MY MOVIE SHELF: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 76 Days to go: 52

Movie #364:  Captain America: The Winter Soldier

There are a lot of things I love about Captain America (Chris Evans), but one of them is definitely that he always seems to be surrounded by incredible women. First there was Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), who I was thrilled to see still alive in The Winter Soldier (although ancient and bedridden), but now there are all sorts of kickass chicks in the Captain’s life, the most formidable and impressive being Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), who, despite her playful teasing of his super old fogey goodness and her insistence on finding him a girlfriend, has a hell of a lot of chemistry with him. It might be a natural result of Black Widow’s seductive persona, but I ship them very very hard. Where his relationship with Peggy was very chaste and pure, I have a feeling a romance with Natasha would get very hot and steamy, and I’m into it.

Natasha isn’t just a possible love interest, though, she’s also a seasoned warrior and a strong ally. Anyone who still claims that Black Widow is a blank slate or has no agency of her own or isn’t interesting or couldn’t pull off her own movie is sexist and deluded. Black Widow is of course proficient at hand-to-hand combat, as all these action heroes are these days, but she’s also a technology whiz, a super spy, a master interrogator, and a woman with an enigmatic, shadowed past trying to make good. She also possesses a great deal of ingenuity, because where Steve Rogers is thinking of tactical means of confrontation outside the Apple Store, Natasha knows how to make them look like an innocuous couple, saving their hides and allowing them time to find out about the Hydra teams who’ve infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.

That’s right, Hydra is back. Or it never really went away. And they’re mobilizing to take over the world. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is attacked on the open street, Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) has sent his agents against Steve and Natasha, and twenty million people are about to die. Oh yeah, and apparently Steve’s old buddy Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) didn’t die in WWII after all and has been re-engineered as super assassin The Winter Soldier. It complicates things, to say the least. And the plot of The Winter Soldier is complicated as a result.

Complicated, but not unreachable. Having the Marvel universe expand around Cap has made the conflicts Cap comes up against expanded as well. And yes, I’ve seen the movie several times, but I think it explains itself well. Its twists, its double-crosses, and its revelations are all well-deployed to keep the action moving and the stakes raised.

Also — and this can not be overstated — Anthony Mackie is perfect. Whatever movie he is in, whatever role he’s playing, he is unbelievably great. In his role as Sam Wilson (The Falcon), Mackie is a great addition to the Avengers. Sam and Steve have a playful rivalry and a deep level of respect for one another, and Sam becomes the devoted and loyal friend Steve lost when he lost Bucky. And the film’s exploration of the nature of friendship and trust in and of itself is one of its stronger themes. Be it the friendships between Steve and Bucky, Steve and Natasha, or Nick and just about anyone, the movie is about loyalty and trust, and who you can count on in a pinch.

(Hint: You can always count on Captain America.)

MY MOVIE SHELF: Sneakers

 

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 178  Days to go: 123

Movie #260:  Sneakers

This is where I get myself in trouble. I had a friend in junior high and high school who I went to a lot of movies with. She and I seemed pretty different — I don’t think anyone would’ve expected us to be friends — but we actually had very similar sensibilities. We both hated people, had a wry outlook on the world, shared a particular sense of humor and lots of inside jokes no one else in the world would get, and we both loved Quantum Leap and Star Wars (not Star Trek), among other things (especially if they featured Harrison Ford). Not only that, but we both wrote, both appreciated great stories, and both liked to go to the movies. So we went together pretty often.

Back in 1992, this dear friend of mine wanted to go see Sneakers, a star-studded spy film of sorts. I snubbed this idea in a big way, because frankly the movie looked like a snooze fest, and we never went to see it. I put the film completely out of my mind.

Jump ahead several months, when Sneakers came out on video. My parents rented it from our local Blockbuster, and I ended up watching it with them, probably because I had nothing better to do. Lo and behold, Sneakers is fantastic! It’s clever and funny and twisty and intriguing and not boring at all. I went into school the next day and, at lunch, started raving about this great new movie I’d just seen. My dear friend, bless her, got so (rightfully) irritated with me. She told me off and reminded me how she’d wanted to see it in the first place and remains bitter about it to this day, any time the subject comes up. It’s pretty funny, and I can’t help but laugh, but I am also sincerely sorry and ashamed for my dumbassery. (She won’t admit it, not that she ever did because that’s not the kind of friends (or even the kind of people) we are, but she still loves me.)

Anyway.

Sneakers stars Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix and David Strathairn as a rogue group of questionable characters living on the fringes of society, doing freelance “security” work, by which they mean breaking into places for a fee in order to expose that place’s weaknesses. They each have their individual quirks, but Redford’s character Martin Bishop has actually been a fugitive from justice for over twenty years. When a couple of guys from the NSA show up and reveal they know Bishop’s secret, the team gets caught up in a case of espionage and digital encryption that puts their lives at risk, and evil mastermind Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) has a special connection to Martin’s past. (“I cannot kill my friend. Kill my friend.”) Essentially, there are Too Many Secrets, and they’re all about to come to light.

Mary McDonnell is sadly the only female presence of any substance, as Marty’s ex Liz, but she’s so delightfully over all the bullshit these guys come up with, it’s kind of great. It doesn’t stop her from helping them, of course, but it makes for an entertaining time. And her interaction with Stephen Tobolowsky’s Werner Brandes is the highlight of the film. (“Shall I phone you or nudge you?”)

A special appearance by James Earl Jones as the put-upon NSA agent Mr. Abbott rounds out a spectacular cast full of lots of fun performances, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes the film so great to watch.

Oh, and they kind of predicted the whole thing about the NSA spying on Americans a full twenty-something years before Edward Snowden dropped that same bombshell. I guess they got that box working after all.