12 Years a Slave (2013)

I feel like writing about the Best Picture nominees (that I've seen).

I don't think this movie could have been made by an American.

Or, I should say, I don't think this movie could have been properly made by an American.

It's an odd thing to say since I'm no big fan of Steve McQueen. His movies have left me cold in the past. There's a distance between creator and subject that prevents the audience from really feeling.

There's some of that here, too, and I worried early on as I watched the steamboat paddle-wheel spin (amidst some nagging The Master flashbacks) that this movie would be part and parcel with the rest. It's not. And while that's in large part due to Chiwetel Ejiofor, it's also down to Steve McQueen.

I almost can't believe I'm writing this, but . . . his subtlety and restraint do wonders here. An American director would revel in the viscera of every beating. He would flash chyrons on the screen with the passage of every year to make you feel the weight of them like bricks. He'd rub your nose in blood to make sure you really get how horrible slavery was.

McQueen, on the other hand, accomplishes the same task in a far more lyrical, ephemeral, and unsettling way. Years melt away without any understanding of where in the 12 you might be. It's made clear that Solomon is whipped daily under Epps (Michael Fassbender) for failing to pick the quota of 200 pounds of cotton, but you never see it up close. It's far off in a field, and you watch the other slaves react. You watch their lack of reaction.

Somehow, somehow, McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley and Ejifor turn it all around to make the movie not about the physical brutality of slavery but the heavy psychological cost. Benedict Cumberbatch does lovely work as a preacher whose heart rends at the thought of separating mother from child but still who prioritizes his pocketbook over the pricking of his conscience when Solomon reaches out. Solomon says over and over that he will not give into despair, and you watch him struggle to carry not only his own compassion but also to carry it for everyone else around him. They've given up trying, letting him stretch on a noose with his toes sliding in the mud for hours and hours.

The picture I chose comes from a scene that illustrates so exactly what I am talking about that it almost feels like a cheat to bring it up. You spend the entire time plastered to the back of your seat, breath caught in your chest, and just when it feels like the moment is finally going to let up, the camera pulls back to punch you in the gut. No American would have been able to go in for that shot without giving the game away first. No one but Steve McQueen could have pulled it off, I suspect.

A note about the viscera: if you're sensitive about that sort of thing, I don't want you to read what I wrote and think, "Oh, it's fine. I can handle that." There is viscera. When it comes, they really make it count.

But also, don't give up on this movie based on what you can handle. It's worth the weight.

Man of Steel (2013)

© Warner Bros Pictures

Word's out that I have some misgivings about the latest filmic Superman. So, before I get to those, let's hit on a couple of things I did like.

1. This movie is gorgeous. The moving, molten lead, art deco background that Jor El (Russell Crowe) conjures up to illustrate the history of Krypton is the most beautiful thing I have seen on screen this year.

2. I am in love with this score. I'm probably predisposed to like anything that leans on brass and electric guitar instead of just sawing away on violins (and I've been grooving on Hans Zimmer for as long as I've noticed scores), but it has that Beethoven's 5th quality that you want to go with a Superman movie: big percussive movements of isolation woven with a sense of hope.

3. Amy Adams could not be more splendidly suited to the role of Lois Lane. All her natural flinty perkiness is on full force, making her Lois whip-smart, capable, and compassionate. She didn't even have to dye her hair.

My problem, of course, is the biggest problem possible in a movie like this. It's the Man of Steel himself.

Man of Steel features Clark Kent at his most beatific and Superman at his most saintly. And that's a huge mistake.

Superman has always been and will always be a character that people struggle to write and interpret because he's forever on the cusp of being utterly boring. He's an angelic Boy Scout. He's always striving to do the right thing, and he generally succeeds because he's invincible. It makes him difficult to do correctly because why would you want to hang out with a guy like that for very long?

The answer isn't to gritty him up like this movie does with its near-midnight suit and burgundy cape. It's to find the tension that exists naturally within the character. It's to always ask which is the alter ego and which is the real self.

When Clark is 13, his father (Kevin Costner, perfection as a humble farmer with deep misgivings about his fellow man) tells him about how they found a baby in a field all those years ago. Clark wonders if he should reveal who he really is to the world, and, while Jonathan tells him that that his own decision to make, Clark at least owes it to himself (and the world) to figure out what his story is.

And what does Clark do with that information? Apparently nothing for 20 years. When we meet him, he's a 33 year-old with an assumed name and a job as a fisherman off the coast of Nova Scotia. He doesn't do anything to figure himself out until the exact information he needs falls into his lap.

And when he gets it . . . boy, when he gets it. A somnambulant hologram of a ghost appears and says, "Hey, I'm your father. Now put on my underoos and fly around because I sent you here to save the world." Who just accepts that at face value? He's never even flown before!

Not that any of this is a knock against Henry Cavill. He looks every inch the part. The Cavill is on full display (though there are, perhaps, some soy-induced issues up top), and I admit to swooning a little when that luscious chest hair peeked out of the top of the suit. And the movie had no less than three (3!) opportunities for him and his wolfish incisors to bellow "NOOOOOO" heavenward.

He's also, unfortunately, oddly sexless. When Supes and Lois started macking, I thought, "Oh, is he into her?"

I genuinely don't believe that Cavill got either the script or directorial support he needed to do anything other than exactly what he did. How can I be so certain? Because he showed more wit and spark in those final two scenes than he did for the length of the movie. If nothing else, I think Cavill knows who this character is that he's building.

Christian corner: Superman is often used as either a modern day Moses or Jesus, and this movie beats the Jesus drum hard. When Clark is considering turning himself over to Zod, he's literally framed by a stained glass window of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. (I groaned aloud at that one). It doesn't make sense, though, because Jesus practiced what he preached: non-violence, even in the face of certain and terrifying death. Moses, on the other hand, was a a war-time hero. He offered people the hope that if they stuck it out through this dark and violent trial, they would find something better on the other side. As far as character allusions go, it's Moses all the way.

I also have problems with Zod, but those are character problems that go far further back with me than just this movie. I will say that that was nothing special from Michael Shannon. Remember when you told me that rock and roll was a bloodsport? I believed you.

The movie pays lip service to the idea that Superman is a beacon of hope. If they're smart, and they give Cavill the chance to show more of what he did in those last two scenes, then I'll have hope that this crew will do better next time.