Captain Phillips (Hanks, Greengrass, The Open Sea)

Saw this last night. Greengrass playing to his strengths of action, empathy, and zero magic.

i am irrationally excited for this.

may see this at a matinee today

Haven't seen it yet, but I had so many friends who basically preemptively told the movie to fuck off, dismissing it as jingoporn. Which hell maybe it is, but I explained that would be very out of character for Greengrass, who even managed to make a 9/11 movie that avoided hyper nationalistic rah rah.

Its jingoism is mainly limited to how it demonstrates that, in a match between two parties who are in their own personal capacities basically powerless, the one who is backed by the country with the bigger guns wins.

Hanks at a few points actually says, "You don't win."

i posted this on the other thread for this movie, but it's an interesting interview about a documentary that counters this narrative:

http://africasacountry.com/tom-hanks-captain-phillips-and-the-true-story-of-somali-piracy/

Matusumunyane’s film, “The Smiling Pirate,” poses a direct challenge to the problematic representation of the Somali Pirates in the film Captain Phillips and aims to do something Hollywood has thus far been afraid to do: give a Muse and others in Somalia a genuine voice to tell their side of the story.

a good idea for sure, but there was surely no way in hell to give that voice to the pirates in a 2 hour film that was serving as a 'based on a true story' reenactment of one specific event? idk maybe I'll feel diff after I see it

A hit, a most palpable hit!

I really liked this. they did a fairly good job of not portraying the Somalis as aimless animals (save for the one OTT pirate that was essentially acting as a Stupid Police Chief).

i liked how the way it played out was essentially that the pirates could have pulled it off throughout the movie and lost out on account of being abandoned by their bosses ('we've all got bosses' - 'enjoy your coffee') and being somewhat inexperienced / undisciplined while the alabama's indirect clout took them from being lamely near-defenseless (ruses, speed, hoses, hiding) to having a seal team flown halfway around the world to shoot three guys in the head.

thought there would be a bit more of a workers-vs-bosses thing than there was.

This was really great. Best non-documentary I've seen this year.

i really liked this, even knowing that the captain's story is possibly trumped-up bullshit.

in a way it reminded me thematically of contagion, in that it's about the institutions that some people can call on when things go wrong. the somalis don't have a multi billion dollar navy. which is why they are engaged in hijacking to begin with.

i liked it. it's not revelatory or anything but it felt 'right.' like the fact that the us navy is played as way scarier than any pirates. and thanks is real good once you get past the accent

i really liked greengrass's willingness to stick with two really long takes of hanks in shock (right after the 'successful' operation and in the medical bay of the ship) at the end.

to me, those two takes read like tom hanks accosting greengrass in the hallway and being like "paul. you're going to do the shot like i asked you to, right? you're gonna do it. i've been preparing all week for this shit paul. you saw me in castaway. c'mon."

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20131011/NEWS/310110011/Sailors-share-screen-Tom-Hanks-Captain-Phillips-

Hanks is a greater artist than Greengrass, so it's cool.

well i guess i don't know the interpersonal politics of the production. i liked the takes, however they came to exist.

haha i don't either, they just suspiciously felt like hanks preening for oscar voters

i think i might have liked this more if greengrass didn't try to shoehorn in the family stuff. i sort of groaned when i saw that his coffee mug is a cafepress screenprint job of the same family photo that was in front of his computer.

i mean, maybe it's greengrass who really wants the oscar. i dunno.

it didnt feel shoehorned in to me... a lesser movie would've diluted its focus with scenes Back Home, but we really just know that he has a family. it is weird that catherine keener's in the movie for 20 seconds

probably!

i was really dreading any cutaway shots of hanks' family anxiously waiting with, idk, federal agents or media hanging around. thankfully none of that.

cutaway to hanks' family partying in a vermont farmhouse w/ the somali village elders

hopefully hanks' accent will be a counterweight to the final two takes in the medbay and 'sink' or 'hijack' his oscar shot.

wait was keener the doctor at the end? by that point i was just assuming she was the voice on the other end of the navy ship captain's comm

she was his wife in the opening scene

when do Clooney and Wahlberg show up in their shrimp boat?

The Hanks scenes in the medbay were great

i really liked this, even knowing that the captain's story is possibly trumped-up bullshit.

― goole, Monday, October 21, 2013 11:57 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

weird situation of making a pseudo-super-realistic movie about the real cpt. phillip's inflated self-hagiography

i think i would admire greengrass more if he didn't heroicize tom hanks, really stuck to his guns of filming 'realistically' and had shown hanks quivering like jelly and pissing his pants when he has a gun pressed against his forehead. that would have been sweet

she was his wife in the opening scene

oh, i didn't get to my showing until the pirates were choosing teams

The phrase "Somali pirates" is problematic. While most embark from Puntland, pirates come from Yemen, Djibouti, Ethiopia, et al. too. They don't have an explicit nationalistic identity. The phrase was used to describe them by their common language, Somali, rather than their domicile. The phrase evokes proportionality.

However, the pirates crime (kidnapping and hijacking by RPGs and a Zodiac) and their punishment from NATO members and Arab states (execution by carrier strike group) is catastrophically disproportional. The film captured this. While the story demonstrates the gratification of employing overwhelming force, the crew is rescued, the imagery, a fleet of warships descending on the hijacked ship, is appropriately cynical.