EL SEGUNDO HERALD November 17, 2016 Page 5 Entertainment Film Review A Windy City Wish Come True By Adam Serrao When the Cleveland Indians took a 3-1 series lead in the World Series over the Chicago Cubs, most people thought, “Ah, that’s just the Cubs, squandering another chance at a title.” What happened after that, however, was a series of events for the record books. When all was said and done, the Cubs that everyone loved to give up on came back in the series, rattled off three straight wins and took a championship back home from Cleveland to Chicago. Most people thought that they would never see the day when the Cubs won the World Series. But 108 years later, it was written in the Major League Baseball history books. No Billy Goat, Bartman, or black cat could stop the history that this year’s Chicago Cubs were destined to write after a season in which the team won 103 regular season games--good enough for best in all of the MLB. The next best team in the entire league won eight less games than the Cubs, so you might even say that Chicago deserved its recently acquired championship ring. After 39,466 days of waiting, who wouldn’t deserve it? Of course, when you beat the likes of the San Francisco Giants and Madison Bumgarner, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw, and the Cleveland Indians and Corey Kluber, there is certainly something to be said for a team that can now comfortably call itself the best in the world. “Nothing’s been easy, nothing’s been given to us,” Cubs ace Jon Lester explained of his team’s heroics in this year’s postseason. “Every series has been a battle and been a grind for us. We played three really good opponents to get here, and here we stand. It’s an unbelievable feeling to be a part of this. You wouldn’t expect it any other way.” One might expect Lester to be the team’s playoff MVP. The Cubs constantly leaned on him, even out of the bullpen, to pick them up on defense and get the team pointed back in the right direction. On offense, it happened to be a rather unlikely hero in Ben Zobrist. Zobrist hit the go-ahead double in the 10th inning of Game 7 to break the tie and ultimately give his team the 8-7 victory over Cleveland in the deciding game. “I know he threw a pretty hard cutter,” explained the player who was later named World Series MVP. “I just barely hung in there, and fortunately he put one just close enough to the plate where I could slap it down the line.” With that slap down the line, the curse of the Cubs was officially broken. Even though the team tried to add a bit more drama by giving a run back to the Indians in the bottom of the 10th, it was too little too late for Cleveland. The superior team battled back time and time again, and beyond simply the offense--or even simply the defense--it was the Cubs’ team as a whole that won the World Series. For that reason, Chicago President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein should be viewed as the real catalyst and most valuable person in the entire organization. Epstein arrived in Chicago in 2011 after a 71-win season. He had just assisted in replenishing the Boston Red Sox’s 86-year World Series drought. The Red Sox hadn’t won the championship since 1918. With the help of Epstein, the team won in 2004 and 2007. Theo then brought his magical mind to Chicago to try to erase the league’s longest-standing curse. After trading for Anthony Rizzo from the San Diego Padres and acquiring Kyle Hendricks from the Texas Rangers in 2012, Epstein traded with the Baltimore Orioles for Jake Arrieta and drafted Kris Bryant in 2013. He then acquired Addison Russell from the Oakland A’s, hired Joe Madden as the manager and signed Jon Lester all in 2014, before acquiring Dexter Fowler and signing John Lackey, Zobrist and Jason Heyward in 2015. Finally, closer Aroldis Chapman was acquired from the New York Yankees in 2016. The result? A 2016 MLB championship. With their victory, the Cubs became the first team to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series to win Games 6 and 7 on the Nocturnal Animals is as Stylish and Seductive as its Director, Tom Ford By Morgan Rojas for www.cinemacy.com Leave it to Tom Ford, world-renowned fashion designer (fans include Beyoncé, Anne Hathaway, Bradley Cooper, Will Smith and Julianne Moore, to name a few), to create such a visceral and complexly beautiful follow-up to his directorial debut A Single Man with the sexy revenge thriller Nocturnal Animals. Basing the film on the novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright, Ford proves that he can conquer yet another multi-million-dollar industry with the same grace and finesse that has earned him an elite status in the fashion world. With incredible expertise, Ford’s meticulous eye picks up the minutiae of each character, giving the film a full-bodied story that makes it both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and also a breathtakingly gorgeous look-book. Upon first glance, Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) seems to have it all: a handsome husband (Armie Hammer), a beautiful modern home in the Hollywood Hills, and a prestigious career as an art gallery owner. However, the look on her face reveals that she is not happy; her handsome husband leaves her in that beautiful home alone most nights as he travels for business and conducts affairs on the side. Her latest gallery installation seems to taunt her with the one thing she wants most: freedom. Unsatisfied with her situation, Susan perks up upon receiving a book manuscript from her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal), titled Nocturnal Animals. The two haven’t spoken in over 20 years, but the note Edward sends along with the book explains that he wanted Susan to read his novel first--as she was the source of inspiration. As Susan delves deeper into Edward’s story of heartbreak and revenge, she is forced to re-confront the dark secrets she had buried away and the consequences of the past she tried to forget. The intricacy of Nocturnal Animals, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival, comes into play as Susan begins to read the manuscript. Ford creates a “story within a story” with the novelcreating the world of the book as written by Edward. Gyllenhaal also plays Edward’s fictional character Tony Hastings, a married father of one. His wife, who is supposed to represent Susan in spirit, is Laura Hastings, played by Isla Fisher. Their daughter India (Ellie Bamber) completes this secular, fictional family. The scenes from the book’s point of view have a contemporary Western feel both in the vibrant look (Ford shot on film) and character breakdown--including the malicious sociopath Ray Marcus, a phenomenally brutal performance by Aaron Taylor-Johnson; and the Southern-drawled antihero played by Michael Shannon, who balances the comedic and temperamental personality of his character, Officer Bobby Andes, just right. As the film jumps from the past to present to fiction, it finds strength in the depth of all of its characters, which fuels the cyclical motion of this layered story. It’s a well-known fact that silence commands attention, and Ford has mastered this art on screen. Adams exhibits more acting through her detailed movements and expressions than she does through verbal communication. Her performance is kept close to the chest, but is fully dramatic and confident nonetheless. Ford seems to find his comfort zone and subsequent directorial voice in this silence; he himself being a rather soft-spoken man. After watching his films, it’s evident that they come from a personal place--not literal, per se, but an intimate origin. For all of its glitz and glamour, Nocturnal Animals is at its core an introspective look at love, loss and loose ends. This isn’t the type of film that leaves you restless at night, fearing that a creature is going to interfere with your life in some way. Rather it leaves you wanting more--a fuller resolution, a ghost on which to pin tension. Yet again, Tom Ford succeeds in leaving his audience with a topic of conversation to discuss after the film ends. The open-endedness could perhaps be looked at as questionable screenwriting, but personally I think it makes for one grand finale of emotional tension. Nocturnal Animals is rated R for violence, menace, graphic nudity and language. 117 minutes. In select theaters on Friday, November 18. • Amy Adams in Nocturnal Animals. Courtesy of Focus Features. See Windy City, page 6 Visit us online: www.heraldpublications.com
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