"Gaslit" TV Series (2022 STARZ Production) starring Sean Penn, Julia Roberts, Dan Stevens, Betty Gilpin, Shea Whigham, Alison Tolman, Chris Messina and more - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

"...The Year Of The Rat..." 

 

GASLIT TV Series 

 

Brilliant, Funny and Crammed with Emmy Winners

 

I've been glued to all eight episodes of the TV Show "Gaslit" and I love it - easily the best thing on telly that is inexplicably not getting the serious crave-rave credits it so richly deserves.

 

Whatever you may have thought of Julia Roberts as an actress before this (token Glamourpuss in the Ocean movies) - she is Emmy brilliant in "Gaslit" as the boozed-up/pilled-popping addicted-to-the-spotlight Martha Mitchell - the Republican wife-stroke-motormouth who sent Nixon's administration into near meltdown during the Watergate break-in scandals of 1972 and 1973 and the Commander-In-Chief's impending impeachment in 1974 - the first sitting President to be disgraced as such.

 

Returned with a historical landslide electoral victory in 1972, Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon (nicknamed Tricky Dicky) was riding high despite the calamitous Vietnam War. But after his trashing at the hands of a young and handsome JFK in the early Sixties - his deeply rooted paranoia towards failure meant his win would be very short-lived (he didn't need to do any of it but simply couldn't help himself). So despite genuine political achievements in China and elsewhere, Richard N is now forever remembered as that trickster in the late Seventies Frost/Nixon interviews - a liar hustling for public redemption via TV and crocodile tears (you never actually get to see any actor play Dicky, but he festers in the background like a malignant disease).

 

Martha Mitchell and her story is shocking at times – her treatment at the hands of unscrupulous men both repulsive and desperately sad – her own junkie-need for fame being a part of it. In getting this descent across - Roberts has at last found her perfect partner/foil in Sean Penn who is virtually unrecognizable via jowl make-up similar to Gary Oldman in "Darkest Hour". Their sparring bouts of devotion and hatred are unbelievably good – a fantastic chemistry that works even with all the prosthetics – a simpatico similar in fact to Steve Carell and Jennifer Aniston in the brilliant first season of "The Morning Show". Penn plays her snakelike politically wily and ruthless husband Bob Mitchell who along with John Erlichmann and John Deane was all knee-deep in wanton public lies, campaign office bugging of the Democrats and constitutional abuse of power on a massive scale.

 

But while the big-name stars Penn and Roberts are never anything other than electrifying when on screen - they are both given a good run for their professional money by Dan Stevens and the gorgeous Betty Gilpin (of Glee fame) playing another husband/wife power couple of the day - John and Maureen Deane. At last our Dan gets to shed the shackles of his goodie-two-shoes Downton Abbey character and get all creep, skin crawl and morally slippery - both he and Gilpin digging into real acting meat and going for it.

 

Deane quickly twigged that the ship was going down fast and you either drown or push into the lifeboats no matter what it takes. Worse, his small-beer inner-sanctum position in the quagmire of illegal Nixon activities starts to get used by the Whitehouse as an 'obstruction of justice' scapegoat. Deane is literally surrounded by cigar-chomping Chivas Regal-swilling white men desperate to point the finger of blame somewhere else and knowing just how to do it. The scenes in an out-of-the-way Camp David (the President's private getaway ranch) where their characters feel like invited diners at a banquet with political Gods are brilliant and so naivety believable (Washington has shockingly not been entirely honest with them – Tricky Dicky included). Like the two more famous leads - both Stevens and Gilpin should be nominated for outstanding performances.

 

Other notables are Chris Bauer as the nervous and clumsy break-in oaf James McCord, Brian Geraghty as a heavy-handed handy-with-a-syringe CIA agent, Allison Tolman as Martha's sceptical but admiring biographer, Darby Camp as Martha and John's frazzled but opinionated daughter, Hamish Linklater as a Whitehouse shapeshifter and Chris Messina (of The Newsroom fame and the movie The Giant Mechanical Man) with Carlos Valdes as diligent cops trying to make a difference. And of course there's stunning writing from Robbie Pickering, Sam Esmail and Leon Neyfakh who based this 2022 TV Show on an Apple Podcast from November 2017 called Slow Burn by Slate Plus.

 

But they may all be nosed at the Emmy Kentucky Derby race posts by a truly scene-stealing tour-de-force performance from "Boardwalk Empire" and "Perry Mason" sidekick - Shea Whigham. Whigham (who you've seen in so many movies, you may not know his name, but you'll know his face) is what I call the Denholm Elliott factor in a film or a TV Series. Whigham classes things up in his understated every-man kind of way. His persona/range has you root for a character no matter what he says or does or how odious the little cretin becomes as he burrows into the muck.

 

But in "Gaslit" - our Shea gets to go out on a total actor's limb. Whigham plays the (real life) butt-tight cropped-moustache-loon that is G. Gordon Liddy – an Adolf devotee who spouts Ayrian master-race psychobabble to all and sundry dumb enough to listen - including his equally devoted/misguided wife and bamboozled kids. The thing is that the Republicans knew of his violent and volatile rep, but still brought him in. It was Liddy who had headed up the crew of useless break-in types (that included Cubans who were considered to be disposable), who, of course, did the one thing you mustn't do when screwing your political opponents - get caught.

 

Soon everything that's ruthless and nasty in Washington starts to unravel - the press-hounds begin to close in and sniff out bigger game, while righteously incensed judges in open court proceedings dole out jail sentences that aren't measured in weeks but example-setting decades. And on it goes to Liddy (Whigham) literally doing battle with a rat and his delightful deposits...

 

Season 6 of "Better Call Saul" has been brilliant, as has Season 2 of "Gentleman Jack" - masterclasses in filming, acting, presentation, storytelling and all the sexy points in-between. But spare a thought for the Seventies when genuinely corrupted no-conscience-whatsoever types roamed the corridors of power thinking they would always get away it because their Congressional overlords contained (within their ranks) even bigger bottom-feeders than them.

 

"Gaslit" is brilliant stuff and if it ever turns up on BLU RAY - I'll wiretap 10 Downing St. to get a copy...

"The Professor And The Madman" - A Review by Mark Barry of the 2019 Farhad Safina Film starring Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Stephen Dillane, Natalie Dormer and Eddie Marsan - Now on BLU RAY...

"...Fly...On The Wings Of Words..." 

- The Professor And The Madman on BLU RAY -

As you sit through the engaging real-life-story movie that is "The Professor And The Madman" - you might well think - where was this fabulous film in the 2020 Oscars? Why was the entire world told that fatuous tut like Tarantino's "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" was worthy of our attention or even an Oscar for Brad Pitt? There are just so many choice roles in "The Professor And The Madman" that on any other year, it would have been garnished with nominations galore. Is it that in Hollywood, Mel Gibson is still a persona non grata? Well, be that as it may, this is without question the Australian actor and director's most accomplished work in decades...

Shot in Ireland and especially the older parts of Dublin (the truly gorgeous library inside Trinity College is featured to fabulous effect), I suspect that for many viewers, this beautifully realized movie is coming out of left field. Few have heard of it, let alone went to see it in a cinema. Based on a true story - principled Scotsman and Professorial multi-lingual scholar James Murray (Mel Gibson) is charged with forming an English Language Dictionary chronicling every word along with its history, meaning and literature reference - a task that has defeated snooty Oxford and Cambridge dons for decades - possibly even driven some of them stark raving mad.

But James Murray is different. He has armour and secret weapons. His wife Ada is his rock and their many children fill James with wonder, strength and even purpose (Ada is beautifully played by Jennifer Ehle of Pride and Prejudice TV Series fame). Murray is also in love with language and words to the point where he feels they may even be a route to the divine, love and that most difficult of all emotions in the mid 19th century - forgiveness.

Used on one third of the earth as a 'mother tongue' - Murray goes at the impossible task of finding and defining 'every' word and permeation of the English language with aid from his team of researchers led by Henry Bradley (Iain Gruffudd). But it soon becomes obvious why others have been driven to tears with such a task - smashed up every time against the rocks of 'proof' for even the simplest of words like 'art' or 'approved' - and that's just the 'A's'. But help comes from an unlikely source and a parallel story.

Possessed of a demon-infested and yet brilliant mind, Dr. William Minor is also drawn to the healing of literature. But while he was once a respected surgeon in the American Civil War, conflict and actions he was forced into (maiming a soldier deemed to be a deserter) have left his mind shattered to the point where in a frenzy of voices and illusions - he shoots dead a young man called Everett. This has left his young wife Eliza and her five children to destitution (Natalie Dormer excelling in a genuinely great part for the Games Of Thrones star). Dr. Minor (a seriously brilliant Sean Penn) is easily convicted and sent to prison – Eliza Everett initially glad to see him suffer.

Inside the correctional facility/lunatic asylum for the criminally insane that is Broadmoor in Berkshire, he meets Dr. Richard Brayn - a caring physician played by the stunning Stephan Dillane - also of Games Of Thrones and cruelly robbed of an Oscar for his exceptional work in the Churchill film "Darkest Hour". Determined to methodically help inmates rather than let them rot in cells, Dr. Brayn gives the mad but clearly intelligent American leeway that may indeed lead to his salvation – space, paper and books. And after a letter is found inside a book that has called on the entire English-speaking world to supply words and their meanings, the strange relationship with the Scottish Professor James Murray and the convicted-of-murder American Civil War surgeon William Minor begins – over an English book from Oxford.

Both Gibson and Penn are magnificent in this movie - not just good - but towering. Throw in the genuinely awesome humanity that Eddie Marsan of "Ray Donovan" fame brings to everything that he does (Eddie plays a guard called Mr. Muncie who takes pity on the madman and is instrumental as a liason) and a fantastically good Steve Coogan as an establishment friend to James Murray who can oil and circumnavigate the cogs of Oxford snoots malicious and vindictive towards the Scotsman (Anthony Edwards and Laurence Fox leading the doubters) - and you get an inkling of the kind of quality ensemble cast that is on offer here. There are at least six or seven more names I could mention...

Good as they all are though, the cast excels because the story and the writing that depicts this unusual tale is simply beautiful - a gorgeous script by Director Farhad Safina (credited as P.B. Shemran) and Todd Komarnicki (Safina wrote large swathes of both seasons to a Kelsey Grammer Mayor-of-Chicago TV Series I loved called "Boss"). Based on a 1998 book by Simon Winchester called "The Surgeon Of Crowthorne", the 2019 film "The Professor And The Madman" has heart and compassion and delights in language and its power to diffuse and even heal. And on it goes to the credits where photographs and achievements give further insight into these odd but earnest men and their achievements – Bear McCreary’s music lifting proceedings all the way to the end.

I loved "The Professor And The Madman" and I suspect many others will too. As the damaged man, Dr. Minor says, "...I can fly out of here...on the wings of words..." Good advice, I think. A really, really good movie and well done to all involved...

“21 Grams” on BLU RAY – A Review Of The 2004 Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Film

"…Forgive Me…"

21 Grams on BLU RAY

Like a freight juggernaut carrying the poisoned cargo of a screwed-up past and a tormenting temptation-filled-present - ex convict Jack Jordan is a train wreck waiting to derail yet again - only this time in spectacular fashion. At the hands of Preacher John (the ever stunning Eddie Marsan) Jack has at least discovered God ("Jesus gave me that truck...") but he seems to be slowly losing everything else - his freedom, his job and his family.

Mexican Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had made the brilliant "Amos Perres" in 2000 and it went a long way to drawing in huge talent like Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and especially Benicio Del Toro (as Jack Jordan). Not conventionally structured - 2004's "21 Grams" uses the device of back and forward in time flashbacks to offer up a story of accidents and loss and extreme pain and how ordinary people cope with it (or not as the case may be).

The structure is odd and at times grating - but it brilliantly unfolds the story so you slowly twig what's happened and to whom. One minute Jack Jordan is clean-shaven happily waving to his friends by his pick-up - the next he's in a prison shower again with a towel around his neck (and he isn't trying to clear up his zits). Sean Penn's character Paul River's is wheezing on a ventilator while he sneaks a cigarette from a pill bottle stash in the bathroom in one scene - then is healthy and immaculately suited in the next scene as he ogles a woman in a swimming pool (Naomi Watts) he seems overly interested in for a married man. One moment he's raising a glass of wine with his friends celebrating an organ transplant that has literally saved his life - the next Paul is lying in a hospital bed looking battered with tubes in his mouth - ruminating on the size of the bodyweight you lose when you die (the film's title).

In between all of this we keep returning to a father (a brilliantly subtle Danny Huston) on his mobile to his wife. He is clearly not paying enough attention to his two young daughters giddily chasing a bird on the footpath ahead of him. As the three pass out of shot - leaves are blown ahead as a familiar-looking truck races past - and a few moments later (still out of shot) there's an ominous screech of tyres...

While Sean Penn is typically magnetic - the movie belongs to Benicio Del Toro who straddles it like a malevolent colossus. In the 'Making Of' the Director says you need only point the camera at him and magic will happen - worlds going on behind a glance. Yet somehow (and there are repulsive scenes with his family) Del Toro fills his tattooed enraged Jordan with such gravitas that you empathise with his gradual loss of faith rather than judge him. In one scene he begs a startled man to kill him - end his torment - and you don't for a second think that he doesn't really mean it.

But special praise should also go to the women who are simply astounding and in some cases act the showier male names off the frame. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Sean Penn's wife Mary Rivers obsessed with having a child even if their relationship is disintegrating - while Melissa Leo plays the wife of the God-obsessed Jack Gordon trying to keep him out of jail and her family together (both are simply superb). But it's Naomi Watts who blows you away. There is a scene where she has to go the hospital to check on her husband and two daughters only to be given unfathomable news. As a parent you physically shake and ache with her harrowing disintegration (she's that good). The only other times I've ever seen this sheer acting power is in "Bright Star" about the life of poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne that has Abbie Cornish give the same kind of mind-blowing performance (see review) and Marion Cotillard's unbelievable performance in the Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie En Rose".

With a 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio (the full screen is filled) 'adequate' best describes the BLU RAY picture quality. It isn't great by any stretch of the imagination featuring many indoor and night scenes with an ever-present pallor of grain. Shooting was all about feel and immediacy - and prettily framed suburbia was never going to be part of the equation. But I'd still say that the power of the watch quickly dissipates any qualms on that front. The only subtitle is English for the Hard Of Hearing.

There's also a great "In Fragments" Making Of where the Director gets all the cast and crew to throw red roses in the air at the start of shooting and white roses when they finish. Each of the principal actors get spots and they're praise and love of the work is palatable. Icing on the cake is Gustavo Santaoialla's stunning score of electric and acoustic heavy guitar strums (like a Mexican Ry Cooder). Gustavo also embellished "Babel" and "The Motorcycle Diaries" with the same emotion-tugging power.

Nominated for 2 Oscars and 5 Baftas - "21 Grams" is visceral cinema peopled with a plethora of actors giving 1000% to a script they know is hard-hitting yet somehow real world redemptive. Inarritu would go on to make the equally brilliant "Babel" and the seriously harsh "Biutiful".

In 2014 you can pick up the stunning “21 Grams” for five quid or less on BLU RAY - and that's a skydiver well spent in my book...