Writing Samples

Finance

The Frugal Traveler's Card

Q: I'm traveling to Europe in a few weeks to watch some actual football and drink table wine that's better than most $100 bottles here. Trouble is, the banks will kill me anytime I buy something with their foreign exchange fee.

Is there a way I can make purchases abroad that will minimise my foreign exchange and annual fee loss?

Cheers, Nigel

A: Glad you are taking a vacation from puritan America, though you spell like a Brit. But don't forget one very American card when you go.

The Farewell - Review

Solemn, brazen, and deeply philosophical
February 24, 2020

I’ve seen close to seven hundred films, but I had never cried and laughed at the same exact moment until I took Lufthansa flight 426 from Frankfurt to Philadelphia. Halfway over the Atlantic, with a small screen, over the din of air whooshing over the wings and the Airbus turbines blaring, with strangers coughing out Coronavirus in my personal space, with all of that preventing emotional investment in its story, The Farewell managed to do it.

In that scene, Haibin (Jiang Yongbo) is hosting his son’s wedding in China. But the wedding is a front, a concoction to fool Haibin’s mother Nai Nai (a lively force in Zhao Shu-zhen) that her family have reunited from all over the world for some other reason than that she is dying of lung cancer with only months to live. All of the family, including Awkwafina’s sharp Billi, know this. And they’ve all willingly withheld the diagnosis from Nai Nai in order to protect her from the despair it might cause.

Haibin takes the stage to toast his son and new daughter-in-law. We know anything he says to them would be farcical. And everyone is attending in the belief that this is their last hurrah with Nai Nai. This is the moment he turns to his mother and eulogizes her. He so carefully treads to keep the truth from coming out that we can’t help but laugh, so brazenly guides the spotlight away from where it should be at a wedding that we can’t help but cringe, so deeply and solemnly bows to her that even a Westerner can’t help being moved.

Ronin - Review

A classy Euro-Japanese heist
March 19, 2020

The only reason I watched Ronin was to settle a long-smoldering beef I had with a professor at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He had besmirched the honor of my own Notre Dame professor---who mentored me in live sports commentary---by arguing that, on the whole, commentary detracts from sports broadcasts. He’d used Katarina Witt’s skating scene in Ronin to illustrate his point. Hence my interest.

Now I’ve graduated and bear no allegiance to any school. I’m a rogue film critic out for blood, laying waste to thriller and comedy alike until I have avenged my professor, at which time honor compels me to fall on my sword.

That is the Ronin mythology and plot in a nutshell. The film is a creative amalgamation of seemingly dissonant themes that end up surprisingly combining well. Robert De Niro’s heist-mates are the ronin, a Japanese term for the samurai who through treachery have lost their lords.

The events, though, take place in modern-day France. The narrow cobblestone streets, hilly city centers, pedestrian-only squares, and lakefront al-fresco cafes give Ronin a distinct European feel. Jonathan Pryce and Natascha McElhone worked hard on their Northern Irish accents, and while those are Euro they lend a different feel than the French streets do---more of a Crying Game IRA grittiness. It is a surprising place to find ice skating highlighted---Witt’s grace is offset by her stark, East German athleticism and her oligarch boyfriend’s ruthlessness.

Revival! - Review

Gospel-Soul with a rampant imagination
March 2, 2020

Fittingly, no story on stage or screen has been revived as many times as the Gospel. Whether we consider the latest version worthy of any award close to Best Revival or toss it onto the scrap heap labeled "CBS Jesus Miniseries Etc." comes down to these few things, in my opinion.

First, as Christian films traditionally underwhelm in this area, what are its production values? More important, how faithful is it, what kind of imagination does it have about its characters, and how do these two often at-odds demands play out their duel? We crave compelling motivation to fill out the original evangelists' broad strokes, but make Mary Magdalene Jesus's wife and you lose some Biblical scholar cred. Further, what does it add to our millennia-long conversation and countless portrayals of Christ? And, most important, what kind of drama does it stir---content with rote recital of the stations of the cross, or invested in dialogue and action that propels the narrative forward organically?

Revival!, now, strikes a surprising pose. It never strays from acute faithfulness to John's Gospel, yet it has a great deal of imagination. It is a Gospel-soul musical that plays freely with its ideas of setting. A woman plays a vociferous member of the Sanhedrin, whose verbal duels with Jesus usually, but not always, have depth to them. They've even arranged for Lazarus to be killed (for good this time). We have no lip-service diverse cast, but a true one. And a woman, a man, and a teenager each play Satan in one of the film's best scenes. Satan, now a teen "abandoned by my father," eschews the temple and brings Jesus atop the iconic Hollywood sign to tempt him. Cast yourself down, he says, but more creatively and with more conversational logic than we're used to. Christ might be destined to suffer and die, he responds, "but I wouldn't want to be in a hurry."

Academy Awards 2019 Ballot

We all dream in gold
More predictions to come as the night approaches. But all my picks are in.

Best Picture
1. Marriage Story
2. Jojo Rabbit
3. Parasite
4. Little Women
5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
6. The Irishman
7. 1917
8. Joker
9. Ford v Ferrari
Prediction: 1917

Of what many are considering the main contenders, Parasite is my choice, and I would be happy to throw my support behind it if my horses falter in the early going. But Marriage Story remains the best film of the year, for me.

I have to ask myself whether Jojo Rabbit is the kind of film that ought to represent Best Picture. The more I think about it, the more I associate it with Shakespeare in Love, and consider it worthy. Its cleverness and eventual depth win out. But I won't give my first vote to it with a more serious treatment available that has fewer flaws.

Insider came out today decrying 1917 as a “hollow spectacle.” That’s only slightly harsh and comes much closer to my feelings about it than awarding it Best Picture would be. It’s certainly hollow compared to the thought-provoking others here.

Best Director
Bong Joon-ho, Parasite
Prediction: Sam Mendes, 1917

Some of the shots he constructs are worthy of best cinematography even in a year that includes 1917. I've never seen a director get laughs just out of how events are shot, rather than just their content, quite like he does.

Bad Boys for Life - Review

A tasteful tribute to its predecessors, with more emotional weight, but not as much fun or as original
January 22, 2020

Forget the banter between the leads. We get that in every buddy-cop retread. The hallmark of films like Bad Boys is a great Bad Guy. In this franchise the measuring stick is Johnny Tapia, the drug lord who lures our heroes to Cuba in the sequel. Here, in the third installment, we have a mother-son team of villains, and though they don't bring the charisma of Tapia, they represent an overall shift in focus from explosive fun to familial sentiment.

Don't get me wrong; we still have slow-mo diving shooters, bumping club scenes, and sleek chases, better filmed than the original, not just because of 25 years' advancement. (The original was choppy at times, cheesy at all times.) But more than anything, the Bad Boys are like volatile brothers, and anyone who's grown up watching them grow up may have come for the rumbling Porsches, but they'll appreciate the deeper bonding between them. Sometimes it doesn't feel like a Bad Boys movie. Then someone cracks a joke in a tense scene, and we remember the Boys are still boys, and Miami is their locker room.

On the whole, those cracks work. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah aren't filming an emotional tour de force; they're just deepening the characters as veterans looking back on their careers and friendship, in a Bad Boys, winking style. What we have here is a tasteful tribute, subtle in its homage, more melodramatic than its predecessors, but not more fun or more original.

Margin Call (2011) - Review

By focusing on one late-night scramble, we find the emotional heartbeat of the economic crisis

January 14, 2020

This is the film that The Big Short aspired to be. Not that that isn't also a great film. But Margin Call is the Titanic of finance films, by which I mean this: We intensely follow one firm's all-night scramble to survive the financial crisis. And because of that, we are emotionally invested in the breaking tragedy more than we could be for any birds-eye analysis.

The margin call, in so many words: The bank teeters on the brink of bankruptcy because its holdings have plummeted in value while over-leveraged. Amid rounds of layoffs, risk analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) burns the midnight oil and figures this out. All the cavalry is called, no matter the hour. When the creditors come calling at dawn, as a lawyer once told me, "you lose the farm."

What brilliant casting. Everyone, from Paul Bettany to Demi Moore to Stanley Tucci, nails it. Kevin Spacey as sales director presages his House of Cards ruthlessness but has more conscience than anyone else here. Salesmen may hawk anything, especially on Wall Street, but some actually do believe the best client is a repeat client. Only a few actors have the pedigree to be his CEO; Jeremy Irons is one. "How do you get to the top?" he asks the board. "By being first, by being better, or by cheating."

1917 - Review

A visually stunning dance, but difficulty cannot inspire awe
January 9, 2020

Steven Spielberg told Sam Mendes that he wept when he saw Mendes' first directorial effort, American Beauty. He may weep again at the thought of how grueling filming 1917 must have been. It took weeks to plan and film five minutes for Atonement's famed Dunkirk tracking shot; Mendes has created twenty times that to produce 1917, giving the feel of one continuous shot.

Impossible as it is to evaluate the film without invoking its style, I know that Mendes gives us much more than just another war movie. And simple as its story is, 1917 produces a complex response---not just because of its style. It is thrillingly intense, but it is not comprehensive. It's a visually stunning dance whose choreography and execution inspire me, but whose narrative does not run deeper. It is an achievement, a masterpiece of technical genius and of creative storytelling, but not of story.

Jojo Rabbit - Review

Divisive, brilliant, risky in a year of risks, but not unprecedented
January 8, 2020

In 1998 I was ten, playing sports and Nintendo 64 everyday. The Academy's Best Picture nominees included Italy's Life is Beautiful and the eventual winner, Shakespeare in Love. These two beautifully constructed films contrasted the frontrunner, the war epic Saving Private Ryan---much more serious fare, but just as masterfully made.

No other year matches our current Best Picture race better than 1998. Many will say we've never seen films like these before. What to make of them? I give them 1998.

We have jarring tonal shifts---an abrupt, total reversal in Parasite, another foreign production attempting to clear the hurdle for the first time, and a gradual one here in Jojo Rabbit---that echo the tale of two halves in Life is Beautiful. As with that film, Jojo never truly sheds its comedic tones, which I think only bolsters its credentials. That playfulness underscores the tragedy and gives the entire running time a unified feel.

Once again, we must decide how to respond to such a treatment of the Holocaust and its immediate surroundings. The schism among Jojo's audience (and critics) is real and vitriolic.

It pays to consider the wake Life is Beautiful left behind. No less a Hitler satirist than Mel Brooks argued there are limits to such comedy. "The philosophy of the film is, people can get over anything," he told Der Spiegel. "No, you can't. You can't get over a concentration camp." Moreover, he said, none of Roberto Begnini's family perished there. The Italian could never comprehend its full nature.

Little Women (2019) - Review

A timeless story filmed with creativity, vision, and intelligence
January 4, 2020

This is what happens when you take a timeless story and film it with creativity, vision, and intelligence. Louisa May Alcott's novel has been adapted no fewer than seven times. Here Greta Gerwig has produced the most mature telling, one that delights and adds deeply to discussion, and does so deftly.

As if to one of its own beloved characters, the book presented Gerwig with decision after decision to personalize her drama. She's taken each step boldly. Gone are the very young childhood scenes. We join the action as Jo decides to abandon her writing in New York to care for her ailing sister, Beth (Eliza Scanlen), back home in Concord. Youngest sister Amy (Florence Pugh) and Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) are already in France. Meg (Emma Watson) is already married to the penniless John Brooke (James Norton). Their legendary upbringing, drama productions, debutante balls, courtships---all are seen in flashback.

Why use flashback? This is the most mature telling of Little Women because of the focus that the technique forces on us. Those memories immediately shape the present. Gerwig uses warm lighting and costuming, and sometimes hairstyles, to sweeten the past. The film therefore exchanges a novel-esque, sprawling narrative feel for a pointed analysis emphasizing Jo's reflection, at a critical juncture, on her life's decisions. It is the difference between a bath and a shower. Other adaptations luxuriate in the sisters' interactions. Here there is heightened purpose if not the feeling of a domestic epic.

You Play to Win the Game - Oscar Nominations

It's all about the Academy Awards, and it's all about Best Picture

When it comes to the prestige of competitions, awards, and achievements, you don't shed the belief systems ingrained in you as a child. When hockey players say their World Cup would be nice to win, but let's be honest, it's not the Olympics, they are referring to the deep-seated admiration they have for the latter.

I'm not a member of the Academy yet, but I ought to write like I am, to take nominations and voting as seriously as members do. Or dare I say, members ought to take them as seriously as I do. How can I so arrogantly say that? Because one day when I was a small boy, I stumbled across an encyclopedia's list of Best Picture winners. Because soon after that, I found the framed piece in my grandparents' basement that captured in ranks and files every Best Picture poster. This is the list that makes my eyes widen, that I can recite by heart. Like the names engraved on the Stanley Cup, this is the list you grow up dreaming to be on. No salary, no profession can forge that kind of awe.

You create films for many reasons, artful, personal, economic, social---but you should always aspire to make the best. You play to win the game. So each year I present my Academy Award ballot.