. This is one of those difficult films for me to judge, mainly because I don’t really like the characters we are presented with in the film. These aren’t nice people or good people. They’re certainly broken, but for many of them, the fact that they are unlikable has nothing to do with their brokenness.

What we have is an odd relationship set here. Ann Mullany (Andie MacDowell) is in therapy for undisclosed reasons as the film starts. She’s got a nice house and a husband with a great job, but she is concerned with garbage. She’s also rarely intimate with her husband and doesn’t have much of a relationship with him. In her world, sex is overrated and she doesn’t miss it that much. This is probably a good thing for her, because her husband John (Peter Gallagher) is currently having a fairly torrid affair with her sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). We discover that John has invited a friend from college to stay with them for a few days and didn’t bother to tell Ann. She’s upset with that because he didn’t consult her.

Drugs are Bad, Mkay?

Film: Traffic
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I know that taking down my Christmas decorations on January 20th puts me a week or so behind when many pull down the fake evergreen branches and put away my Santa C’thulhu, but today was really the first chance I had. Knowing that I had to carefully wrap and pack a bunch of stuff, I wanted to watch something long and involved to keep me interested. So Traffic seemed like a pretty good choice. It’s close to 2 ½ hours long and interweaves three distinct plots, so I knew I’d be able to watch the whole thing in the time I had and I’d have enough to keep myself occupied while my hands got covered in newsprint.

Traffic, one of two of Steven Soderbergh’s films nominated for Best Picture in 2000, is a drug story told from multiple perspectives, focusing on a trio of overarching stories. These three stories tie together in a number of aspects, each bleeding over into the others, mixing characters and events. One a deeper level, the three main stories are really just aspects of the same overall story, which is an indictment on the American drug war and its many, many consequences.