Personally I'm of the opinion that for a paper to best perform its function, it really needs to stand alone.

Spotlight

(2015)

The two Best Picture Oscar contenders focussing on recent real world scandals take approaches that couldn’t be more different, yet both are appropriate to their respective material. Adam McKay musters interest in the inaccessible background to the subprime crisis (and from thence the decade-long downer of global economic meltdown and its aftermath) through a poppy, absurdist spin. Tom McCarthy treats Spotlight with contrastingly sombre sobriety, refraining even from the subdued thriller mechanics that informed the reportage genre’s greatest avatar, All the President’s Men. Occasionally, his picture allows the tensions involved in getting the story to press intrude, but mostly, and rightly, McCarthy is intent on just telling it as it is, with no frills or pirouettes.

Both The Big Short and Spotlight have a similar idea at their core, though, a “Who knew?” that informs the outrage. If The Big Short promotes the view that only its motley band of anti-heroes had the insight to see the extent of the damage poised to rain down on the financial system, Spotlight is unequivocal about those responsible for brushing the Boston Roman Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal under the carpet; everyone is. Even The Boston Globe, the newspaper that eventually breaks the story, is complicit in leaving stones unturned. As Stanley Tucci’s crusading attorney Mitchell Garabedian tells Mark Ruffalo’s eager reporter Michael Rezendes, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one”.

Garabedian, of Armenian extraction, suggests his lack of Boston Irish credentials lends him the freedom to rock the boat, unimpinged by the instinct to rally around the status quo, or take at face value assurances of one bad apple. Likewise, Liev Schrieber’s Marty Baron, the new editor of the Globe and its first Jewish incumbent, has no preconceptions about pursuing an already covered story, at which his team initially blanche (but in which the energetic Rezendes is eager to sniff around).

Investigative journalism is naturally cinematic, if often narratively dense, and, while Spotlight may lack the paranoid claustrophobia of Alan J Pakula’s aforementioned President’s Men, or the visual panache of Michael Mann’s The Insider, it’s every bit as commanding and diligent in telling its story. From the realisation that these predatory priests (shown ruthlessly seeking out the most vulnerable and afflicted) are just circulated to another parish when their sins are found out, to tracking down suspects through the Church’s absentee codes, a system that perpetuates, even effectively encourages, abuse is revealed.

Tom McCarthy, being an actor (he played a journalist in the final season of The Wire), is an actor’s director, and, as with earlier successes The Station Agent and The Visitor, all eyes are on them, what they are doing and saying. He has assembled an outstanding ensemble, with the Spotlight team (the Globe’s dedicated investigative unit) headed up by Michael Keaton’s Walter “Robby” Robinson and also comprising Ruffalo (occasionally Rezendes is prodded for melodramatic moments that seem a little at odds with the overall tone, such as his silent rumination in the church foyer and grandstanding demand that the story be published forthwith), Brian d’Arcy James and Rachel McAdams (her Sacha Pfeiffer doesn’t really stand out in any way, though, making the Oscar nomination slightly surprising).

John Slattery brings the wiry intelligence he displayed in Mad Men to Assistant Managing Editor Ben Bradlee Jr (son of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee Sr, immortalised in President’s Men by Jason Robards), while Schreiber, currently playing a Bostonian in Ray Donovan, is a particular standout, lending Baron quiet assuredness and determination. Tucci knows a great character part when he sees one, as does (uncredited) Billy Crudup, personifying the other side of the legal coin with reptilian warmth; his attorney is responsible for settling many of the church’s cases (out of court). Unknown actors playing the abuse victims are also highly accomplished, including Neal Huff and Michael Cyril Creighton.

McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer ensure we’re apprised of the levels of collusion in this, from the police, to the legal world, and the schools (although, the political spectrum doesn’t really intrude). Keaton’s Robinson must guiltily admit to his own effective burying of the bigger story eight years earlier, but his deeper motivations on this are left for the viewer to discern. It is easy to comprehend the creeping defensiveness in action, the allowing of unconscionable situations to continue unchecked under one’s nose, lest it shatter the foundation of one’s reality (one mother is cited whose seven children have been abused). The tangle of conspiratorial legality and omission that prevents the journalists from accessing what ought to be public documents is eventually unravelled by further legal nouse, but even then there are further obstacles before the material is finally accessed.

Singer said the object of Spotlight was chiefly to emphasise the value of good journalism, rather than operate as an exposé of the Catholic Church, which certainly comes over in its telling from the investigators perspective. But the incendiary nature of the actual case is intrinsic to why Spotlight is effective, with the end credits providing a long list of the various places and countries where scandals have been brought to light, the implication being that this was a game-changer in recognising the issue (for which the Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service). However, it does lead one to question what has really changed in the intervening time; the essential story is now so pervasive that the words paedophile and priest are virtually synonymous in the public’s mind, yet the edifice of the Roman Catholic Church has not crumbled. Richard Jenkins’ unseen psycho-therapist estimates that 6% of priests are abusers, so perhaps the devoted flock merely continue to rationalise that it’s not happening in their particular backyard.

In the UK, the attention has mostly been focussed on celebrity paedophiles over the past few years, but it hasn’t stop the supposed bastion of illumination that is the media from shutting the conversation down when really dangerous ground is encroached upon (Tom Watson daring to suggest Edward Heath might have been up to no good; even Private Eye got in on righteously lambasting Watson, indicating its establishment-pricking veneer extends only so far); a few sacrificial celebs and dead MPs are fine, just as long as they don’t lead really high up the pole. The result is the further erosion of already long-since undercut faith in the media (what place investigative journalism in a world where most papers, owned by powerful corporations, cobble reports together from other news outlets and spend their greater energies on fatuous comment pieces?) and the increasing scouring of the Internet for the truth (be if legitimately-sourced or scuttlebutt).

Spotlight may be a little too restrained, too conscientious, too balanced, to take Oscar glory from flashier competitors (it was my tip for the top last month), and it’s certainly no surprise it missed out on a nomination for Best Score (Howard Shore’s drippy piano is a tad too reverential for my tastes). It might be appropriate to honour it now, though, before a movie with investigative journalism at its core needs to be set several decades in the past (rather than just the one) to be remotely plausible.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Do you know that the leading cause of death for beavers is falling trees?

The Interpreter (2005) Sydney Pollack’s final film returns to the conspiracy genre that served him well in both the 1970s ( Three Days of the Condor ) and the 1990s ( The Firm ). It also marks a return to Africa, but in a decidedly less romantic fashion than his 1985 Oscar winner. Unfortunately the result is a tepid, clichéd affair in which only the technical flourishes of its director have any merit. The film’s main claim to fame is that Universal received permission to film inside the United Nations headquarters. Accordingly, Pollack is predictably unquestioning in its admiration and respect for the organisation. It is no doubt also the reason that liberal crusader Sean Penn attached himself to what is otherwise a highly generic and non-Penn type of role. When it comes down to it, the argument rehearsed here of diplomacy over violent resolution is as banal as they come. That the UN is infallible moral arbiter of this process is never in any doubt. The cynicism

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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