BEFORE: I forgot to mention yesterday that I was watching "Labor Day" from another Academy screener. It hardly matters any more whether I'm watching something off a screener, or on Netflix, or iTunes (which has helped me track down several films already this year that have NOT popped up on cable) or in the movie theater. Which has been a big change for me this year, it's really opened up my possibilities and linking opportunities - after 9 years, I'm finally able to ask myself, "What do I want to watch next?" instead of "What does the schedule dictate that I watch next?"
I'm fairly sure that "Labor Day" did air on premium cable, since it came out in 2014. But maybe not, I haven't seen it, maybe I missed it but I can't be sure. No channel certainly decided to run it this past weekend as an obvious tie-in to the calendar, like I did. Tobey Maguire carries over from "Labor Day" into tonight's film, as I get to another Academy screener, another film that came out last year that I was very curious about, but not enough to go to the theater to see.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Bobby Fischer Against the World" (Movie #2,121)
THE PLOT: Set during the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer finds himself caught between two superpowers and his own struggles as he challenges the Soviet chess champions.
AFTER: Aside from the fact that Tobey Maguire doesn't particularly resemble Bobby Fischer, the other main negative here is that nearly all of this material was covered in the documentary about him, which I watched about two years ago. But even if it doesn't bring anything new to the table, it's still a fascinating topic, and I understand that some people just don't watch documentaries, and they need things presented to them in a dramatic form.
I wish this one had gotten more into the specifics of chess, but I guess that might have alienated any viewers who aren't familiar with the game or its intricacies. But the downside to this is that someone didn't have the time or inclination to get into the gameplay, it was an easier or safer choice to cut right to the end of each match so we don't have to wait to find out who won. Which feels like a constant narrative copout, but on the other hand, it's what was necessary to do in order to avoid all that chess stuff. Because come on, even if you're a chess fan, you have to admit that the majority of the match is quite boring, all except for that bit at the end - and watching people sit and THINK about what moves they want to make is even more boring than watching them do it.
The whole film clearly falls into the "Bobby Fischer's got ISSUES" camp, first as a young boy who demands to know who his father is, shortly after becoming the world's youngest grandmaster, and then later as a professional with a constantly changing set of demands, finding an excuse to not play whenever a match doesn't seem to be going his way. And then by the end of the film, as a psychotic nut who made anti-American and anti-Semitic statements - despite coming from a Jewish background himself. You can say that maybe chess or the pressure of matches made him crazy and drove him into exile, but that still doesn't excuse the racist stuff and his belief in conspiracy theories.
How are you supposed to root for the only American to win the FIDE World Chess Championship and the youngest International Master if he also denied the Holocaust happened? I think this is similar to some of the debates we're having now in America, concerning everything from Civil War statues to Charlie Sheen. How do we celebrate the successes that people had if there's also something shady in their past? Does a successful presidency or a military victory or two outweigh the ownership of slaves? Discuss.
But as long as we're in political Cold War territory (as seen over the weekend with two films about politics in southeast Asia in the 1960's) I can't help but notice the similarity between Fischer's matches with Boris Spassky and the Ia Drang Valley battles seen in "We Were Soldiers" - chess is an allegory for war, right? And in both cases, we see how one opponent gained an advantage by switching tactics, which causes the other opponent to change tactics/gameplay, and then that change causes the first opponent to change tactics, and so on. The "Pawn Sacrifice" in the title refers to a series of moves in chess where a player loses a pawn intentionally because this gains him another advantage, such as gaining more space for his pieces or getting other pieces into a better position - so by extension, aren't soldiers just pawns who are sacrificed so that their team/country gains a little bit of ground - it's like losing a battle in the hopes of winning the war as a result.
Insert my usual complaint (I should just have some kind of standard form for this by now) about the film starting at the most crucial point (Game 2 in the Championships in Iceland, when Bobby failed to appear...) and then flashing back to his childhood in a defiance of narrative form. Geez, isn't everyone tired of these splash-page antics by now? I've seen this happen so many times this year alone that I can't stand this format any more. But the trend has taken root, there's just no killing it at this point - but it's still a CRUTCH used by lazy screenwriters. Instead of starting with the most interesting scene and flashing back to the boring stuff, why not find a way to make the boring stuff more interesting? Isn't that the JOB of a screenwriter, after all?
Also starring Liev Schreiber (last seen in "Spotlight"), Michael Stuhlbarg (last seen in "Steve Jobs"), Peter Sarsgaard (last seen in "Jackie"), Lily Rabe (last seen in "All Good Things"), Robin Weigert (last seen in "Two Weeks Notice"), Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (last seen in "Moonrise Kingdom"), Conrad Pia, Evelyne Brochu, Alexandre Gorchkov (last seen in "RED 2"), Vitali Makarov (last seen in "Rollerball"), Katie Nolan, Edward Zinoviev, Brett Watson, with archive footage of Dick Cavett (last seen in "Listen to Me Marlon"), Muhammad Ali, Bobby Fischer (last seen in "Bobby Fischer Against the World"), Boris Spassky (ditto), John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Richard Nixon, John Lennon (last seen in "Steve Jobs"), Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr,
RATING: 6 out of 10 draw offers
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