Movie Review: "Welcome To Leith"

"Welcome To Leith": B-.  Every state has dots on the map which call themselves towns, but North Dakota has more than its share.  Leith, a one-horse, no stoplight village alone on the prairies of southwestern Nodak, is one of them.  The official 2010 census lists the population at sixteen, although at the time Welcome To Leith was filmed three years later, the townsfolk claimed "twenty-four, including children."  It was the twenty-fifth resident, Craig Cobb, who caused all the commotion, leading documentarians Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher Walker to begin their project.

People who live in towns like Leith are a fascinating lot.  They cherish their independence and value their privacy.  They do not rely on the government to support the hardscrabble way of life they have chosen.  They see and fully appreciate the stark beauty of the windswept land, with all the sights and sounds that nature provides.  Those things are trade-offs which they gladly accept at a cost of not being afforded the conveniences and amenities of city life.  Small towns on the plains have inhabitants who typically mind their own business, yet pitch in when a neighbor needs help.  One might say the residents are simultaneously tight-knit yet loose-knit vis-a-vis each other.

When the bespectacled Cobb quietly arrived in August 2013, he was noticed immediately.  Not that many strangers found their way into Leith, and Cobb's wild long gray hair, cane and long sleeve white shirt caused him to stand out.  Most of Leith's denizens took him for a laborer employed by the burgeoning Bakken Oil companies an hour away.  One woman's initial thought was to tip off her mother that she should check out the new guy as a potential romantic interest.  Little did they know that this lanky sixty-one year old man was a white supremacist with a plot to turn their little burg into a neo-Nazi haven.  Ironically, Cobb's plan was to accomplish all this legally.  When he made his first purchase of a ramshackle Leith house, his neighbors were unaware that said acquisition was merely the first step in his quest to move his fellow hate-filled sympathizers into home ownership there.  If he and his clan could get to the point where they'd constitute a majority in Leith, they would be able to pass laws favorable to their warped point of view, thus affording them the ability to operate with impunity.

The film does not explicitly connect the dots as to how the townsfolk uncovered Cobb's Aryan Nation plot.  Perhaps it was the arrival of offbeat characters like Kynan Dutton with Hitleresque mustaches, bald heads and rifles.  Maybe it was their women, who gave the appearance of having just arrived from a Sturgis bike rally.  Most probably, the biggest clue was the assortment of flags, each representing a "formerly all-white nation," displayed on Cobb's property.  The Leith people were smart enough to enlist the help of the Grant County Sheriff's office as soon as Cobb's scheme came to light.

From that point, Welcome To Leith chronicles the strategy employed by the townsfolk to keep Cobb and his cronies at bay.  The cameras take us into the homes of a couple of long-time Leith citizens.  We witness kitchen table interviews, town hall meetings and informal barroom conversations in nearby New Leipzig.  Nichols and Walker attempt to balance the footage by interviewing Cobb and a few skinheads, who are surprisingly willing to grant the filmmakers access. Cobb and company are not really given equal time in the film, but we get where they're coming from without the point being belabored.

The biggest hurdle for the people of the town matches the biggest problem with the film.  When the actions of Cobb and his followers are scrutinized from a legal perspective, it is hard to find any words or actions which are prohibited by law.  There is no law against flying a controversial flag, bearing an unchambered gun or spewing hate (unless it incites a riot).  Generally, the Constitution allows nincompoops to do their thing, as long as their behavior does not directly harm another.  No punches are thrown and no shots are fired.  No threats of physical harm are uttered, although Cobb does make the mistake of challenging a man to a fight.  Nothing is stolen or vandalized.  Cobb's mind is warped, but you have to give the devil his due; arguably he's smart enough to stay within the bounds of the law.  I wrote "arguably" because there is a point where Cobb is incarcerated -- a result of ineffective counsel, I'd guess -- but the film does a poor job of showing us why.  Perhaps the County Sheriff, who is not a lawyer, does not realize the weaknesses in the prosecution's case (he appears uncertain what to do), but the State's Attorney does.    

Welcome To Leith is fascinating, depressing and scary.  Fascinating for what it might be like to live in a tiny place forgotten by all but a handful of people.  Depressing to realize that, as is the case for all documentaries, these are real people, not actors, we are seeing.  The mindset of the neo-Nazis who invade Leith is so misguided that it's hard to believe they are Americans.  Scary, because we wonder what the future will bring for our country, a country which desperately needs unity, when there are radical thinkers living on the edge of society.  A powder keg ready to explode?

Movie Review: "Steve Jobs"

"Steve Jobs": B+.  Title character Steve Jobs, as played by superior actor Michael Fassbender, has to be the worst boss to appear on the silver screen since 2006 when Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly gnashed her teeth in The Devil Wears Prada.    In a telling dialogue between Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, and a former subordinate, Jobs states that "a musician plays his instrument, whereas a conductor plays the orchestra."  Jobs sees himself as the conductor of various almost inanimate fungible minions who, were it not for his cerebral majesty, would be making widgets in a factory.

In the opening "long take" Jobs derides senior engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) forty minutes before the 1984 product launch of the Macintosh computer because the engineer informs Jobs that it will be impossible to enable the Mac to say "Hello" for the demonstration.  The planned showcase will be attended by a few thousand industry insiders and media members.  Pointing out to Hertzfeld that he had three days to iron out the glitches, Jobs screams, "It only took six days to create the entire universe."

 

Hertzfeld's reply: "You'll have to tell us how you did it!"

 

In the same scene, Jobs is visited by a former girlfriend, Crisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), who alleges -- not for the first time -- that he is the father of Lisa, the darling five year old girl accompanying her.  Up to this point Jobs has vehemently denied his paternity, producing statistical data (the source of which is never explained) to support his claim that 28% of the US male population could possibly be the father.  When Brennan informs him that she is now on welfare without a place to live, Jobs turns a cold shoulder.  He eventually agrees to buy her a house, but he makes sure she cries and demeans herself first.

 

Jobs is heartless and relentless, to go along with his other dubious qualities of being bombastic and narcissistic.  On more than one occasion, including the Mac product launch, he refuses the entreaties of fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) to give brief recognition to the contributions of the team that had helped make the Apple II a success.  Wozniak points out, correctly, that it was the Apple II product which paid the bills of the company over a period of seven years during which Jobs was experimenting with newer state-of-the-art designs, some of which failed.  The ungrateful Jobs offhandedly dismisses such a notion, patronizing Wozniak with the rationale that Apple II is now ancient history and would be out-of-place in a marketing campaign trumpeting Apple's future.

 

Other than Lisa, for whom Jobs slowly develops acceptance, Apple executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) is the only person Jobs treats decently more often than not.  She is with him on-screen during most of his rants, fully aware of his typically abhorrent behavior.  Still, she puts up with him, describing herself as his "office wife" for better or worse.  Her thick skin sustains her.  To the extent Jobs remains grounded, thanks go to Hoffman.  If she walked out the door, Jobs would act even more erratically.

 

Winslet is superb as Jobs' confidant, aware of her bounds but unafraid to call out Jobs to his face when he deserves to be (which is often).  Rogen, known mainly as a comedic actor and writer, is solid as the unappreciated Wozniak.  Versatile actor Jeff Daniels, who has taken on roles running the gamut from comedy to high drama, is perfect as John Sculley, the CEO of Apple who over the years seemed to have a love/hate relationship with Jobs.  Fassbender meets the challenge of playing the larger-than-life leading man.  He commands each scene.  We wonder, how could such an unstable volcanic personality like Jobs be a multi-billionaire running an enormously complex business?  If the real Steve Jobs' presence was similar to actor Fassbenders', by virtue of watching the film we get it.  Incidentally, the resemblance between Fassbender and Jobs in his middle-age is striking.

 

A better familiarity with Apple's history and computer gizmos in general would have been beneficial to me as far as supplying context to the unfolding story.  The more you know going in, the better the chances of reaping the most value from watching the movie.  But even without much background, one can still appreciate witnessing the destruction and sporadic rebuilding of the human relationships between Jobs and the people in his life.

Movie Review: "Bridge Of Spies"

"Bridge Of Spies": A-.  As the title indicates, Steven Spielberg's newest heavily promoted film, Bridge Of Spies, is billed as an espionage thriller.  There is also a healthy dose of legal drama, as Tom Hanks plays an insurance attorney in a high brow Brooklyn law firm which is asked by the US Department Of Justice to defend a suspected Soviet spy.  At its core, however, the movie is more a study of negotiating gymnastics between Hanks and two of America's Cold War enemies, the Russians and the East Germans.  A subtitle for the film might read, "Negotiating 101."  The primary lesson: If you are able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your rival, what's really important to them and what is merely window dressing, and what deadlines are in play, you will be advantageously situated at the bargaining table.

Hanks' character, Tom Donovan, is a named partner in the mid-size firm headed by Alan Alda's character, Thomas Watters.  The client is Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance), an older man who keeps busy painting in between his spying assignments.  We know from the outset that Abel is guilty because we observe him covertly removing secret messages hidden underneath a New York City park bench.  When the FBI descends on his apartment, he manages to destroy incriminating evidence right under their noses as the feds are tearing apart the furnishings looking for hidden files, wires, micro-cameras, listening devices and other tools of the trade which a spy might possess.

Although Donovan is initially reluctant to take the case, once he does sign on he devotes relentless energy to the task.  The jailhouse scenes in which Donovan and Abel feel each other out and eventually establish a rapport are brilliantly written and acted.  Notwithstanding the fact that he is being charged with what could become a capital crime, Abel seems disinterested.  But, the wheels are ever-turning in his mind.  When Donovan insists on impressing upon him the severity of the government's criminal charges, Abel's reply is, "If I worried would that help?"

Meanwhile, there are two other cases of alleged spying taking place which will impact Donovan's handling of Abel's predicament.  First and most famously, US airman Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down over Russia while flying a U-2 spy plane.  The Russians gleefully show the world that they are the victims of American aggression, as they parade the captured Powers in front of their news cameras and show his downed plane with a multitude of high-powered lenses attached to its wings.  The U-2 spy plane incident is arguably the most famous propaganda event in the history of the Cold War.  Secondly and much more under the radar, an American college student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), has the bad luck of being caught on the East Berlin side of the city visiting his girl friend just as the final blocks of the Berlin Wall are being set into place.  When he makes a futile attempt to return to his West Berlin quarters, the Stassi arrest him as a spy.

 

Legally, Donovan faces an uphill struggle defending Abel.  The US district court judge is clearly biased against the defendant, and even Watters and the firm's other partners turn against Donovan when he decides to appeal the guilty verdict everyone knew was coming.  Donovan, with his picture splattered all over the New York papers, is given the evil eye by his fellow subway riders on his way to and from work.  How could a patriotic American defend a Russian spy?  The subway scene, with a clever ironic twist, is reprised at the movie's conclusion. 

 

Bridge Of Spies' two best attributes are the exceptional story-telling combination of director Spielberg with co-writers Matt Charman and the Coen brothers (Ethan and Joel), plus the performances by the two leading actors, Hanks and especially Rylance.  Rylance, whom the website IMDb labels as being "widely regarded as the greatest stage actor of his generation," has the uncanny ability to make us, the movie audience, root for his character as he and Donovan encounter a corrupt court system and public scorn.  The dynamic in the relationship between Donovan and Abel, first arm's length attorney-client but eventually one of mutual respect if not friendship, is convincing and key to the plot development.  Also of note are the scenes showing the selection and training of the men, including Powers, who would pilot the American spy planes.  Their instructions in the event of anti-aircraft explosions were twofold: don't let the Ruskies get their hands on the plane, and bite the "poison pill" if you are about to be captured behind enemy lines.

 

The film's weaknesses pertain to its shortcomings as a courtroom drama and a spy thriller; it is neither.  (Granted, it's possible that was not the movie-makers' intention, but then why advertise it as such?)  The trial scenes contain no sharp cross-examination, no strong opening or closing statements, and no surprise witnesses, all staples of the genre.  The ex-parte visit by Donovan to the judge's home is simply laughable, and surely not written by anyone who checked with legal counsel for accuracy.  Likewise, as a spy yarn there is no threat of imminent death for Powers the prisoner, and his captors take it relatively easy on him.  The story is more about Donovan's negotiating ploys.  He is a master at assessing the ever-changing political landscape, and not settling for anything less than the best possible outcome.  If you enjoy the art of deal-making, you will walk out of the theater quite satisfied.