Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018)

Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in Green Book

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini, Sebastian Maniscalco, Dimiter D. Marinov, Mike Hatton, P.J. Byrne, Joe Cortese, Maggie Nixon, Von Lewis, Iqbal Theba. Screenplay: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly. Cinematography: Sean Porter. Production design: Tim Galvin. Film editing: Patrick J. Don Vito. Music: Chris Bowers.

Peter Farrelly's Green Book is not a bad movie, just an unoriginal one, especially with its soft-landing, feel-good ending, set at Christmas no less. It's certainly among the least worthy best picture Oscar recipients of recent years, especially from nominees that included such original works as Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, and my personal favorite, Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite. What Green Book has going for it is powerful performances by Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali and a sharp reminder of the cruelty and injustice of the Jim Crow era, in which a phenomenon like the Green Book, a travel guide for Black people in an age of segregated accommodation, was necessary. The film has been criticized for resorting to the White Savior trope, in which Mortensen's Tony Vallelonga saves Ali's Don Shirley from mayhem and possible death. There is, in fact, a White Savior in the film, but it's the off-screen Bobby Kennedy who rescues Vallelonga and Shirley from jail in a Louisiana "sundown town" after a well-placed phone call by Shirley to his well-connected lawyer, a moment in which Shirley plays Magical Negro to Vallelonga's White Savior. The film tries to be even-handed in depicting the growing rapport between the two men, in which each tries to correct the other's flaws, namely Shirley's hauteur and Vallelonga's crudeness. It doesn't entirely succeed, largely because the point of view in the film is white, that of Vallelonga's son Nick, who wrote the screenplay. The Shirley family, in fact, protested the treatment of their relative in the film as a "symphony of lies," falsely portraying Shirley as alienated from the Black community and estranged from his brother. Setting aside any issues of accuracy -- Green Book is a fiction film, not a documentary -- the real problems with the movie are two: One, that it treats racial tensions as a thing of the past, something hardly acceptable in the age of Black Lives Matter. The other is the heaviness of its clichés, which are those of almost any odd-couple road trip movie, which led some of its critics, mindful of another undeserving best picture Oscar winner, to dub it "Driving Dr. Shirley." 

Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross, 2016)

Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic

Ben: Viggo Mortensen
Bodevan: George MacKay
Kielyr: Samanta Isler
Vespyr: Annalise Basso
Rellian: Nicholas Hamilton
Zaja: Shree Crooks
Nai: Charlie Shotwell
Harper: Kathryn Hahn
Dave: Steve Zahn
Jack: Frank Langella
Abigail: Ann Dowd
Leslie: Trin Miller

Director: Matt Ross
Screenplay: Matt Ross
Cinematography: Stéphane Fontaine
Production design: Russell Barnes
Film editing: Joseph Krings
Music: Alex Somers

From Woodstock to Mar-a-Lago, the terminus a quo and terminus ad quem of the Baby Boom generation. Or, as Matt Ross's Captain Fantastic would have it, from an off-the-grid cabin in the mountains to an opulent mansion beside a golf course. That, anyway, is how the film symbolizes the spiritual schism of the late 20th and early 21st century. It's a schism that manifests itself in the bipolar disorder of Leslie Cash, whom we see only in the visions of her husband, Ben, and in her casket. Anchored by yet another fine performance by Viggo Mortensen as Ben, the film risks becoming over-formulaic, especially in the big confrontation scene in which Ben pits his world view against that of Leslie's father at her funeral. The father is played by Frank Langella, who is an actor skilled at taking potentially one-note roles and adding the appoggiaturas they need to become interesting, so that even when world views collide in Captain Fantastic, we're not left to pick mere feel-good leftism out of the rubble. Ben and Leslie have tried to raise their six children uncontaminated by corporate capitalism, but the effort seems to have been too much for her -- after a breakdown, she is hospitalized and Ben carries on without her until her suicide forces him to take the precocious, home-schooled kids out into the world they never made. Ben can't resist showing them off, of course. At his sister's house he queries his teenage nephews about the Bill of Rights: The younger one thinks it has to do with what people are asked to pay for stuff, and the older knows vaguely that it has something to do with the government. So Ben marches out 8-year-old Zaja, who first starts by quoting it and is then prompted to articulate its significance, which she does superbly. But such encounters only emphasize how unprepared the kids are for anything but their own closed society. They may know the mechanics of sexuality, for example, but as the oldest son, Bodevan, discovers when he encounters a hot-to-trot teenage girl in a trailer park, they're unprepared for the real-world applications. There is, of course, no easy resolution for this culture clash, and Ross is forced into an ending that feels forced and compromised. Still, the performances of Mortensen, Langella, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Ann Dowd, and especially the young actors playing the Cash family, make Captain Fantastic work as well as it could have.

Crimson Tide (Tony Scott, 1995)

Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman in Crimson Tide

Lt. Commander Ron Hunter: Denzel Washington
Capt. Frank Ramsey: Gene Hackman
COB Walters: George Dzundza
Lt. Roy Zimmer: Matt Craven
Lt. Peter Ince: Viggo Mortensen
Lt. Bobby Dougherty: James Gandolfini
Lt. Darik Westerguard: Rocky Carroll
Petty Officer Danny Rivetti: Danny Nucci
Petty Officer Third Class Russell Vossler: Lillo Brancato Jr.
Officer of the Deck Mahoney: Jaime P. Gomez
Chief of the Watch Hunsicker: Michael Milhoan
Tactical Supervising Officer Billy Linkletter: Scott Burkholder
Lt. Paul Hellerman: Ricky Schroeder
Seaman William Barnes: Steve Zahn
Rear Admiral Anderson: Jason Robards

Director: Tony Scott
Screenplay: Michael Schiffer, Richard P. Henrick
Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Production design: Michael White
Film editing: Chris Lebenzon
Music: Hans Zimmer

I miss Gene Hackman. That is, I miss new movies with Gene Hackman in them. Lord knows he made enough movies before he up and decided to retire in 2004; IMDb credits him with 100 titles, including some TV series he appeared in before Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) gave his career the boost it needed. There was a time when he seemed to be vying with Michael Caine to be in every movie made. Which is as it should be: I don't know many actors who could bring such nuance to roles like the submarine captain in Tony Scott's Crimson Tide, carefully cutting his new XO, Hunter, down to size before his fellow officers. Notice the way he says "Harvard" in reading from Hunter's résumé, trying to suggest that Hunter is overqualified for the position and that he, Ramsey, makes up for lack of intellectual achievement with experience. Hackman and Denzel Washington are beautifully matched performers in this battle, Washington riding with the punches. Both play with the racial tension between the two characters, with Hackman making it clear that Ramsey regards Hunter as "uppity." He constantly calls Hunter "son" in a way that makers it sound like he's saying "boy."  Even when Ramsey gratuitously brings up the fact that that the Lipizzaner stallions are white and Hunter retorts that they were born black, there's a delicate restraint in the exchange in which Hackman makes Ramsey's insecurity and Washington makes Hunter's toughness manifest. All of this is bolstered by a gallery of fine supporting performances, clever dialogue in which Quentin Tarantino reportedly had a hand, and a stirring score by Hans Zimmer that makes effective use of the naval hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save." Crimson Tide rises well above the level of most action movies, so much so that we almost regret that the film has to fall back on suspense clichés in which the world is saved from destruction at the last second.

The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003)

The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001

The Two Towers, 2002

Sean Astin and Elijah Wood in The Two Towers

The Return of the King, 2003

Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen, and Ian McKellen in The Return of the King

Frodo: Elijah Wood
Gandalf: Ian McKellen
Aragorn: Viggo Mortensen
Sam: Sean Astin
Pippin: Billy Boyd
Merry: Dominic Monaghan
Legolas: Orlando Bloom
Gimli/Treebeard (voice): John Rhys-Davies
Arwyn: Liv Tyler
Elrond: Hugo Weaving
Gollum (voice and motion capture)/Smeagol: Andy Serkis
Bilbo: Ian Holm
Saruman: Christopher Lee
Galadriel: Cate Blanchett
Boromir: Sean Bean
Eowyn: Miranda Otto
Theoden: Bernard Hill
Denethor: John Noble
Eomer: Karl Urban
Faramir: David Wenham
Haldir: Craig Parker
Wormtongue: Brad Dourif

Director: Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Stephen Sinclair
Based on a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Cinematography: Andrew Lesnie
Production design: Grant Major
Film editing: John Gilbert (The Fellowship of the Ring), Michael Horton (The Two Towers), Jamie Selkirk (The Return of the King)
Music: Howard Shore

There is a clarity of narrative and action in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings that seems to me to be lacking in the blockbusters that have followed in its sizable wake, even those that have been scaled down for serialization on television, like Game of Thrones. (And even, I might add, in Jackson's own attempt to expand J.R.R. Tolkien's much more modest novel The Hobbit into a similarly epic film trilogy.) Some of this clarity lies in the source, in Tolkien's vividly characterized and shrewdly plotted novel. But Jackson and his team also display an ability to stage action sequences like the Helm's Deep scenes in The Two Towers and the assault on Minas Tirith in The Return of the King while both keeping things exciting and making sure we know where the characters we most care about are in the thick of things. Too often, especially in recent superhero films, the big battles of action movies seem to be either taking place in the dark or are simply a blur of quick cuts, with the revelation of who's up and who's down taking place after the dust clears. In The Lord of the Rings, there's a logic to what's taking place, and an awareness of peril and triumph that threads through the action. This is the more to the good because Jackson makes us care about Tolkien's characters, even the ones who seem less vulnerable or lovable than the small beings who bear the burden of the Ring. I think the special effects have begun to show their age: The group shot of the fellowship, for example, in the first film in the trilogy, feels awkwardly tricksy, with the hobbits and the dwarf obviously "pasted in" along with the human-sized characters. But the great vast project of bringing Tolkien's book to the screen remains a landmark and a stunning success.

A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011)

Viggo Mortensen in A Dangerous Method

Carl Jung: Michael Fassbender
Sigmund Freud: Viggo Mortensen
Sabina Spielrein: Keira Knightley
Otto Gross: Vincent Cassel
Emma Jung: Sarah Gadon

Director: David Cronenberg
Screenplay: Christopher Hampton
Adapted from a play by Christopher Hampton based on a book by John Kerr
Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky
Production design: James McAteer
Music: Howard Shore

Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, as Viggo Mortensen, playing the man himself, demonstrates, a cigar is a prop that can help you win an acting contest. Because too often a costume drama based on a play becomes just that: a contest among actors to show who can come out on top, especially when the cast consists of actors like Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Vincent Cassel -- none of them exactly shy of showing what they can do before a camera. When I heard of it, I thought Mortensen was a decidedly off-beat choice to play the father of psychoanalysis, and he was in fact the second actor to be cast in the role, after Christoph Waltz, an almost inevitable choice, found he had a scheduling conflict. Mortensen had worked with director David Cronenberg twice before, but playing men of violent action in Eastern Promises (2007) and A History of Violence (2005), not a pre-World War I middle-European Jewish intellectual. And yet Mortensen gives a delicious performance as Freud: puckish, proud, intellectually combative. And the cigar helps, whether brandished elegantly or plugged defiantly in the middle of his face. By contrast, everyone else seems a little over the top. Fassbender (who was second choice after Christian Bale) is his usual handsome presence, but he frets a little too visibly and never quite establishes Jung as the challenger to Freud's authority that Freud seems to have thought him to be. Keira Knightley acts the electrons off the screen as Sabina, almost popping out an eye and dislocating her jaw in her mad scenes, but recovers nicely in her later moments in the film. And Vincent Cassel, as the mad Otto Gross, takes his role to the extreme as the man who carries Freud's theories about repression to their logical extreme: Don't repress anything. Ever. The film's battle of ideas gets a little bit lost in all the emoting, and as so often happens in filmed costume dramas, the scenery and the sets capture the eye when the words should be capturing the mind. But Howard Shore's evocation of the melancholy side of Wagner's music is perfect for the era in which the film is set, the transition from 19th-century Weltschmerz into 20th-century bloodshed, a time when, as Joyce punned, we were Jung and easily Freudened. Jung's prophetic dream of a bloody tide sweeping over Europe is cited in the film, as a warning that all of this intellectual (and sexual) ferment was about to be inundated by war.  

Watched on Starz Encore

Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)

The Russian mafia seems to have supplanted the Italian kind in the popular imagining of the violent criminal world. It has long been a staple of TV crime shows like Law & Order, but David Cronenberg gave it the most impressive and terrifying embodiment yet in Eastern Promises. The film, set in London, is a strikingly globalized production, with a Canadian director and English screenwriter (Steven Knight) and actors who are Danish-American (Viggo Mortensen), British (Naomi Watts), German (Armin Mueller-Stahl), French (Vincent Cassel), Polish (Jerzy Skolimowski), and Irish (Sinéad Cusack). Yet the film somehow maintains a strong semblance of authenticity, thanks to strong performances. Mortensen, long a favorite of mine, gives an intensely compelling, and Oscar-nominated, portrayal of a Russian undercover agent infiltrating the mob. His celebrated battle in the steam bath, in which he, naked and unarmed, is attacked by two well-clothed thugs carrying linoleum knives should never let you take another two-against-one battle in a James Bond film seriously. (Or not until Daniel Craig does it in the nude.) Mueller-Stahl demonstrates once again that one can smile and smile and be a villain, and Cassel steals scenes with his portrayal of Mueller-Stahl's careless, dissipated weakling of a son. My only complaint about Eastern Promises is a rather saccharine ending to Watts's portion of the story. The story of Mortensen's character ends inconclusively, with his apparent ascension to the role of boss of the mob, a risky position for an undercover agent. A sequel has been proposed and postponed, and at last report seems to be dead.