Posts Tagged ‘Elisabeth Moss’

Metro Canada: Robert Redford as Dan Rather brings home Truth

Screen Shot 2015-10-29 at 8.39.34 AMBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Who do you get to play an icon? If you are James Vanderbilt, director of Truth, you hire another icon.

The story of 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes and legendary news anchor Dan Rather’s journalistic examination into President George W. Bush’s military service features Robert Redford as one of the most famous reporters of the twentieth century.

“The movie’s big buy is, ‘Are you going to see Redford all the way through or are you going to see Rather?’” says Vanderbilt. “Redford is a phenomenal actor but what he brings into a scene by just being present (is a) gravitational pull. The room turns toward him. Getting to know Dan, that’s what Dan Rather is like. When Dan Rather walks into a room, the same thing happens.

“Everybody turns into, in a good way, a teenager, because those are both voices who have been in your living room for 30 to 40 years. It’s a voice of God thing they both have and that’s why I really wanted Bob to do it.”

Vanderbilt says the legendary actor is “very easy going, the nicest guy you’ll ever meet,” but nonetheless made people on the set nervous.

“We had heads of departments who had been working in film for 30 years who couldn’t call him Bob. He would say, ‘Call me Bob,’ and they would say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that Mr. Redford. I’m very sorry that is not going to happen.’”

Vanderbilt is best known as a screenwriter, penning the scripts for The Amazing Spider-Man, Zodiac, White House Down and the upcoming Independence Day 2. His screenplay for Truth is based on Mapes’ memoir Truth and Duty and reveals a time before journalism was driven by ad sales and click-throughs.

“It was pre iPhone,” he says. “It was a year before the iPhone came out and that is such a big thing in terms of how we connect to one another now. How we relate to each other. Journalists and everybody. It felt like a fulcrum point, kind of where we had been, journalistically, and where we are now.”

His research into the story gave the director a new respect for journalists.

“I think it is a very noble profession but maybe I’m a very pie in the sky guy,” he says. “I think the more young people who grow up and go, ‘This is what I want to be. I want to ask questions of power,’ the better. I think we, as a society, are better that way.”

TRUTH: 3 STARS. “a murky investigation into an even murkier story.”

Made at a time when big stores are broken on Twitter truth set at a time when journalist did work the old-fashioned way, following paper trails and working the phones, “Truth” tells of murky investigation into an even murkier story.

Based on the nonfiction book “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power” by Mary Mapes, the film begins with Mapes (Cate Blanchett) having just broken the story of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Her hard-hitting approach made her a journalism superstar at CBS and “60 Minutes,” the show that ran the story. Gearing up for the next season meant finding an even bigger story. Mapes put together a crack team of investigators—the jaded but idealistic Mike Smith (Topher Grace), army insider Colonel Roger Charles (Dennis Quaid) and journalism professor Lucy Scott (Elisabeth Moss)—to examine President George W. Bush’s military service. The theory, supported by the so-called Killian documents, was that Bush had received preferential treatment to avoid fighting in the Vietnam War.

The seemingly airtight story falls apart the day after airing on “60 Minutes,” calling into question the reputation of CBS News, Mapes and her team and costing anchor and news legend Dan Rather (Robert Redford) his job.

For a movie that is all about bias, or the lack thereof, “Truth” is certainly in the corner of its journalists. The much ballyhooed fair and balanced approach is largely absent as the movie paints Mapes and Company as warrior journalists on a search for the truth while everyone else is painted with a big bad Republican brush.

As Mapes Blanchett plays a scapegoat, a mix of steely nerves and vulnerability, who will do what she thinks is right no matter what the consequences. In real life Mapes was fired and hasn’t worked in television news since even though her Abu Ghraib story won a Peabody Award.

Redford brings gravitas to the role of Rather, reeking of old school trust. Rather was a link to the past, to a time when journalism wasn’t driven by ad sales or click throughs. “Why did you get into journalism?” he’s asked. “Curiosity,” he says, “that’s everything.” He viewed asking the right questions and passing along the results, pro or con, to his audience as a trust. Times changed around him and Redford captures Rather’s resignation to the new world of news with equal measures of sadness and outrage.

“Trust” is a compelling story told with a heavy hand. A slow-motion shot of Mapes’s hand, holding a remote, and turning off the TV after Rather’s retirement announcement is a bit much and some clumsy foreshadowing— just before the troublesome “60 Minutes” story airs a commercial for “Survivor” screams, “Somebody’s going to get burned!”—adds unnecessary melodrama to what should have been an even-handed look at the inner workings of the fourth estate.

CYV NEWSCHANNEL: SPOILER ALERT! TALKING THE END OF “MAD MAN.”

Screen Shot 2015-05-18 at 12.29.24 PMDid Don Draper finally find happiness? Richard and Marcia MacMillan and Richard Berthelsen discuss on CTV’s NewsChannel.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

DARLING COMPANION: 2 STARS

The spirit of the Littlest Hobo is very much alive in “Darling Companion.” The homeless German Shepherd of the TV series (which was based on a 1958 movie of the same name) dropped into people’s lives for thirty minutes every Saturday morning, bringing with him goodwill and understanding.

Freeway, the homeless dog of “Darling Companion,” doesn’t get up to exactly the same tricks as the Littlest Hobo. He doesn’t help rescue a Prima Ballerina who wants to defect from her Iron Curtain captors or protect an elderly prospector from greedy land-grabbers, but by going on a wild adventure, he does bring one family closer together.

When we first meet Freeway he’s an abandoned dog on the side of the… you guessed it, freeway. In quick succession Beth (Diane Keaton) and daughter Grace (“Mad Men’s” Elisabeth Moss) rescue the mangy mutt, Grace falls for the dog’s vet and in the length of one musical montage, Beth adopts and falls in love with the dog. Tragedy strikes, however, when Beth’s egotistical surgeon husband Joseph (Kevin Kline), allows the dog to wander off.  Distraught, Beth searches for Freeway—along with family and friends—for three days. In those seventy-two hours they not only hunt for the dog but for meaning in their relationships.

Lawrence Kasdan wrote (with wife Meg) and directed “Darling Companion” and many of the trademarks of his best work are evident here–the ensemble cast à la “The Big Chill,” “The Accidental Tourist’s” distant lead male character—but what isn’t here is subtext. Kasdan’s other movies have been rich examinations of the inner workings of life.

On the surface “The Big Chill” was about a disparate group of friends who danced in the kitchen and attended their friend’s funeral, but underneath it all it really was about the renewal of hope in the character’s lives.

That’s the thing that made “The Big Chill” an enduring classic. “Darling Companion,” on the other hand is mostly about people looking for a dog. There are lots of nice moments during the search but it takes up virtually the entire movie and there simply isn’t enough going on to justify the running time. The plot contrivance of having an exotic psychic (Ayelet Zurer) as a spiritual guide for the search doesn’t help matters much.

Luckily the seasoned cast knows how to wring as much interest as possible out of the slight script. One of the film’s pleasures is watching Kline, Keaton, Richard Jenkins and Dianne Wiest glide through this material as if it was melted butter. They love, they laugh, they look (for the dog) all the while handing in performances better than the script deserves.

“Darling Companion” is a well-intentioned, gently paced movie about how people react in a crisis but could have used some more real drama. Where’s the Littlest Hobo when you really need him?