The advantages of being organized

A dual blast of conscience -- feminism and unionism -- in a feel-good movie from Britain.

Made in Dagenham is an easy movie to knock. Predictably designed to create feel-good vibes in its intended audience, the movie stands as a prime example of the kind of British cinema that wears its social conscience on its sleeve. * I hadn't thought of myself as belonging to the group that cherishes such movies, but I must admit that Made in Dagenham's pro-labor stance gave me a lift in these days of high unemployment and rampant corporate profit. * Director Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls) may not be the most nuanced of filmmakers, but he employs a strong cast and benefits from the easy union of dual causes: unionism and feminism. * Focusing on a 1966 strike at a Ford plant in Dagenham, England, the movie tells the story of women who demanded the same pay scale as the plant's male work force. * Sally Hawkins, familiar from Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky, plays Rita O'Grady, the leader of the strike who must battle the male hierarchy of her union, as well as a recalcitrant Ford management.* Bob Hoskins portrays a union official who encourages the women, and Daniel Mays appears as Rita's mostly supportive husband. * Perhaps to show that feminist causes cross class lines, the script introduces us to Lisa (Rosamund Pike), the wife of a plant manager who sides with the workers. * Hawkins ably holds the movie together. Look, too, for a nice turn from Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle, a government official who meets her match in Rita. * Yes, Rita has the entirely expected assortment of colorful co-workers, and, yes, the story isn't exactly loaded with surprises, but Made in Dagenham harkens back to a moment when we could derive good feelings from expressions of solidarity, as opposed to overwrought individual triumphs.

My 10 favorite movies of 2010

Even in the worst of years -- and 2010 certainly doesn't rank as one of the best -- it can be difficult to winnow out the 10 best movies.

David Fincher’s The Social Network seems to be running at the top of most critics' association lists, and has emerged as the early frontrunner for this year’s best-picture Oscar.

That’s fine with me. Now that Time magazine has anointed Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder and the subject of Social Network, as the person of the year, the movie looks even more like the major winner of 2010.

So, without further ado, my list, tilted – as always – to the peculiarities of my taste and to whatever adjustments my mind has made since said movies were first released:

1. The Red Riding Trilogy. It was made for British TV, and involved a total of three movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more shocking look at the way corruption can invade every corner of a society. The Yorkshire accents were challenging to say the least, but the Trilogy snared me in its web of dread and deceit as it revealed the appalling face of a community that seemed to have lost all moral bearing. (Released in the U.S. in most cities in 2010.)

2. Carlos. Director Olivier Assayas’ portrayal of a terrorist boasts an amazing performance by Edgar Ramirez as Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos, the Jackal. The 5 1/2-hour movie takes us deep inside the world of a self-aggrandizing and violent man who claimed that he was challenging the established order. Assayas' movie stands as a brilliant character study of a man whose politics didn’t seem to rest on a bedrock of conviction, but on the shifting sands of anti-authoritarian attitudes that prevailed during the 1970s and beyond.

3. The Social Network. Working from a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, director David Fincher showed how phenomenal success can arise when technical innovation coincides with an astute reading of social trends. Jesse Eisenberg's portrait of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg may not be a precise representation of the real person, but it stands as a richly realized portrayal of the kind of intelligence that seems to be dominating the entrepreneurial moment: quick, capable and perhaps unaware of its effect on others.

4. Animal Kingdom. Director David Michod’s look at an Australian crime family featured two of the year’s most chilling performances – from Jackie Weaver, as the matriarch of a clan of small-time Melbourne felons, and from Ben Mendelsohn, as the most dangerous of a band of criminal brothers. If there was a false note here, I missed it.

5. Winter’s Bone. Director Debra Granik’s sobering movie examined the emotionally deprived life of an Ozark teen-ager (the brilliant Jennifer Lawrence) who’s saddled with the task of caring for her family after her father disappears and her mother retreats into the mists of mental illness. One of the least stereotypical portrayals of Ozark life yet, chastening in its authenticity.

6. Toy Story 3. I expected nothing from this 3-D farewell to a bunch of toys. But saying goodbye to Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and, of course, Mr. Potato Head put a lump in my throat. Any creative group that can make three movies and give each one a distinct identity while ensuring that they’re all of a piece deserves high praise. Great work, Pixar.

7. Please Give. Nicole Holofcener’s look at a group of New Yorker’s may not have been profound, but it felt real to me and offered memorable performances from Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet and Ann Guilbert, as a woman of astonishingly foul disposition. Holofcener's carefully assembled ensemble of actors made us realize the lengths to which people will go to control space in cramped Manhattan.

8. The Ghost Writer. Roman Polanski’s thriller focuses on a writer (Ewan McGregor) who agrees to ghost write the autobiography of a former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan). Of course, McGregor's character gets a lot more than he bargained for. If you want to watch a movie made by a director who's in complete control of his material, look no further.

9. Last Train Home. Director Lixin Fan's extraordinary documentary about the toll a burgeoning Chinese economy takes on one family. Last Train reveals character and situation in the way of a great novel.

10. Another Year. Mike Leigh's latest movie won't reach most of the nation's theaters until 2011, but this wonderfully played ensemble piece captures something important about the need for connection bred by loneliness. A terrific cast -- led by Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville -- rises to the occasion, and Lee's final scenes are as illuminating as they are painful.

Honorable mentions. Black Swan, Marwencol, Kick-Ass, Inside Job, 127 Hours, True Grit, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, and A Film Unfinished.

'The King's Speech' delivers fine acting*

If you're looking for entertainment that bolsters the hope that the British aristocracy, given sufficient prodding and pressure, is capable of real nobility, The King's Speech might be just your cup of tea.

If you're a movie fan, the best reasons to see The King's Speech -- aside from the heavy Oscar push that surrounds it -- are the performances of Colin Firth, as stammering King George VI, and Geoffrey Rush, as Lionel Logue, the self-proclaimed speech therapist who helped the king overcome his stutter.

As directed by Tom Hooper, the movie strives to show how national symbols -- a monarch, for example -- can provide rallying points during times of severe crisis, in this case the approaching ravages of World War II. King's Speech also offers a fair measure of humor as it pits George's patrician personality against the brash methods of a commoner (and an Australian at that) who comes off as part therapist, part self-help guru and part provocateur.

George's story takes place against a backdrop of once-scandalous drama. George, known as Bertie to members of his family, did not aspire to rule. He took the throne reluctantly in 1936 when his older brother, King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce), abdicated so that he could spend his life with a twice-divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson (Eve Best).

Firth conveys all of George's difficulties of speech, but supplement them with wit, insecurity and, most importantly, intelligence and judgment that emerge even when the words don't. Evidently, George was teased by his siblings and bullied by this father, King George V (Michael Gambon).

Childhood traumas aside, the future king had a heightened sense of duty and an understanding of royal responsibility that may have eluded his brother. The final scene in which tutor helps student give a famous war-time speech stands as a moment of tastefully orchestrated, crowd-pleasing inspiration.

Tellingly, George's big speech seems almost quaint when compared to the way in which information spreads around the globe today. In the late 1930s, people huddled around their radios to listen to speeches that united them in moments of fearful expectation. And no group of gabbers appeared immediately afterward to dissect every word.

Working from a script by David Seidler, Hooper creates the right blend of palace ambience and ordinary life, and the scenes between Firth and Rush -- the real heart of the movie -- are carried out with wit and barb.

As Queen Elizabeth -- the mother of the current queen -- Helena Bonham Carter conveys a mixture of pragmatism, common sense and wifely devotion that's bracing in its let's-get-on-with-it spirit.

W Timothy Spall appears as Winston Churchill; Derek Jacobi has a nice turn as the Archbishop of Canterbury; and Claire Bloom appears briefly but effectively as Queen Mary, wife of George V.

The King's Speech may be kept from greatness by something we might call a misproportioned sense of history. As Hitler prepared his malicious assault on civilization. it's necessary to remember that the world faced far more important and profoundly unsettling issues than one man's struggle with a speech impediment.

So for all is Oscar-wrothy cache and its heavyweight cast, The King's Speech remains something of a footnote to history -- nicely rendered, but a footnote nonetheless.

*The King's Speech opens in Denver Christmas Day and is now working its way around the country.

The rise and fall of a super-lobbyist

If you've seen Casino Jack and the United States of Money, director Alex Gibney's detailed look at the rise and fall of super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, you probably have no compelling reason to follow up with the late George Hickenlooper's dramatized take on the same basic story. * Still, Hickenlooper, who died in Denver just prior to the start of the 33rd Starz Denver Film Festival, may have made his best non-documentary feature with Casino Jack, a boldly conceived look at the ways in which Abramoff and his cohorts played the legislative system to great monetary advantage. * As Abramoff, Kevin Spacey dominates the proceedings with slippery ease, sometimes breaking into pitch-perfect imitations of various movie stars. Hickenlooper treats Abramoff's mimicry as part of his charismatic arsenal, one weapon in his defense against scrutiny. * I won't recount the entire Ambramoff story here, but you'll get a reasonable gloss on it from Casino Jack. * Interesting work can be found around the movie's fringes from Barry Pepper, as the avidly amoral Michael Scanlon; Jon Lovitz, as Adam Kidan, a small-time businessman with mob connections, and the late Maury Chaykin as a gluttonous mobster, Jabba the racketeer. * A near-cartoonish buoyancy keeps the movie entertaining, but if you've seen the real Jack Abramoff, you may have difficulty accepting Spacey as a combination political operative, hustler and Orthodox Jew. I did. * But even if you don't totally buy Spacey as Abramoff, Casino Jack remains watchable, and stands as one of Hickenlooper's most engaging works. How sad that his journey ended so soon. He was 46.

An even truer helping of 'Grit'

It's not the tale; it's the telling.

Keep that in mind as you watch True Grit, the Joel & Ethan Coen remake of the 1969 western that won John Wayne his only Academy Award. The original was directed by Henry Hathaway - no slouch when it came to westerns - but the Coens have surpassed him in every way that counts: artistry, humor and a feeling for the sorrowful landscapes of the west.

The movie introduces us to 14-year-old Mattie (Hailee Steinfeld), a teen-ager who hires a drunken marshal named Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to hunt down her father's killer (Josh Brolin), a wastrel who has hooked up with a thieving gang led by Lucky Ned (Barry Pepper). Cogburn's joined in his search by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, Matt Damon in the role Glen Campbell played in the original.

In adapting (maybe "re-adapting: is a better word) Charles Portis' 1968 novel for the screen, the Coens create an odd mixture of authenticity and exaggeration that's evident in the nooks and crannies of nearly every face in the movie. When the characters speak it's as if their florid declamations offer compensation for the lonely stretches of country captured in muted colors by cinematographer Roger Deakins.

Speaking in a voice that sounds as if it's being filtered through gravel, Bridges freshens the portrayal of one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, who -- in an iconic image created by Hathaway and repeated with slight revision by the Coens -- rides into a gunfight with his horse's reins stuck between his teeth.

Bridges emphasizes Cogburn's matter-of-fact approach to killing, an activity the movie regards with casual ease, perhaps because it's rooted in an environment where justice sometimes takes on an improvisational flavor. Cogburn's bouts of drunken sloth are interrupted by occasional forays into law enforcement. He's serious when he needs to be.

The language in the Coens' script exudes the kind of self-consciousness that demands to be noticed. That works in strange and not always beneficial ways: It makes the movie enjoyable even as it distances us from the characters and turns them into bizarre curiosities.

"Goodbye, Reuben, the love of decency does not abide in you."

So says Rooster, when disclosing his ex-wife's parting words to him.

In an oddly random aside, Cogburn offers this gem: "I'd give $3 right now for a pickled buffalo tongue."

Once he gets going, Rooster tends to rattle on in ways that almost qualify as annoying. Steinfeld's portrayal of a determined teen-ager serves as a counterweight to Rooster's rambling. She's as direct as a dart in a bull's-eye, and will not be deterred from a mission she regards as righteously just.

Because True Grit might be one of the least typical Coen brothers' movies yet, it's tempting to think that if you didn't know the movie was made by the team that brought us No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Miller's Crossing and more, you might not guess that the brothers were involved.

Still, you can feel their presence in the movie's fascination with the oddly turned phrase, in the austerity of its look, and in the way its characters tend to accept eccentricity as commonplace. Case in point: Ed Corbin's Bear Man. I'll say no more lest I ruin a sight that should be discovered in a theater.

I admired and enjoyed True Grit, but a slight, nagging doubt kept pulling at the coattails of my appreciation. Exactly why did the Coens want to remake a movie like this? Even in improved form, True Grit probably didn't need revisiting, but maybe that adds something, as well - a noble sense of futilely pursued goals that might have roused even Rooster from one of his legendary stupors.

Get the 'Fockers' out of here

It's difficult to imagine anyone approaching Little Fockers with anything but the lowest expectations. This latest edition to the series that kicked off in 2000 with Meet the Parents meets those low expectations -- and then some. * Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro reprise their roles as antagonistic in-laws in a story that begins when De Niro and Blythe Danner (as the Byrneses) visit their twin grandchildren for a fifth birthday celebration. * Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand (as the parents of Stiller's character) turn up to repeat old jokes; so does Owen Wilson, who plays one of Polo's former suitors. * Jessica Alba signs on as a flirtatious drug rep who asks Stiller's Greg to help sell Sustengo, a Viagra-like drug that leads to the expected (and predictably lame) joke about a long-lasting erection. * Harvey Keitel, who long ago starred with De Niro in Mean Streets, has a cameo role as a contractor who's working on a house that the Fockers are renovating. His presence serves only to remind us that just about everyone involved with this Focking mess might have made better use of their talents. * Whether little or big, the Fockers have worn out their welcome.

'TRON: Legacy:' a mixed second helping

28 years after the original, Disney's back with a sequel to Tron. Wish I could say that TRON:Legacy was worth the wait.

TRON: Legacy offers a decidedly mixed inheritance as far as sequels go, demonstrating once again that visual pyrotechnics can’t entirely substitute for an involving story. As if we needed reminding.

I say this as one who had been looking forward to TRON: Legacy, mostly because of undeniable advances in computer-generated imagery, technology that was in its infancy when TRON – regarded as a technical groundbreaker -- first hit the nation’s screens in 1982.

For the first 30 or so minutes, I felt as if my anticipation had been rewarded. Director Joseph Kosinski, who has made a major splash in the advertising world, tops the digital environment of the original, particularly for those who see the movie in IMAX 3-D.

But Legacy’s intricately imagined visual world eventually falls prey to the truth of a cliché: Familiarity breeds a bit of contempt as Kosinski’s color palette – heavy on blacks with orange piping -- succumbs to monotony. The world of TRON, which must have been intended to evoke a bedazzled succession of “wows,” begins to resemble the inside of a giant toaster oven, coils aglow.

The screenplay for TRON: Legacy hosts a mash-up of familiar themes: the search for an absent father, the desire of artificially created creatures to enter the real world and the guilt of a genius creator who hasn’t anticipated all the consequences of his well-intended invention.

A story recap seems almost superfluous in a movie that invests most of its capital in action and visual effects. Suffice it to say that young Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) enters the world of Tron to search for the father (Jeff Bridges) who vanished when Sam was still a boy. Once inside this digital world, Sam faces a series of stern tests as he tries to return to “reality” through a fast-closing portal.

Sam’s attempts to exit from The Grid, as its inhabitants refer to the expansive, artificial world, brings him into conflict with Clu, a digitally created tyrant who looks like a younger version of Bridges’ character. Why not? Bridges’ Kevin Flynn created Clu, who has turned into his evil alter ego.

Sam’s assisted in his struggle by Quorra (Olivia Wilde), a digital creation with a pageboy haircut, a sleek punk look and a fashionably pallid complexion. Quorra holds the key to both mankind’s advancement and to fan boy libidos.

At one point, Michael Sheen shows up as a Grid resident with vaudevillian flare and a haircut that makes him look like a cut-rate David Bowie. He carries a cane, and prances about like someone who’s hell bent on providing arch comic relief. But to what purpose?

Like lots of other things in Disney’s somewhat juvenile helping of sci-fi, Sheen’s Zeus seems more adornment than anything else.

Kosinski does some of his best work when re-imagining the Light Cycles that became familiar in the first installment, and he deserves credit for creating a sense of dark spaciousness within the world of The Grid. But as Legacy wears on, its imagery seems to disconnect from the story, turning into more stuff to stare at, either approvingly or with disinterest depending on one's bent.

Those who go along for the Legacy ride probably won’t care that the movie boasts some of the worst dialog of the year, so lame that even Bridges (who’s likely to earn a best-actor nomination for his work in the upcoming True Grit) is forced to deadpan his way through nearly every scene. His character tries to ignite the occasional countercultural spark, but the lingo seems more dated than funny.

I wonder. Is it possible that the whole idea of TRON – penetrating a digital world – is passé? These days, such a premise seems less like sci-fi than a description of the average teen-ager’s life.

TRON: Legacy may appeal to fans of the original, as well as to those for whom visual kicks are sufficient reason to see a movie. I might have been able to join the latter group had Kosinksi done more to mix his visual pitches instead of tending toward repetition.

Like Bridge’s character, I began to feel trapped in a digital world. I don’t know how you’ll feel, but somewhere around the half way mark I started wondering where I might find the nearest exit portal.

A comic gurgle from James L. Brooks

This one's pretty much inert from from the jump.

It's difficult to watch How Do You Know, the latest comic effort from director James L. Brooks, without thinking about the ways in which the mighty have fallen. Brooks, who hails from the world of television, made major big-screen marks in the '80s with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News. He hasn't done much since -- and what he has done hasn't been terrific. (Brooks enjoyed a mild success in 1997 with As Good As It Gets, but faltered with Spanglish in 2004.) This time, Brooks tells the story of a female jock (Reese Witherspoon) who starts an affair with a professional baseball player (Owen Wilson) after she fails to make the U.S. Olympic softball team. A love triangle takes shape when Witherspoon's Lisa meets a troubled executive (Paul Rudd) who's on the verge of being indicted for ill-defined shenanigans wrought by a company headed by his father (Jack Nicholson). Inert from its earliest scenes, How Do You Know never really finds its rhythm. An occasional line of amusing dialog falls from Brooks' script like a scrap toppling from a wobbly table, but there's not much else to commend How Do You Know. Witherspoon shows some spark; Wilson tries his best to breathe comic life into the role of an insensitive jock; and Rudd works at being likable. Nicholson? For once, there's hardly anything to say. More predictable than punchy, How Do You Know looks to do a fast fade during a holiday season with bigger and better attractions.

Supporting actors give 'Fighter' its punch

The Fighter may not be a boxing classic, but it's got loads of spit-in-your-eye spirit.

The Fighter may be the first boxing movie in which the women look as if they could out-punch the men. The true-life story of welterweight Micky Ward introduces us to two of the year’s toughest big-screen women, Ward’s mom (a brilliant Melissa Leo) and his girlfriend (an unexpectedly gritty Amy Adams).

As directed by David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings), the setting of The Fighter – Lowell, Mass. – proves as important as the movie’s characters. A breeding ground for toughness, blue-collar Lowell comes off as the sort of place where the weak easily can be eaten alive and the streets are a place to strut.

Mark Wahlberg, who also served as one of the movie’s producers, plays Micky, an aspiring welterweight who’s managed by his mom and trained by his brother Dicky (Christian Bale). In the movie’s least showy performance (OK, it's a little dull), Wahlberg makes Micky a bit of a cipher, a guy on whom others easily can project their hopes and ambitions.

Bale’s Dicky Edlund (he’s a half brother to Micky) is among those invested in Micky’s career. Dicky, who has fallen into reprobate territory by the time the movie opens, was a talented young boxer whose claim to flame centered on the fact that he once knocked Sugar Ray Leonard on his butt. Dicky went on to lose the fight, but he had his moment of glory.

Formerly known as “The Pride of Lowell,” Dicky’s now a nerve-jangled crack addict with rotting teeth, a thick accent, a backward baseball cap and a body that seems to be on a collision course with itself. Bale somehow masters the art of moving in several different directions simultaneously. Dicky tends to speak with his body before any words come out. Speech almost seems an afterthought.

Early on, we learn that HBO is making a documentary about Dicky. Poor deluded Dicky thinks the movie will focus on a potential comeback: HBO has a different idea; i.e., a documentary about crack addiction.

In outline, The Fighter tells a classic story about an unlikely kid who fights his way toward a championship bout. But the real pleasures of the movie lie outside the ring as Micky’s family – which includes chorus of seven vocal sisters – horns in on the action, sometimes in ways that threaten to put Micky in a stranglehold.

When Micky hooks up with Charlene (Adams), he finds a new kind of support, someone who’s interested only in him and not the welfare of his family. Charlene gives Micky the courage to strike out on his own, shedding his mom as a manager and finding someone other than his brother to train him. After retreating to a construction job, Micky decides to give boxing one more try.

Micky’s bid for independence puts Charlene into direct conflict with Leo’s mother, a woman with the kind of blonde hair that looks as if it's been sculpted rather than combed. Leo’s Alice is a belligerent old bird who’s not afraid to throw her weight around. She indulges Dicky in the way parents sometimes treat a lovable but troubled kid. Micky, who never causes problems, tends to get short shrift.

Russell handles the fight scenes in ways that highlight Micky’s approach, which involves a style that’s stronger on guts than skill. Micky tends to take brutal beatings while waiting for the other guy to punch himself out. He then moves in for the kill. Micky’s punching mantra: “Head, body. Head, body.”

The best boxing movies have the kind of social and thematic reach that eludes The Fighter, which is content to slug it out on a fairly realistic plane. If I had a complaint about the movie it involves the way Russell treats Micky and his family as a source of sustained low-life comedy, sharply drawn caricatures that inhabit a shot-with-a-beer-back world where boxing is pronounced “bawx-ing.”

But the performances – Adams, Leo and Bale all probably will earn Oscar nominations – are too lively to be pinned to the wall of stereotype, and the movie has a spit-in-your-eye spirit that I liked.

The Fighter is less about one man’s redemption (either in or out of the ring) than about the hardscrabble attitudes that are necessary for survival in a scrappy, disorganized family.

In a limo on the way back from a losing fight, Micky’s mother asks him a pointed question, “What are you gonna do without your family?”

For Micky, it’s the question of a lifetime. To the movie’s and to Micky’s credit, he works hard trying to answer it.