Hoover, of course, regarded himself as a hero; to him, the villains were political radicals, bank robbers and anyone who stood in his way, professionally, politically, or personally. Hoover as the hero was the FBI party line for the nearly six decades he served as the agency’s director (he became director of the Bureau of Investigation, the FBI’s predecessor, in 1924). But, after his death in 1972, a counter-narrative began in which Hoover was the villain. His dirty deeds extended from the maniacal—the “secret files” he compiled and used to blackmail presidents, politicians and everyone else, or using COINTELPRO to infiltrate and discredit the civil rights movement—to the mundane, such as his capricious punishments for agents who displeased him or garnered publicity that should have been his.

In “J. Edgar,” Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (who wrote 2008’s “Milk”) try to reconcile the mythologized Hoover, the historical Hoover, and the real man underneath it all. As a result, “J. Edgar” is as elusive and frustrating as Hoover himself.

The film casts Hoover as neither a villain nor a hero, neither sympathetic nor pitiable. Black and Eastwood often come close to revealing the complexities beneath Hoover’s brash exterior and fanatical façade, but frequently come up short. The subject is more to blame than the filmmakers. Hoover did such a thorough job of mythologizing himself and obscuring his personal life that Black, Eastwood, and DiCaprio are left to paint a portrait with only hints, innuendos and suppositions.

“J. Edgar” is told in flashback, with Hoover, at the height of his powers in the late 1960s, reflecting on the beginnings of his career in 1919. With a senile father and a suffocating mother (played with aplomb by Judi Dench), it’s no wonder young Hoover threw himself into his work. He finds comfort and purpose in the pursuit of political radicals, though the source of his fervor is never totally clear. There’s a lot in common here with DiCaprio’s performance as conman Frank Abignale in “Catch Me If You Can”—he plays Hoover as a master of disguise and obfuscation, a man who makes a public show of his own morality and sense of justice to keep hidden his own frailties.

“J. Edgar” really comes alive when Hoover’s frailties become human in the form of Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). The two first meet in a nightclub, where an associate of Hoover’s introduces the young Tolson. It’s not quite love at first sight, but it’s something, and the scene is wonderfully acted by Hammer and DiCaprio. It’s the first time cracks appear in Hoover’s façade, and DiCaprio pulls it off wonderfully. Through him, we see that, even in private, Hoover was never fully honest about who he was and what he wanted. DiCaprio doesn’t inhabit Hoover in the same way that, say, Sean Penn captured Harvey Milk, but it’s not due to lack of skill; he can’t inhabit the role because Hoover himself was a construct.

The relationship between Tolson and Hoover remains chaste but unambiguous in “J. Edgar.” The historical truth of their relationship is hard to pin down, but the emotional truth of unspoken, forbidden love drives the film and gives it a tragic edge.

Reconciling that private tragedy with the arc of Hoover’s career seems more than “J. Edgar” can handle, though. The film gets hung up on Hoover’s involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping, a defining moment in the FBI’s history (since it spurred federal laws that gave the FBI increased investigatory powers), but not a defining moment in Hoover’s life. The tension between Hoover’s ideals of justice and his willingness to subvert the Constitution in pursuit of communists in his middle years is missing—a glaring and frustrating omission.

Hammer breathes some life into the latter half of the movie when the ailing Tolson bluntly challenges Hoover’s version of events. If only there were more of that push between the real and the fictional. There’s room in “J. Edgar” for judgment and sympathy, but Eastwood and Black err perhaps too heavily on the side of sympathy and ambiguity. It was a fine position for Eastwood to take in the meditative “Hereafter,” but it’s maddening in “J. Edgar.”

While it avoids some of the more lurid rumors about Hoover (such as tales of his penchant for cross-dressing), “J. Edgar” never holds its subject accountable. It’s a fundamental problem that seeps through in other areas of the film. Naomi Watts plays Helen Gandy, Hoover’s life-long personal secretary. She’s a fascinating character, just as career-driven and secretive as Hoover, but she’s shuffled off-stage too quickly and the source of her devotion is a mystery.

The cool confidence with which Eastwood constructs the film comes to a halt whenever Hoover faces off against a historical figure. A scene between Hoover and Robert Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) should be tense but comes off as stilted and strained. Later, both DiCaprio and Hammer appear under heavy old-age makeup, and the effect is distracting. Like Hoover’s life, the film’s larger arc works, but the details holding it together are weak.

Eastwood makes subtle nods to the present landscape, tracing the roots of political dirty tricks and partisan hackery back to Hoover. “J. Edgar” is not the flattering portrait Hoover would have preferred, but it’s not so damning, either. History is written by the winners, and, 40 years after his death, Hoover still seems to be in control of the story.

The simple premise seemed ripe with raucous possibilities for blockbuster season. It’s helmed by Jon Favreau and stars Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, and a stable of great character actors. What could go wrong?

Almost everything, as it turns out. But most glaringly: the movie’s five credited screenwriters squander the premise, Favreau loses the swagger he brought to the “Iron Man” films, and each cast member seems to think he’s in some other movie about cowboys and aliens—a comedy, maybe, or some kind of ironic western.

Craig, at least, is pretty clear on his role. He’s Lonergan, a hard-drinking, ass-kicking gunslinger who’s got no memory of how he ended up in the desert wearing some weird jewelry and sporting a bad wound in the gut. Lonergan makes it back to town, gets sewn up by the preacher and, in short order, lands himself in jail on charges of robbing a stagecoach. The gold he allegedly stole belonged to Dolarhyde (Ford), the big-shot cattle rancher who runs the town and who is determined to see Lonergan hanged for his crime.

But then the aliens show up in some jets that look sort of like dragonflies. They strafe the town, blow up some buildings, and snatch up a bunch of townsfolk, including Dolarhyde’s no-good son (Paul Dano) and the wife of the local saloon keeper (Rockwell). Lonergan’s bracelet comes to life and starts zapping alien ships, the remaining townsfolk form a ragtag posse, and the mysterious Ella (Olivia Wilde) tries to help Lonergan recover his memory and commit to kicking alien ass.

Favreau keeps things chugging along, but it’s so predictable that there are no surprises and little fun. The screenwriters, including genre vets Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, mash together western clichés with alien invasion clichés instead of having fun with the material. A brief stop at a riverboat casino the aliens have dropped in the middle of the desert is promising but never amounts to much. And some sequences are downright laughable, such as when Lonergan undergoes a mid-movie vision quest with the help of some Apache and his spirit animal, a hummingbird.

Nothing fits together here. Is “Cowboys & Aliens” a lighthearted sci-fi action flick? Is it a serious-but-dumb blockbuster? Is it an ironic tweak on genre conventions?

It seems to depend on who’s on-screen at the moment. Craig is grim and confident, but with a touch of humor—a perfect performance for a brainless mid-summer blockbuster. But Ford seems grumpy and vaguely embarrassed about his lines. Dano and Rockwell, meanwhile, tailor their performances for an ironic western comedy that might or might not involve aliens. Favreau doesn’t even seem to know what sort of movie he’s making, and the cool confidence he lent to “Iron Man” and its sequel are totally absent.

The problem may start with the source material itself. “Cowboys & Aliens” originated all the way back in 1997, when Scott Mitchell Rosenberg pitched the movie based on a one-sheet poster of a cowboy fleeing from a UFO. That pitch became a graphic novel in 2006.

“Cowboys & Aliens” is a movie based on a comic based on a poster, which wouldn’t be so bad if the film ever moved beyond its own premise. But it doesn’t, and the crazy thrills promised by the idea of cowboys slugging it out with aliens never materialize. Rosenberg should have stuck with the poster and left it at that.

As endings go, it’s a good one, though not without some difficulty. Director David Yates, who’s helmed the Potter series since the fifth film, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” had the tough job of wrangling Rowling’s sprawling seventh novel into two films. The first “Deathly Hallows” is more contemplative and full of angst than its sequel, which fires off magic curses first and delivers explanations second. It mostly works, although “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is so concerned with racing to the inevitable, climactic battle between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) that the smaller character touches that have made the series so great get lost in the shuffle.

“Deathly Hallows: Part 2” opens minutes after the final moments of part one. Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) have concluded their sojourn in the wilderness and realize they must return to Hogwarts, where they will find the last of the horcruxes, the magical devices that, when destroyed, will weaken Voldemort. But the Hogwarts they return to is not the whimsical place found in the series’ earlier movies. Now under the control of Headmaster Snape (Alan Rickman), the school is dreary and oppressive. Students march in neat little rows to and from class and discipline is meted out with fists and other implements. Voldemort isn’t far behind, of course, and as Harry scours the school, the dark wizard marshals his army and begins his final push to destroy Potter once and for all.

Those battles are the main attraction in “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” and, for the most part, they don’t disappoint. Yates gives the siege of Hogwarts a deservedly epic treatment, and as waves of dark wizards, giants, and enormous spiders descend on the castle, the danger feels real and the grandeur is palpable.

Harry and Voldemort’s final duel, though, lacks some of that snap. We know it’s important, but there’s little spirit. They tumble off cliffs and rickety bridges, wands flashing and exploding, but they fight alone, almost wordlessly, while their respective allies busy themselves someplace else. The staging suggests that the fight at the school, full of sharp characters, small acts of heroism, and some nice comedic moments, is the main event; the Harry-vs.-Voldemort fight is just a sideshow.

That weakness is likely a result of trying to cram in so much from the book, but it’s too bad Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves couldn’t have slowed things down a bit and provided a little more lead-up to both battles. Nearly all the secondary characters get some great moments here, especially Maggie Smith, who’s both fierce and funny as she rallies the school’s defenses. Matthew Lewis, the once-bumbling-but-now-hunky Neville Longbottom, makes a heroic stand, and Julie Walters, the matronly Mrs. Weasley, has a nice bit in which she ruthlessly defends her daughter.

But as the script rushes from one bit to the next, those moments feel perfunctory rather than grand. An early bank heist sequence set in the wizard world’s subterranean bank is exciting, but the best part comes near the end, as an escaped dragon perches momentarily on a roof and takes a deep, exultant breath.

The cast makes up for the few lapses in the script. Everyone is on their A-game for “Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” from Radcliffe, Grint and Watson, who have all grown into fine actors, to supporting players like Rickman, Smith and Fiennes. Rickman gets some of the film’s best scenes as he transforms Snape, one of Harry’s long-standing adversaries, into a tragic hero with complex allegiances and complicated goals.

Ultimately, it’s a fitting end for the series. When the first film was released a decade ago, Harry’s world was cheerful and bright, with only hints of menace lurking around the edges of whimsy. “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is the opposite, with bits of light shining through the darkness. The actors, and the characters they play, have all matured, and the movies have traded Quidditch matches for brutal fights and a good amount of snogging.

But when that dragon takes a deep breath or Maggie Smith gleefully sets an army of stone soldiers a-marching, it’s clear that light is still at the core of “Harry Potter.” Seven books, eight movies, and more than 10 years later, Harry and friends remain forever young.

In “Horrible Bosses,” those targets are Nick (Jason Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day), and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), old friends who are trapped under the oppressive heels of some sinister supervisors.
Vexing them are Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), a psychotic, manipulative control freak; Bobby Pellit (Colin Farrell), a coke-addled dweeb with a collection of nunchuks and kimonos; and Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), a sexually aggressive dentist who probably belongs on a state registry.
There’s a recession on and new jobs are hard to come by, and so Nick, Dale and Kurt decide to deal with their bosses in the most logical way possible: they’ll kill them.

Exhibiting a flair for crime on par with their ability to find better jobs, they hire a “murder consultant” (Jamie Foxx), who suggests they each kill each other’s boss, a la “Strangers on a Train.”

Bateman, Day and Sudeikis share the sort of easy chemistry that leads to great riffing, and that’s what holds up “Horrible Bosses” during its sluggish beginning. The script, by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Michael Markowitz, takes an easy, identifiable premise and drags the setup out to an interminable length. Bateman’s a great deadpan straight-man, Day is wonderfully manic, and Sudeikis is a charming-but-incongruous rake. Though they work well together, they always seem to be running in place. Spacey, Farrell, and Anniston, meanwhile, get to revel in their characters’ awfulness.

Things pick up quickly once the boys enact their plan (and Nick and Dale accidentally inhale a pile of cocaine), but just as quickly, the movie lurches to a halt. “Horrible Bosses” works best when its leads succeed (or think they succeed) despite gross incompetence. In one inspired bit, Day gets everyone out of police custody thanks to some barely-remembered lines he once heard in a “Law and Order” episode. In others, Foxx dispenses assassination advice and drops choice hints that his criminal background might be a tad embellished.

But just as often, the script, and director Seth Gordon, set the characters into motion but give them nothing to do. As a result, things get flat and unfunny pretty quickly. And as thin (yet promising) as the plot is, Gordon loses the thread completely by the end, even forgetting that there’s still one out of three bosses to deal with before the credits roll. That’s not to mention all the gay jokes and extensive talk of prison rape, which seems to be the go-to off-putting trend these days for comedies aimed at dudes.

Like “Bad Teacher,” “Horrible Bosses” could’ve been a satirical triumph, if only better writers and directors were involved. There are some throwaway jabs at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, but Gordon and the writers expend most of their energy on some lamely constructed (even by the most generous standards) poop jokes. Still, you’ll probably laugh a little, which is just enough to keep everyone involved in “Horrible Bosses” working another day.

I’m in the process of transcribing notes and following up with some of the people I met at the conference. I’m also planning the next stage of this summer’s research: a trip to San Antonio for the Adoptee Rights rally on Aug. 8. I’m booking plane tickets and looking for a place to stay. I’m also hoping that my phone will be working this time around (it crapped out spectacularly in Provincetown) and I’ll be able to take some video of the rally.

More updates and reflections on the conference will be coming soon.

If you’re going to the conference, drop me a line. I’m hoping to meet and/or interview adoptees, adoptive parents, clinicians, and others. My focus is on how open records laws, the adoptee rights movement, and the internet have changed adoption in the last two decades. If you want to meet up at the conference, contact me at larryclow [at] gmail [dot] com.

Somewhere in all that, there’s room for a good satire, but it’s not “Bad Teacher.” Written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (the team responsible for the 2009 bomb “Year One”) and directed by Jake Kasdan, “Bad Teacher” takes the formula perfected in “Bad Santa” and follows it joylessly to the letter. Take an innocent, sacrosanct profession, add a boozy, vulgar protagonist looking for redemption, mix in some adorable kids and see what happens.

But Billy Bob Thornton, in all his gruff, gross glory, anchored “Bad Santa” with an equal mix of pathos and unapologetic jack-assery. Cameron Diaz doesn’t even come close in “Bad Teacher,” though she might deserve an A for effort. Well, maybe a B+.

Diaz stars as Elizabeth Halsey, a lazy woman who’s killing time as a middle school teacher until she marries her dumb, ultra-rich fiancé. He breaks off the engagement, though, and Elizabeth’s dreams of a luxurious life are thwarted. Unsure of what else to do, she returns to school in September and sets out to find another rich man.

One possibility is Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), a sexy new substitute with a massive family fortune and an earnest, goofy personality. To get her man, Elizabeth decides she needs to get breast implants, and so she begins stealing, scamming and conniving her way to earning the $9,000 or so she needs for the operation. Opposing her is the manic uber-teacher Miss Squirrel (Lucy Punch), who disapproves of pretty much everything Elizabeth does.

Miss Squirrel gets to do a lot of disapproving. Elizabeth drinks and smokes pot while she’s at school and her entire teaching plan revolves around showing her students movies about better, more inspirational teachers (“Stand and Deliver,” “Dangerous Minds” and so on) while she sleeps off her many hangovers. And that’s all in addition to berating her students, their parents and everyone else who works at the school. The only character enamored with her is Russell (Jason Segel), an affable gym teacher who shares some of Elizabeth’s extracurricular interests but keeps all his drinking and smoking off school grounds.

“Bad Teacher” is at least a nice change of pace for Diaz, who built her early career on roles as a loveable goofball and has spent the last few years stuck in movies that are beneath her (“The Green Hornet” and “Knight and Day” are two notable examples). She swears and struts and snarls through “Bad Teacher” and it’s a fine way for her to show off her comedic chops, but it’s too bad she doesn’t have as strong or believable a role as Kristen Wiig had in “Bridesmaids.”

Elizabeth’s shocking behavior is funny, but there’s nothing underneath the character. In “Bad Santa,” the appalling behavior is tolerable because we know redemption is at hand. But in “Bad Teacher,” it never seems like Elizabeth wants or needs to turn over a new leaf. She remains unpleasant throughout, and the predictable happy ending seems like a cheat.

That sort of forethought might be asking too much from Stupnitsky and Eisenberg, both of whom have done well as writers for “The Office” but completely dropped the ball with “Year One.” “Bad Teacher” is all over the place, with lots of flat jokes, a smattering of gross-out gags, and decently-constructed setups that go nowhere. Characters disappear frequently and, for a movie set in a school, the students hardly figure into things at all.

Lucy Punch has some great bits of physical comedy, but she never gets the big scenes she deserves. Meanwhile, Timberlake plays against type as a dorky buffoon, but his lines seem like they belong in some other comedy.

Kasdan directed “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” a music-movie parody that fit in well with the Adam McKay-Will Ferrell school of comedies, and there are moments in “Bad Teacher” where that sort of anything-goes aesthetic peeks through. They don’t last long, though, and “Bad Teacher” settles for being average and unremarkable—a bad strategy for making it through school, but a perfectly acceptable one for a summertime comedy.

As part of my research, I want to hear from adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents. If you’ve reconnected with family members through open records requests or by using social networks, please contact me at larryclow[at]gmail.com.

I’m adopted. And I’m working on my MFA thesis, which, not coincidentally, is about adoption.

My focus is on how the internet has changed how adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents interact. Adoption searches, familial relationships—they’re all different now because of the internet.

I want to hear your stories. If you’re an adoptee who found a birth parent on Facebook, or a birth parent who tracked down on Google the child you put up for adoption years ago, or an adoptive parent helping your child navigate these strange avenues, I want to hear from you. (And, by extension, if you know someone who might fit this description, please pass this link on to them.)

My scope is pretty broad right now, but I’m especially interested in talking to folks living in the southern NH/northern MA area.

A proper blog, and attendant Twitter/FB/etc. accounts will follow soon. For now, I’m lining up interviews and collecting stories. If you fit in any of these categories, or know someone who might, drop me note at larryclow [at] gmail [dot] com. Please help if you can.