Gung Ho

The straightforward practical approach distilling facts and unembellished know-how, freely shared at an international meeting delicately held to bring work back to town.

The people of Hadleyville, Pennsylvania, want to reopen the plant where they've built many automobiles, its jobs the driving force in the local economy, which heavily relies on their enriching abundance.

To make things work Japanese and American cultural preferences must coalesce, the management team promoting trusted principles that often lead to success in Japan.

They're much more intense than many are used to, the search for perfection ideally orchestrated, friction develops between workers and management as different work-life balances awkwardly clash.

I find the desire for perfection motivates many in North America, but if it isn't achieved the related penalties aren't quite as strict as presented in Gung Ho.

Fortunately, humour is appreciated and Hunt's (Michael Keaton) honest style intuitively builds bridges.

Desperately trying to hold his regenerated town together, he strives to bring mutually beneficial cultural accords to life.

Does the spirit of the 1980s still culturally flourish across the land, with individual critiques democratically striving to ensure multilateral communal parlay?

After having seen the documentary American Factory (2019) I'd say there's no doubt they're alive and well, a film that examines contemporary Chinese and American relations at a refurbished plant in nimble Moraine, Ohio. 

The two films go hand-in-hand and would fluidly make an instructive double-feature, as I mentioned in my Far & Away review, there was once a thriving impetus to keep things realistic (Gung Ho also directed by Ron Howard).

A more comprehensive investigation into how labour-relations have changed over the past 40 years, would indeed make a compelling read, and would in fact be fun to research.

Gung Ho's style of storytelling was quite prominent in my curious youth, a hard-working day complemented by study and time well-spent with friends and family.

Millions fought for centuries to bring the balanced state of affairs about.

Why is a healthy work-life balance controversial?

Co-starring George Wendt (Buster), Mimi Rogers (Audrey), John Turturro (Willie), Clint Howard (Paul), and Gedde Watanabe (Oishi Kazihiro).  

Far & Away

An industrious lad mourns the passing of his father only to have insult added to injury (Tom Cruise as Joseph Donnelly), as the landowner's bellicose representatives proceed to appropriate his property.

Unaccustomed to blunt disparity he takes the law into his own hands, and sets forth in perilous search of the oblivious aristocrat in question (Robert Prosky as Daniel Christie). 

Yet he's discovered asleep in the barn one scandalous inopportune strict morning, the estate owner's daughter having cleverly detected and proceeded to relieve him of his balance (Nicole Kidman as Shannon Christie). 

Nevertheless, he's soon challenged to duel where that very same lass comes uproariously rising, and leads him away in fact to a ship bound for North America.

The two make an awkward glib pairing as the fashionable lady must learn to work, while Joseph excels in the world of prize fighting and graciously teaches her how to make an honest living.

Pride diabolically emerges however and the honourable Donnelly soon loses his head.

Banned from ever boxing again within Boston.

They struggle to find food and shelter.

While watching Ron Howard's Far & Away I was reminded of realist ambitions, and the ways in which many artists in my youth delicately strove for historical accuracy.

Thus we see actual clothes being washed long before washing machines were invented, and near the end sundry wagons and horses vigorously line up to compete for Oklahoman land.

Class and privilege also haughtily fade as the levelling tides of prosperity mingle, the old world manifesting itself anew, while raw opportunity seeks its annulment. 

In terms of lending old and new world preponderances in a thrilling narrative equipped with romantic candour, Far & Away imaginatively and mischievously excels and makes me wonder why more hasn't been made of it.

Even before the Mission Impossible days Tom Cruise still cut his teeth as a prominent boxer, in conscientious drama wherein elfin which age old pluck and tenacity applauded.

Nicole Kidman also prospers as the stern maiden creatively and reflectively improvising, learning to follow her thoughtful instinct in a land much less prone to ancient pride.

Imagine Jane Austen was more of a rebel and took to the seas with Ernest Hemingway. 

Classic integral Ron Howard. 

Co-starring the daring Colm Meaney (Mr. Kelly).

Solo: A Star Wars Story

There's a lot to love about Solo: A Star Wars Story.

True love drives a cocky youth to make bold romantic decisions which aeronautically diversify his portfolio even if she's regrettably moved on.

A sassy droid (Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37) that takes Dot Matrix up a notch adds homely elfish character that ruggedly protests as it swiftly confides.

The quotidian nuances outlandish improvised decisions with real world grit that's intergalactically localized.

The dangers as well as the thrills of risking everything for a cut make wild endeavours seem appealing yet threatening inasmuch as improbability mortally beckons.

41/38 years later fans finally get to see Han (Alden Ehrenreich) meet Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) then Lando (Donald Glover).

It's co-starring Woody Harrelson (Beckett).

The kessel run is both defined and showcased.

Emilia Clarke impresses as Qi'ra.

And audacious reckoning munificently makes for a gripping spine-tingling finale.

Non-stop action, exuberant spirits, phenomenal fusions, surefire soul.

If only it had been a little less hokey.

A little more dreadful.

A lot more Chewbacca.

It's missing the bone-chilling malicious sense of resilient desperation that realistically held The Last Jedi, Rogue One, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, and The Wrath of Khan together.

The characters are desperate, and undeniably resilient, but the film's still so confidently assured that nothing could go wrong that I never truly felt worried or fearful or oppressed.

It's like Solo was written for young kids and the aged simultaneously, those who were around 20 when A New Hope was released now being around 61 years of age.

Thus there are myriad sequences that demand your full attention, but it's so formulaic that it seems like nothing could possibly go wrong.

I may have cut the opening 10-15 minutes.

Turned them into a series of flashbacks.

Han and Qi'ra's love story isn't even featured throughout the film.

It never feels like they'll eventually get together.

It doesn't matter that fans know they don't get together.

When it wasn't released at Christmas I figured something was up.

I still confuse Thandie Newton (Val) and Zoe Saldana.

Frost/Nixon

Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon closely follows the footsteps of Robert Altman's Secret Honor insofar as it presents a puzzlingly polite picture of the dastardly Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). Set up in a centrist style (whose mitigating factor is represented by the naive, dedicated and opportunistic David Frost [Michael Sheen]), Frost/Nixon chronicles a series of interviews conducted by Frost in the wake of Richard Nixon's unprecedented Presidential resignation. Sensationalized for sentiments sake, the right is represented by Nixon acolyte and Vietnam Vet Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) and the left by a solid team of researchers including James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell) and Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt). Shot linearly but intercut with reality t.v. style reflections upon the events as they unravel, the film kaleidoscopically presents a variety of passionately opposing viewpoints regarding commitment, exposition, desire, and dogma, all the way to an intoxicating interrogation of one Richard Nixon.

Each performer is given their chance to shine: Platt humoursly delivers an intricate Nixon impersonation, Rockwell zealously critiques Frost for not leveling the same degree of ideological rigour, Bacon demonstrates unyielding support for his mentor, and Sheen gesticulates and genuflects his way through several different frenetic facial expressions. But they're all left in Langella's domineering dust as he stoically commands his realization of the role. The performance is strong, potentially best actor strong (although the competition's stellar). While he generally steals each scene, at one point, after delivering a semi-commercial speech at a relatively unimportant function, he particularly lets go of his characteristic resolve and enthusiastically laments his post-Presidential predicament, thereby unleashing a substantial degree of split-second emotion that elevates his performance to another level.

There's a lot more to Frost/Nixon than an interview between a struggling talk show host and an ex-President. It complicates and coruscates the Nixon phenomenon in a wizened well-rounded manner, all the while demonstrating the cultural pressures competently pursuing each combatant. The subtly ambiguous ending supports its centrist technique as well inasmuch as Frost clearly wins, thereby saluting the left, but his victory is set up in a black or white either/or opposition, thereby clearly saluting the right. Does this ending represent Howard's elevation of clandestine contradictions and the ways in which they convolute any attempts to uniformly delineate a point of view, and, by doing so, does the ending, like Nixon's thoughts regarding the responsibilities of the President, situate the film beyond good and evil?

I really don't know.