“Reel Time” by Diane McCurdy
Also on KRCB 90.9 fm at 8:35 am, Thursday or “Streaming” on the web at www.krcb.org/listen
No Country For Old Men
It’s not fair! After a long, hot summer of popcorn films followed by the Fall doldrums we are suddenly assaulted by a surge of fabulous films. It happens every year at this time. The prestige movies are released now because the Academy Awards are in February and a movie must be out the preceding year to qualify for consideration. The academy assumes that voting members, as well as the American public in general, have short memory spans and they are probably correct so they jam all the year’s best into the last two months of the year. Zodiac was a great film but it opened in the Spring and is likely to be forgotten.
One film that won’t be forgotten around Oscar time is No Country For Old Men. The Coen brothers who share writing, directing and producing credits have concocted a grisly thriller based on a novel by the Pulitzer Prize winning author, Cormac McCarthy. The scene opens with trailer trash welder, Josh Brolin, hunting in a desolate area of Texas. He stumbles upon an apparent drug deal gone bad. The body count is high. He finds one half-dead Mexican who begs for, “agua.” He also finds a suitcase with two million dollars in it. Returning in the middle of the night, conscience-driven, to deliver that “agua” to the dying man, he finds he is not the only one who has returned to the scene of the crime. More bodies pileup and the hunt begins. There is a short story called The Most Dangerous Game. The game in question has nothing to do with wildlife. It is man. Javier Bardem becomes the pursuer. Absolutely amoral, sporting a weird Buster Brown hair-do he tracks his human prey relentlessly with a Javert-like persistence. Bardem’s sterling characterization of a villain will be remembered in film annals right along side of Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lecter. Oftentimes he determines ones fate by tossing a coin. Woody Harrelson enters the fray as a cocky bounty hunter and Tommy Lee Jones is a world- weary sheriff. And one realizes what a consummate artist the cinematographer, Roger Deakins, is when a shadow almost becomes a persona.
Themes reflect the eternal struggle between good and evil set against the changing ethos of the West. The plot is full of tortuous twists and turns and a sprinkle of black humor. It is almost as if a new genre has been created: the black comedy, western thriller. Whatever you want to call it, you will be chilled and spellbound.
Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl is a warm puppy of a movie. Rarely have I been so charmed. It is the tender story of an emotionally distant young man, the titular Lars played by Ryan Gosling, who purchases an anatomically correct, life-size doll on the Internet and introduces her as his girlfriend, Bianca. Apparently the untimely death of Lars’ mother has caused him to be unable to connect with others. Although he appears functional on other levels he can’t even interact with his brother and sister-in-law, Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer. His office mates, his family the entire little town accept Bianca not only to protect Lars but they actually seem to need her too and to like her as well. She goes to church, has her hair done, reads to children and is even elected to the school board. Ingeniously suggesting that Bianca might need a check up, the local physician, Patricia Clarkson, is able to turn her attention to Lars and his issues when his girlfriend is brought in for her appointment. The film is whimsical but also profound as we are presented with the healing powers of community, family and decency.
For the bizarre premise to work required the utmost delicacy on the part of the scriptwriter and the director. It is safe to say, however, that the merit of the film itself lies on the shoulders of Gosling’s meticulously nuanced performance. He proves that his Academy Award nominated performance as the drug addicted middle school teacher in Half Nelson was not a fluke. Without formal dramatic training the Canadian born Mickey Mouse Club alumnus made a smooth segue into being an actor’s actor. He sings a little in Lars and it is obvious that his voice is trained, in fact he won a Mouse Club audition over 17,000 others. He plays a mean jazz guitar, has won several Independent Spirit Awards and is an advocate for Darfur refugees.
I don’t mean to short change the other performances in the movie that are also pitch perfect. Nothing beats the scene where Lars first introduces Bianca to his brother and sister-in-law. The four sit in the living room. Lars exudes a mildly delusional yet self-satisfied happiness while the other two are stunned speechless. There is a fine line here between pity and ridicule called compassion and Lars and the Real Girl treads it nicely. It is a thoroughly delightful film.
Hawaii
Having just returned from Alohaland, I began to reflect on the films that have focused on those enchanted islands not the pop culture ones such as Elvis Presley‚s Blue Hawaii nor the war-themed ones such as Pearl Harbor and From Here to Eternity nor the surf fests such as Endless Summer and Blue Crush which are fun but they mostly mirror the beach ambience. I’m thinking of the REAL Hawaii that is portrayed in several movies that have been inspired by James Michener’s ponderous, 1,000 page novel. I have always found it enthralling and have read it more than once. The first film adapted from it was produced in 1966, it covers the time period of the 1800’s and covers only one section: the arrival of the missionaries. Max Von Sydow portrays an over zealous, over bearing minister determined to bring Christianity to the natives and eradicate what he perceives as ignorance and sloth and in the process he not only wipes out a good deal of the culture but a good deal of the population as well. The cinematographer had the easiest job. The breathtaking beauty of the islands is infallibly photogenic. The script was written by black-listed scribe, Dalton Trumbo and the score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. This film, entitled Hawaii, went on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards. Julie Andrews, fresh from The Sound of Music plays the missionary’s longsuffering wife and Carroll O’Conner, pre-Archie Bunker, plays her father. In a piece of amazing trivia it should be noted that Bette Midler, of all people, has a cameo as one of the passengers aboard ship heading for the islands. Focusing mostly on characters, the clash of civilizations is presented subtly but the harshness by which Western values are imposed on the idyllic Eden is clear.
The sequel, The Hawaiians, was released in 1970. It begins somewhere about page 600 of the Michener novel. This continuation stars that old swashbuckler himself, Charlton Heston. It is not the end of the 19th century and Heston is the head of a dynasty which includes Geraldine Chaplin and John Phillip Law. This film has something for everybody from leprosy and lust to post-partum depression and American imperialism.
The Michener epic begins when there is a fissure in the ocean floor and a spurt of steam pops out and travels several miles to the surface of the sea signaling that 40 million years later an island would be born. This mighty tome ends when Hawaii becomes a state. There are many more films in this book. I would like to see the beginning filmed as a geological documentary that segues gradually into a fictionalized account of the wandering inhabitants of Bora Bora or Samoa or wherever who, when hopelessly lost, inadvertently stumble on this island paradise. It would be a grand prequel to the other two movies.
Into the Wild
Into the Wild is the latest endeavor from Marin County resident, Sean Penn. He wrote, directed and produced the film based on a book by Jon Krakauer, author of the recent best-seller Under the Banner of Heaven, an exposé of the Mormon religion. This piece is antithetical to that topic. It concerns 22-year-old Christopher McCandless, Emile Hirsch, who graduates from Emory College and attempts to escape form the “poison” of civilization by donating his savings to Oxfam, changing his name, leaving his warring parents, Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt, and his younger sister, Jenna Malone who exhorts him to see “the bigger picture” and embarking on a journey into the unknown, a two year Odyssey for Atlanta to Alaska.
Like any good road picture he has many adventures along the way while traveling through North Dakota, Arizona and California. He takes parttime jobs and experiences physical abuse. He meets a myriad of weird and colorful characters including a hippie couple, the distaff side of which is played by a sparkling Catherine Keene, a Danish pair only minimally clothed and Vince Vaughn, a buoyant farmer, who pays him good wages. A standout performance is given by Hal Holbrook in a grandfatherly role. He would actually like to adopt our wanderer. When Christopher, who has recently christened himself Alex Supertramp, finally reaches Alaska he crosses a river in desolate territory and finds an abandoned school bus in which he makes a home. This is the end of his spiritual journey. What he learns is that his triumph is hollow, that true happiness is a shared emotion and he has no one to share his enlightenment with. In the Spring, the ice melts, the rains come and the river swells and those who have read the book know what happens next so I won’t be a spoiler.
While the film is beautifully photographed and unfolds artistically, I had no sympathy for the protagonist. It is arrogant to eschew society and regress. I don’t think it is even possible. There are those of us who are stuck in this mess and we are trying to figure it out, make it better. When Christopher finally figures it out, it is too late. It takes a while for the film to figure it out also. This is a long movie: two and one-half hours.
The Birds
It’s more than a rumor but not yet an absolute reality. There is to be a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 cult classic, The Birds, so famously filmed in Bodega and its environs. The project is “in active development.” In Hollywood terms this period can last weeks, months and even years. Details are still unsettled, separate sources have each indicated a different screenwriter, one of whom previously worked on the Thomas Crown Affair and the other on Bogeyman. Let’s hope the former gets the job. Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes Company will produce. Bay, I’m sorry to say, is known in inside circles as a schlock, not an artist. He is very successful at what he does: Armageddon, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Transformers, mostly big action numbers with little characterization. Naomi Watts will play the Tippi Hedren/Melanie Daniels role only this time the featured blonde will be a single mother not an icy, uppity society dame.
Bodega has always reveled in its part in the production of the original The Birds,” in fact Tippi Hedren comes back for a visit and to publicize her Shambala animal sanctuary regularly. She probably named her daughter Melanie Griffiths after the character she played. Of course, the stories about Hitchcock are legendary. His films do not always stand the test of time. I am not in any way negating his genius. He just lacked today’s technology. The scene in the original when the school children are running out of the school house and the birds attack engenders laughter from contemporary audiences. So even though most remakes have a bad reputation, this one would be enhanced with contemporary special effects. Recall, however, the scene when Tippi is sitting in front of the jungle gym while the birds slowly assemble on it, all set to the hypnotic, repetitive sound of the round the children are singing. Don’t touch that piece. It’s perfect.
The new version is supposed to stay closer to the original story from which the movie was adapted. The Daphne Du Maurier short story first appeared in an anthology of her short pieces called Kiss Me Again Stranger. It was set in a small English seaside village. Mr. Bay has chosen to change the venue to Texas! It’s a travesty! It’s betraying something sacrosanct! The location has lead one blogger to comment that he wishes the birds would attack Mr. Bay.
Talk To Me
Talk To Me is about radio and its pervasive influence, more specifically it is about a radio man, Ralph Waldo "Petey" Green, dynamic, beloved and terminally eccentric.
We first meet Petey in prison where he is doing ten years for armed robbery. Don Cheadle’s performance as Petey is a far cry from his dignified portrayal of Paul Rusesebagina in his Oscar nominated role in Hotel Rwanda. He is, however, phenomenal in both. He meets radio executive, Dewey Hughes, Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is visiting his own brother, a lifer. Petey had been deejaying a prison radio station and discovered that he had a talent and a passion for it. He talks himself into an early release and when on the outside he talks, cajoles and connives himself into a position on the small Washington D.C. radio station where Dewey works which is owned by Martin Sheen. The men begin an uneasy relationship. Petey says the things that Dewey is afraid to say and Dewey does the things that Petey is afraid to do. The complement and complete one another. Dewey is educated and disciplined and dresses in conservative suits and Petey is outrageous and flamboyant. Ratings spike as Petey rants about racism and poverty on the air. He becomes the voice of the ghetto. Set against the background of Vietnam, Watergate and the Black Power movement, when Martin Luther King is assassinated it is Petey who calms the enraged and rioting populace. Dewey becomes Petey‚s manager and continues to push him eventually outside of his comfort zone and they become estranged. However, their friendship triumphs when Dewey realizes that his goals do not necessarily coincide with Petey‚s.
This biopic is overshadowed with the towering performance of Don Cheadle. Teraji P. Henson as Petey’s girlfriend is so far over the top that she is a caricature and a cartoon. She has a hot body and a small wardrobe assignment. Vondie Cutis-Hall is the bland morning disc jockey, Sunny Jim and Cedric The Entertainer is Nighthawk who takes over in the wee hours. The director Kasi Lemmons uses actual footage of civil unrest and a cool rhythm and blues soundtrack. Green in all his coarseness was a visionary, a forerunner in giving the medium a new definition.
No Reservations
There is always some prejudice against a remake. It is scrutinized and compared and it more than often pales next to the original. If it is a re-imagining of a successful foreign film, critics can be even more brutal. No Reservations is almost a translation of the 2001 German film, Mostly Martha. It makes the transition with aplomb. It is a delightful re-interpretation. If you want to escape from the testosterone charged pyrotechnics and elaborate special effects that are crowding the multiplexes tune into this sweet, predictable romance.
Catherine Zeta Jones is a rigidly regimented chef at an upscale Manhattan restaurant. She runs a tight ship. The kitchen is her domain. She is so obsessed that her boss, Patricia Clarkson, insists that she sees a therapist which, by the way, provides some of the best scenes as their sessions usually include Catherine discussing some of her delicious culinary concoctions. Catherine’s world is turned topsy-turvy when her sister is killed in an automobile accident and she acquires full custody of her nine-year- old niece played by Little Miss Sunshine herself, Abigail Breslin. Catherine is responsible but clueless as how to reach out to the little girl. In the meantime, the restaurant has hired happy-go-lucky sous chef, Aaron Eckhardt. He plays opera music in the kitchen, makes jokes and is a further disruption into Catherine’s once orderly but bleak existence. She often times needs to retreat to the restaurant’s industrial-sized freezer to collect her thoughts. Abigail and Aaron have instant rapport and it is Abigail who plays Cupid to the antithetical pair. There are a couple of sticky sweet moments that should have been edited such as a silly pillow fight and Abigail’s lonesome trek to her mother’s grave but the movie has so much heart that we can forgive a few lapses.
All the players are particularly appealing. The adults, however, seem suspiciously slender for being master chefs with sophisticated palates that prefer exotic flavors. And make no mistake, this is a food movie in the manner of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Babette’s Feast, The Big Night and most recently Ratatouille. The camera caresses Cahtherine’s lovely face but it will also linger on her quail with truffle sauce. No Reservations is a charming film, it is best not to see it on an empty stomach because you will be ravenous by the time it is over.
Goya’s Ghosts
Milos Formann the eminent director who gave us Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Valmont has now delivered the ghastly Goya’s Ghosts. It is a period piece that uses the king’s painter, Goya, as an anchor while plunging into the depths of the Spanish Inquisition. The film is divided into two parts. The first is historically interesting, the darkness of the subject matter brightened by the star-studded cast. The second, is a grotesquerie, melodramatic and cartoonish.
The film begins in the 1700’s. The Inquisition has lost some of its fire so the good brothers decide to amp things up a little. Brother Lorenzo is in charge and when Ines Bilbatua, the daughter of a rich merchant refuses to eat a weaning pig at a tavern, she is deemed a Jewish sympathizer and tortured until she confesses and is incarcerated. The connection to Goya is that Ines had served as his muse for several of his angels and Goya had also painted a picture of the priest, Lorenzo. Ines’ family desperately tries to have her released and they enlist Goya’s aid in setting up a dinner with Lorenzo. The arranged meeting turns dark as Lorenzo himself is tortured to prove that a human being in pain will cop to anything. Although the cardinal is not persuaded, Lorenzo visits Ines in prison and they kneel and pray together and somehow the kneeling position turns into a supine one.
Then we get a black screen that says 15 years has elapsed. Inquisition detainees are released from prison by the French as they shout “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” while pillaging and raping. Draw your own contemporary parallels. Ines is now a harridan with white, pasty skin, stringy hair and swollen mouth. No one could look like that and still be alive. She finds Goya and searches for a lost child. The child looks like a re-incarnation of the young Ines and is now a courtesan. Lorenzo is married with three children. Goya is deaf. The French are sacking Spain. It is a mess.
Costume, set design and score are impeccable but the narrative is a melodramatic mish-mash. Natalie Portman plays three roles: the young Ines, Ines, the hag and the daughter, Alicia. Randy Quaid is mostly ridiculous as King Carlos. Javier Bardem is Lorenzo. He is big in Spain and makes ladies swoon on both sides of the ocean. He is charismatic and less pretty but more dynamic than your typical heartthrob. Goya is Stellan Skarsgard whose performance is especially nuanced as the painter goes deaf and travels with a sign language interpreter.
Stay for the credits as they are superimposed on Goya’s paintings. The paintings are immortal and will be remembered long after the film is forgotten.
Golden Door
I had anticipated the film, Golden Door, perhaps because it was “presented” by this year’s Oscar winner, Martin Scorese, whatever “presented” might mean in that particular context. It had also won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The main auditorium at the Rialto theater was packed a powerful indication of buzz that had been generated without much publicity. And after all, this was a foreign film, subtitled and artsy. But, I’ll have to admit I was disappointed.
The original title of the movie was Nuovomondo, or New world. In order to get at least a somewhat in tune with the narrative, the viewer must put himself into a specific frame of reference, that of a 19th century Sicilian peasant, illiterate, superstitious, untouched by the sophistication and the nuances of a modern society. What kind of mind set, courageous or idiotic prompted immigrants to leave their world for a newer, supposedly magically better one? Salvatore, a widower, sells his beloved animals to purchase shoes and clothes and embarks on a journey with his two grown sons, his feisty mother and two village girls. They depart in a horse drawn cart and venture into the unknown. Arriving on the loading dock they gather with the other poor huddled masses and are subjected to ludicrous scrutiny. On the steamship, in third class accommodations, in the bowels of the ship, they endure. Traveling with the Italians is a mysterious English woman, Lucy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, She is gentile and seems remotely wounded but with her shabby elegance she does not disdain the others. There is an inexplicable attraction between Lucy and Salvatore. On arriving at Ellis Island the trip ends as it had begun with a totally de-humanizing examination of the immigrants where educated health officials labor to prove that Italians and Jews, among others, are ethnically inferior.
The director, Emmanuele Crialese, received his training at New York University’s film school so I can’t say that it is his foreign sensibility that didn’t work and since all of my grandparents came over on one of those boats the experience is not even foreign to me. But, I felt I was presented with a series of vignettes that didn’t gel. The script seems to have borrowed a page from David Chase, creator of the Sopranos, in that nothing is resolved. What is Lucy’s story? Why can’t the second eldest son speak? Was the mother sent back to Italy? And what about the giant carrot floating in a sea of milk? Not even Sicily’s gorgeous topography is used to advantage. The director rhapsodizes but does it meld? One reviewer confessed that he really could not give an accurate appraisal because he wasn’t entirely awake through the whole picture. That is a telling statement.
Sicko
Sicko, Sicko, Sicko!! Are we sick of Sicko? The viewer may be underwhelmed by Michael Moore’s excoriating examination of our corrupt and deteriorating health care system only because the film has been so over exposed. We’ve heard about it since its inception. We’ve seen endless interviews with its corpulent creator. We’ve also viewed numerous film clips, been given pamphlets and fliers and been bombarded with emails urging us to see it. Perhaps all this publicity has diminished its shock value. I found it disturbing but more ironic that shocking. The most powerful, the richest nation on the planet, the most technologically advanced with the highest standard of living has the worst health care system because it is held hostage by the pharmaceutical and insurance companies who have ingratiated themselves to our politicians.
We have been indoctrinated with a knee-jerk response to the concept of socialism. It is BAD. Yet, Michael reminds us that our schools, libraries, postal system fire and police departments more or less fall into that category. If socialism is bad than socialized medicine is evil incarnate. Yet, France, Canada, England and Cuba who have it have a lower infant mortality rate and a higher life expectancy than we do. We are the only country in the Western world that does not offer such care to its citizens. Probably the ultimate irony that Moore describes is that known Al Qaida members imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay receive top of the line diagnostic and preventative care oftentimes denied to law abiding citizens. Interwoven in his breezy yet poignant presentation are horror stories recounted by patients and doctors: a little girl dies because she is refused treatment at a hospital that is out of her mother’s insurance “network.” a hard working, insured couple go bankrupt because of co-payments and uncovered contingencies, a man has to choose which severed finger he will have reattached as he can’t afford both, a woman involved in an automobile accident is denied re-imbursement for the ambulance that took her to the hospital because it was not pre-approved. Moore’s final segment includes 9/11 workers unable to receive treatment in the US who are treated not only capably but compassionately in Havana. How Moore managed to get into Cuba remains a mystery. There was talk that the US government would pursue possible charges against him for breaking the trade embargo with the Communist country. Such talk has subsided for fear of giving the film more free publicity. I am heartened that an artist can exert such influence. Make no mistake, Moore is a consummate artist and entertainer. The film opens dialogue on a crucial topic that has unfortunately been politicized. One has to be outrageous to be heard. Moore is outrageous.
A MIghty Heart
Many critics feel that Angelina Jolie’s star power overshadows her portrayal of Mariane Pearl in the film, A Mighty Heart. This is a specious argument which could be made against any big Hollywood celebrity who takes on the role of a non-fictional character. Did Jamie Foxx’s celebrity overshadow his portrayal of Ray Charles? Did Reese Witherspoon’s star status undermine her depiction of June Carter Cash? Those same critics who feel that the role was tweaked for Jolie should be reminded that Jennifer Aniston was considered for the part when the players were a little different. One of the producers is Brad Pitt.
Director, Michael Winterbottom, approaches his subject with both subtlety and occasional grandiloquence. He coaches an Oscar ˆworthy performance from Jolie, already in the possession of one golden statue. We all know the story so the artistry is in the unfolding. American Jew and Copote author, Daniel Pearl and his wife the French born, Afro-Cuban, Dutch, Buddhist are both investigative journalists, he for the Wall Street Journal, she for NPR. They are young, in love and passionate idealists seeking adventure and the Truth. In 2001, they arrive in Pakistan. Danny was to interview an extremist, Islamic cleric . He was researching links to the nefarious shoe bomber, Richard Reid. He sets out for the appointment but he never returns. The bulk of the narrative concerns the various officials and of course, five-months pregnant Mariane reacting to the kidnapping. The film , at this point, turns into a taut, police procedural, very tense, very real. The script indeed was adapted from Mariane’s own memoir. Danny’s colleagues, Pakistani investigators, U.S. embassy diplomats and Mariane herself immerse themselves in the search for her missing husband. Although we all know it exists, Winterbottom wisely does not subject the audience to the beheading tape. We are however given a good dose of how Daniel Pearl became a randomly selected symbol in a carefully plotted plan to demonstrate Islamic fear and hatred of Western Civilization.
In a powerful production that strives above all for restraint and realism I have only one trivial concern: Angelina’s wig. It never changes. It does not wilt in the Pakistani heat. It never becomes disheveled when she groans and wails in despair.. It doesn’t even get messed up in bed. She hides her baby blues with brown contact lenses, bronzes her alabaster skin and develops a very serviceable accent. So, what is the story on the hair? I’ll say no more because I don’t in any way want to demean the instructive tragedy that befalls Daniel Pearl.
La Vie En Rose
Edith Piaf said once that Americans didn’t understand her and she didn’t understand them. So much the pity! Actually there are probably millions here that adore her and there will be millions more who will understand and appreciate her talent after viewing Olivier Dahan’s biopic of her life La Vie En Rose.
Little Edith Giovnna Gassion had a brutal upbringing. Her petite 4’8” stature may have been the result of fetal alcohol syndrome as her mother was an alcoholic. Her father was a circus contortionist but she was raised mostly in a brothel where her paternal grandmother was the madam. She endured a childhood bout of blindness, the cure for which she attributed to St. Therese who became her life long patron.
The melodrama of her early life continued into adulthood as she dealt with her own addictions, broken love affairs and humiliations that were coupled with incredible triumphs. She had a self -proclaimed irresistible need to destroy herself and in 1963 at the age of 47 that is exactly what she did. Her tiny body ravaged by a myriad of conditions: alcoholism, morphine addiction, arthritis, pancreatitis, tuberculosis, ulcers and cancer.
Biographies of well-known figures are vehicles wherein actors excel. Marion Cotillard re-incarnates her subject. We hear Piaf’s big magnificent, honking voice emanating from that little skeletal body with precise, expert lip-synching. The film is told in a non-linear manner. It begins in the classical style “ in medias res”, in the middle of things. This method can be exciting and intellectually stimulating but this film is confusing in its pastiche which is a euphemistic way of saying it is messy. It is oft times difficult to tell where we are in Edith’s colorful life. Starting with her desolate childhood, her years as a street singer where a lesbian relationship is hinted and through her checkered career, the viewer is yanked back and forth. The death of her mentor, the ubiquitous Gerard DePardieu, her disastrous alcohol fueled diva tantrums, the death of her married boxer lover, all these events are tangled into Gordian knots. Such fragmenting of the chronology prevented me from knowing Edith, the person. Why did she represent the soul of the French? How did she attain her iconic status? What is it about her that arouses nationalism in her country?
Ultimately Edith’s life was not rosy at all. A more fitting theme would have been from one of her other songs, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” No regrets.
Jindabyne
Jindabyne is a strange film in that it is the antithesis of a Hollywood product. Devoid of glitz, glamour and cookie cutter dialogue, it is a re-interpretation of a Raymond Carver short story first brought to the screen in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts. The venue has been changed from the Pacific Northwest to the picturesque but oftentimes desolate snowy mountains in Australia and more specifically to a little town called Jindabyne.
The build up to the pivotal incident is interminable. An aboriginal girl is seen traveling on a deserted road as she is being stalked by a grizzled, sinister looking man. Then the scene shifts to the domestic disharmony that exists between Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney. Laura had a bout of post-natal depression after the birth of her son that required her mother-in-law to take over and the mother-in-law has never quite given up her authority. The tension begins when Gabriel and his buddies decide to take a Deliverance-type, male bonding fishing trip into the wilderness. Once there, they find the body of the girl who was introduced in the first scene. She is dead and her nude body is floating down the river. At this point a crucial decision is made in a sort of subtle manner. Because they have traveled such a distance over such rugged terrain with such great anticipation of revelry and sportsmanship and camaraderie, they decide to tie the body up so that it wont be lost and they continue to fish. When they return home they are reviled. The townspeople see the delay in reporting the body as part of a racial divide that exits between the aborigines and the European settlers. The media picks up the story and blows it all out of proportion but no one is more upset than Laura, Gabriel’s wife who becomes obsessed as she tries to understand Gabriel’s apparent callousness. She visits the victim’s family and tries to raise money for them. She insists on seeing the dead girl’s body and she throws up a lot. We can assume she is pregnant again.
Director, Ray Lawrence likes to film on an initial take to preserve a naturalness and spontaneity. He uses natural lighting as well. Laura’s house is dingy as is her wardrobe. She wears little or no make up. Pain is etched on he r face and that of her husband. The film is about a spiritual journey, about love, responsibility and relationships. It is poignant in that it is gritty and seeks truth.
Two French Films
I’m not really a fan of short films or short stories. Brevity doesn’t allow for much character development so it’s difficult to identify or empathize. Of course, edgy and ironic, there are a few knockout ones that are searingly memorable: The Lottery, The Cask of Amontillado, The Most Dangerous Game and The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. I can’t even remember some of the brief narratives that were part of the 18 vignettes that made up the film Paris, je t’aime. Even though these slices of life want to be a love song to the City of Lights few become that despite lots of high wattage talent. Top name filmmakers and stars pooled their talents but the sum of their efforts seem uneven, even amateurish at times. A lineup of eminent directors including Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Joel and Ethan Coen work with such luminaries as Steve Buscemi, Natalie Portman, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazarra – and I am only mentioning the Americans, the cast is international. The undertaking was monumental but the segments are too erratic, some are very abstract, some traditional. A gamut of themes is covered: love, loneliness, racial tension, relationships – some presented with a funny tone, some sad. The way these motifs are offered, however, is too loose. There is no unity of focus. It is an interesting smorgasbord, though, where one needs to pick-and-choose to ones taste.
Te second film is The Valet. It is one of those fluffy, French concoctions that they do so well. This one is by the same director who gave us La Cage Aux Folles. It seems that entrepreneur, Daniel Auteuil, has had his picture snapped by a paparazzo with his lover, a leggy blond. Also caught accidentally in the photo is a lowly valet. Daniel tries to convince his wife, Kristin Scott Thomas, who is the majority stockholder in his company, that the valet is with the blond. At a handsome price, he prevails upon the valet and the blond to pretend that they are romantically involved. The valet is concerned about upsetting his former girlfriend but the pretty blond seems to be the best sport and enjoys watching both men squirm. Both pictures are in French with English subtitles.
Hollywood does not have a good track record with remakes. Variety reports that Dreamworks has obtained the rights to The Valet and plans to develop it as a Farrelly brothers project. Mon Dieu!
Waitress
Waitress should be a candidate for the year’s Indy success story in the manner of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Little Miss Sunshine. It is everything that an Indy should be: quirky, whimsical and poignant. Keri Russell is the pixie-dixie charmer called Jenna who when a tiny bit tipsy is unhappily impregnated by her boorish husband. So desperate is she for some kind of validation that she becomes attracted to her obstetrician. The allure is mutual despite the presence of the doctor’s lovely wife who is also a physician. The affair with the dashing, sympathetic doctor opens her eyes to alternatives and options. Everything eventually turns out very decent and bittersweet. Indeed a certain melancholy hangs over the entire production as writer, director and co-star, Adrienne Shelley was murdered shortly before her film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
There are three waitresses who work in Joe’s cafe Keri Russell, Cheryl Hines and Shelly. They support one another like the three musketeers. Characterization is what gives the production zing. Even Cheryl’s invalid husband emerges as a persona even though he never appears we just hear Cheryl talk about him. Adrienne’s ditzy beau, the cafe manager, everyone bubbles with good-humored weirdness. Keri Russell stars in a role that seems tailor made for her. She is bright and sparkly and oblivious to her own dynamic qualities. She can even charm old Joe, Andy Griffith, who owns the cafe where she works and is eccentric in his menu selections. The effervescent Jenna excels in the art of pie making. The cafe offers 27 different types. Her pies reflect her mood. One pie is called “Pregnant Miserable Self-Pitying Loser Pie”.
Bear me the use of a cliché and let me say the film has heart. Shelley’s themes are difficult ones too easily they could slip into the cutesy -poo mode and be spoiled. But, she has a grip on her subject matter keeping her humor tart rather than saccharine sweet. It is indeed tragic that Shelly’s career that shows so much promise was so abruptly concluded. If this film is to be her legacy, it will be a true and lasting one.
New on DVD
Here are two disparate films just released on DVD. They are polarities. One is heavy on dialogue and characterization, the other is all action.
Venus is the kind of film that we, Americans, would never make. It examines and somewhat celebrates old age. Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi, the directors and screenwriter of Venus, had collaborated previously on The Mother which featured a randy menopausal woman who falls into a tempestuous affair with studly Daniel Craig, filmed before he became James Bond.
Venus revolves around a bunch of old codgers who hang out together, put each other down but are part of a support system. Sensing he is losing his strength, one of the pals sends for his grand niece excepting her to do the cooking and cleaning. However she turns out to be slovenly and sluttish. The Peter O’Toole character takes her under his wing and they form an unlikely friendship that is, at times, prurient and pathetic. At other times, it is an absolute joy for both. Jessie, the niece is not a mean person and Maurice, O’Toole, is a charmer. They are like Eliza Doolittle and Mr. Higgins. Vanessa Redgrave, also an actress of a certain age, plays O’Toole’s long-suffering ex-wife with whom which he has an amicable relationship.
Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto begins with a written quote about how great societies destroy themselves from within. Is there a contemporary allusion here? Anyway, we are then shown an idyllic, primeval village. It is an innocent and harmonious society until the Mayans show up and make mayhem. They need some sacrificial humans to pacify the sun god who has been destroying crops and sending pestilences. Before being captured our young hero stashes his pregnant wife and young son in a deep well. He is then marched to a huge, sophisticated city where corruption is rife. Much had to be researched to reveal such detail: slaves coated in white dust, sacrificial victims painted blue, heads rolling down steep pyramid steps, rulers encrusted with turquoise jewelry. It is a spectacle worthy of Cecil B. De Mille by way of Hieronymus Bosch. Our hero escapes and desperately attempts to return to his family. The rest of the film chronicles his adventures while being viciously pursued. His stalkers use bow and arrows and knives but must deal with quicksand, killer bees, panthers, poison thorns and snakes. At the end there is a historical twist that fixes the setting in the early 1500’s. This film is a visual and visceral extravaganza. Mel is one weird dude but he sure is a hell of a storyteller.
From the ridiculous to the sublime or maybe the other way around depending on ones taste. Anyway, these two are ready for viewing right in your living room.
Black Book
Paul Verhoeven is a man of mind-numbing extremes . He is the director of Robocop and Total Recall and has a PhD in math. He is the creator of Basic Instinct and Showgirls and he is also a fellow with the Westar Institutive, an association of scholars who, by invitation only, organize Jesus seminars. What one would expect from Verhoeven is the unexpected, although. his latest film Black Book is not really a surprise but a return to his roots. It is a personal film, one he has been working on for twenty years. He is Dutch and this World War II thriller deals with the resistance. It is true that most of the Nazi’s are portrayed as heinous brutes and most of the resistance are righteous. However, he has the audacity to suggest that not all of the freedom fighters were pure and selfless heroes and not all the Germans were evil oppressors.
Verhoeven has a reputation for creating strong female protagonists. Remember Sharon Stone in basic Instinct? Rachel Stein is Sharon on steroids. She is an exquisite porcelain beauty but not fragile in any way. She is a commando. A cabaret singer before the war, she appears first living with a Christian family who require her to memorize gospel verses before she is given food. After her hiding place is bombed she arranges, at great price, to flee the country. The attempt is sabotaged and she is the lone survivor. She bleaches her hair, including her pubic hair and joins the resistance as Ellis de Vries. She romances not only a Nazi official but the doctor who is the head of the liberators as well. She becomes so entangled that neither side trusts her.
All the performances are pitch perfect. Carice Van Houten as Ellis/Rachel is magnificent. It is her picture. Her SS officer lover is Sebastian Koch who also appeared in the award winning The Lives of Others. The script is taut and suspenseful if a little over-wrought and over-written at the end. At first I thought that the frame story of Rachel living happily in a kibbutz in Israel and reflecting on her life in flashback was unnecessary and actually detracted from the narrative. But, as the camera pulls back from the final scene we see the soldiers climbing into their parapets to protect the settlement and it calls back an earlier scene in Holland when Rachel in a rare moment of hysteria cries out, "Will it never end?" Apparently it hasn’t yet.
Arachnophilia
(Spiderman)
Comic book action movies are really not my kind of fare, but I can usually appreciate them. I do not assume an intellectually superior position over those who thoroughly enjoy them. They are in the truest sense of the word “popcorn” movies, pure escapism and in these troubled times it is good to escape. The latest Spiderman, the third in a trilogy, is one of the few franchises that has survived with its crew intact. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and many lesser players as well return for encore performances as does director, Sam Raimi. The film clocks in at two hours and twenty minutes. I can give you a review of the first hour and a half but after that I was fast asleep in my chair at The Roxy. Most other reviewers seem to think that this Spider got a little too tangled up in the web it was spinning so maybe I dozed off at just the right time. I didn’t like all the computer generated high-jinks but there was some lovely scenes in the beginning especially the one with Tobey and Kirsten lying side and side and kissing on a giant web and the production values of Kirsten’s broadway debut were breathtaking. I am crazy about Tobey‚s crackly voice. Even though he is dancing around thirty, it sounds as if he is just entering puberty. I actually give great praise to Kirsten for not having her teeth straightened. Perfection is boring. Her teeth give her character. That said, let us now look at the narrative.
It seems the Green Goblin’s son and former buddy of Spiderman is hell bent on destroying him because he believes Spidey killed his father. That is the first villain. Then there is Venom, some kind of black venous glup that fell from the sky that turns Spidey‚s suit black and has an especially deleterious effect on Tobey’s rival at the newspaper where he works. Then there is the sandman who is an escaped convict who accidentally fell into a pit of sand where a nuclear experiment was being held and now can metamorphosize into a giant sand monster. The part where he twists and sensuously churns is primo CGI.
Probably there are a few too many villains. Comic relief is provided by Bruce Campbell as a French maitre‘d. He is wonderful. He chews the scenery with bravado. So the plot is Spiderman having to deal with all those weird bad guys while also having to deal with not being able to understand Kirsten‚s angst about her career and about his inattentiveness towards her.
There are some profound themes here about self-esteem and forgiveness and redemption and compassion. Have a strong cup of coffee first so you can stay awake to appreciate them.
The Monk Movie
Into Great Silence isn’t really a movie in our traditional definition of the term. It is an experience, an unusual one.
The Carthusian monks are the subject of German documentarian Philip Groning. He asked to film inside their monastery in 1984 and they said they would get back to him. They did 16 years later. This gives you some idea of their concept of time. The monastery itself dates back to 1084 when St. Bruno founded this order, one of the most strict, most ascetic and most austere in the Catholic Church where silence is almost perpetual and the men only work and pray. The gothic edifice they inhabit looks like a rustic medieval castle and is majestically cradled in the Grande Chatreuse Mountains in the French Alps. We watch the inexorable change of seasons that matches the relentless rhythms of the life within the monastery walls.
In his film, Groning uses no narration, no sound track and no artificial light. Intermittently black screens are inserted with biblical excerpts in German, French and English. “If you want to be my disciple, you must give up everything.” “You have seduced me, O Lord, and I have been seduced.” Odd choice of words maybe something is lost in translation. The tempo would make a snail’s pace look like the Indy 500. It is obvious that in the best McLuhanish terms, the medium is the message. At my showing a couple of people left right away. As the movie neared the end of its almost three-hour length, most had left. I was considering exiting myself but then there was a shot of the monks in the mystical pre-dawn candlelight chanting their prayers. For me, Gregorian chant is hypnotic. I become transported, transfixed, transcended. I functioned on another level of reality. I stayed. The picture ends as it began. Things go on as they have gone on since the eleventh century and as they will go on in the future. At one point, the filmmaker cuts to a jet plane flying overhead. The irony is not lost.
I am puzzled. If these men are so infused with the love of God that they will give up everything – everything. Why aren’t they out there like Jesus was feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick. There is, however, a certain eloquence here. There is peace, serenity and boredom. This is not a movie for everyone. It is for the devoutly religious, the intensely curious, or the seriously masochistic. It is best understood as an experience. It is beyond words.
The Italian
To begin with , the film, The Italian, has nothing to do with Italy. It is quintessentially Russian. A little ragamuffin of a Russian orphan is chosen by a wealthy, affectionate Italian couple for adoption. Afterwards, he is teased by the other kids and called “the Italian”.
This orphanage where little Vanya lives is bleak and is in desperate disrepair but no one is deliberately cruel. The children have food and clothes. The headmaster is less mean than oblivious. The real power lies in the hands of a strange hierarchy. The older inhabitants who have not been adopted and who have grown up there rule in semi-Mafia style using the smaller children as petty thieves, prostitutes and legitimate day laborers. The compensation is kept communally. Maybe the Russians have a socialist gene. The kids survive as a collective.
The adoptive couple who want to adopt Vanya seem like nice people and he is amenable to their intentions except that way back in his 6 year old mind he cannot free himself from the image of his birth mother especially since someone else’s real parent has just shown up and when she finds out that her child is gone she ends it all by the very Russian tradition of throwing herself beneath a train. Obviously very bright and sophisticated beyond his years, Vanya enlists the aid of the orphanage’s teenage prostitute to teach him to read. Once literate he pilfers the institution’s files, finds where he was initially enrolled and embarks on an almost mythic journey to find his mother, encountering various and sundry obstacles along the way. The narrative becomes reminiscent of a primal fairy tale with the hero on a Joseph Campbell type of quest. Back at the orphanage the corrupt, Madam, who is really in the business of selling children, finds out Vanya is missing and she takes off in hot pursuit
The Italian is a film that one might see at a film festival where, it is noted, it has already received many European awards. It is not a commercially viable film for the U. S. That it isn’t, is a tragedy. Our distribution system doesn’t function for movies like these even though it is a true work of art and makes most of Hollywood’s overflow look like dreck. No chemically enhanced explosions, no naked ladies writhing in passion just a little boy who will break your heart. He will do it in a way that is neither saccharine nor cutesy. It is not so much that the film is sad, it is sad that the brain-numbing movie Wild Hogs has grossed 152 million and that this picture will fall into oblivion and it is a masterpiece.
Grindhouse
Grindhouse features Rose McGowan as a disillusioned stripper, Naveen Andrews of Lost as a mad scientist, Fergie of the “Black Eyed Peas” as a lesbian baby sitter and Bruce Willis as a malicious militarist. Eventually Rose will have a leg/gun, that is a machine gun serving as a prosthesis, Andrews will be decapitated, Fergie will be devoured by zombies and Bruce will be infected with leprosy-like pustules that pulsate over his body. All this in just the first reel!
If you have lived in a media free bubble somewhere you may not be aware that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have teamed up to re-create a genre that they both grew up with and which they both obviously love. The specific type of film is the 60’s and 70’s exploitation, over-the-top, sex-soaked gore fests. They were completed on minimal budgets hence production values were poor, logic was faulty, acting was amateurish and there were lapses in logic but they had a die-hard cult following. They were made quickly – “ground out.”
Grindhouse is replete with grainy film that occasionally melts and there are announcements of missing reels. Fake trailers, each with its own director, introduce the film and are inserted into the middle section. The production lasts three hours and includes two separate movies, one directed by Rodriguez and one directed by Tarantino. The Rodriguez piece plays first and is entitled Planet Terror. It is grossly excessive, deliberately so. Blood spurts like geysers. It seems some sort of biological weapon has been misappropriated and dispersed thereby turning the populace into zombies. They’re the ones who ate Rose McGowan’s leg and Fergie, as well as a good deal of the local populace. The survivors band together in what appears to be blatant homage to the Night of the Living Dead. The sound effects when heads are lopped off and abscesses burst are particularly squirm-inducing.
Death Proof , Tarantino’s part stars Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, a psychopath who entices young women into his specialty car and bounces them around until they are bruised, bloodied and mostly dead. Well, he does this until he meets up with Rosario Dawson and Zoë Bell. Zoë is really a stuntwoman and spends most of the movie hanging onto a Dodge Charger that is speeding along country roads at 90 miles per hour.
Most critics prefer Rodriguez’ blood bath and feel that Tarantino’s piece is too heavy on dialogue. I like the spitfire conversations that occur between his two sets of girls that have the misfortune of meeting up with stuntman Mike. I think Grindhouse is uniquely bizarre and incredibly creative. Most of it falls under the heading of “dumb fun”, but ultimately I felt it was too dumb and not that much fun.
Fluff and Grit
Avenue Montaigne is a bit of French pastry, The Lookout is a tough morality fable told without sentimentality. These two films represent the Ying and Yang of storytelling.
Avenue Montaigne could have been called Amelie Light or Amelie Redux. The narrative is different but the ingénue protagonist is the same. Jessica is a sweet naïf who comes to the city and with her gentle innocence touches many lives. There are three major plot lines that she interacts with. The first introduces us to Catherine who is a soap opera actress longing to be a cinema star. An American film director played by Sydney Pollock, the imminent American film director, may give her her big chance. It is a shock to see him pop in an all-French cast. Then, there is a rich art collector and his estranged son and a burned out concert pianist who is having a marital as well as a career crisis. This film is neither profound nor frivolous and it flits over some serious issues but it is all done with whipped cream fluff. Maybe too much fluff.
The Lookout begins with the day-to-day routine of a brain damaged young adult. In flash backs we see him as a teenager showing off to his girlfriend, speeding with car lights off so she can immerse herself in a sparkling haze of fireflies – followed by the inevitable collision. Of the four students, two die. Our protagonist survives and one remains only in a dreamscape of memories left for us to speculate about... Now living with Jeff Daniels who lost his eyesight by messing with meth, Chris feels lonely and isolated. He strikes up a conversation in a bar with some unsavory types who offer him camaraderie and sex. But, there is a price. He is sucked into being part of a heist at the bank where he works as a janitor. Things go downhill fast and they reach the nadir before there is redemption.
The character of Chris played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt is treated a little too sympathetically. He was a reckless teenager responsible for the death of his friends. He is much less culpable, however, for being duped by the criminals. The Lookout is the directorial debut of Scott Frank who wrote Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Dead Again and Minority Report. It is a thought-provoking thriller. I prefer grit over fluff.
Miss Potter
Nowadays we hear more about Harry Potter than Beatrix Potter. But, the Potters have both been influential British exports. Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter’s creation, has attained iconic status within Lagomorphic culture. His image is replicated yearly on thousands of chocolate bunnies and children are reminded of the disastrous things that can happy when one ventures too far from ones habitat – demonstrated by Peter’s debacle in Farmer Macgregor’s cabbage patch. Those little green books are an integral part of every pre-schoolers education.
Renee Zellweger, her glamour dimmed down to plainness, plays Beatrix. Most of the action takes places in the early 1900’s. She is a feminist before her time and is happily unmarried despite the best efforts of her family to find suitable pairing. Her nouveau riche parents are parvenu snobs. Defying her parents and the conventions of the day but always attended by her duenna, Renée shops around her little booklets to publishers. Finally her work is accepted by the Warne Company, but they have a hidden agenda. The publishing of her book is to provide training experience for the youngest brother of the firm. Ewan Macgregor portrays this brother, ironically. Is he distantly related to the aforementioned farmer whose cabbage patch was so famously invaded by that rascally rabbit, Peter? Anyway, Renee and Ewan begin an awkward, hesitant relationship sparked by Emily Watson who portrays Ewan’s sister. Emily’s performance is so full of vigor that she gives the story a nice infusion of energy. Having lived through her endearing animal characters, they are actually instrumental in Miss Potter’s breaking away from her stultifying existence. With her royalties she buys a farm in the countryside and she became a dedicated conservationist. When she died in 1943 she had designated thousands of acres to the National Land Trust. The Sonoma Land Trust information table set up in the foyer of the Rialto Theater as the film presented an irresistible tie-in.
Chris Noonan who gave us Babe directed Miss Potter. The most delightful segments of the film are when Miss Potter’s little creatures become animated, they come alive. This feature is not overdone. There is no cloying over-cuteness but only the gentle whimsy that was so present in Babe and made that film so memorable. This is a simple and charming movie but not without import. It is an engaging story that gives an insight into the mores and values at the turn of the century. It has a pixie-like quality not unlike Miss Potter’s books themselves.
The Host
Images
Courtesy of the Orphanage
The film, Babel, demonstrated all the interconnections between people and events across the globe. The movie, the Host, which has been well received by critics worldwide reminded me of that concept. It is a Korean horror fest whose monster was basically engineered in San Francisco at The Orphanage, a video effects lab. The visual effects supervisor and visual effects producer at The Orphanage were respectively, Kevin Rafferty and Luke O’Byrne. The computer graphics supervisor was Shadi Amassizadeh and the creature supervisor was Corey Rosen. These creators, however, took their cue from demon designer, Jang Hee-chul who sculpted his miniature monster at a workshop in Wellington, New Zealand. This creature feature is definitely a product of the global village.
The Host premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film festival. It has been described variously as a deep socio-economic treatise and as Little Miss Sunshine meets Godzilla. This is not your ordinary Asian shocker. The dysfunctional family at its core is even more intriguing than the digitally mastered demon unleashed on them. Park Nam-il works in a snack stand owned by his father. The stand is situated on the Han River from whose murky depths the beastie eventually emerges. Park is a hippie, loser type with dyed blond hair. His daughter is snatched by the mutation early on bringing his college educated, unemployed brother and archery obsessed sister together in a strengthened family bond as the they set out to find the girl. Thinking she has perished an outrageous funeral observation turns into dizzying hysteria. It’s OK to laugh because soon after it is revealed that, at this point, the girl is not dead as she soon calls her dad on her cell phone.
The film takes swipes at the American Government but it is an equal opportunity swiper in this area and takes jabs at the Korean government as well. The amphibious giant is initially brought to life when an American scientist insists on dumping gallons of polluted chemicals into the river, an incident that is based on an actual occurrence in 2000. Government coverups, the spinning of information and even deliberate lying as portrayed in the film are issues not unfamiliar to American audiences. The second act is too long here but The Host is destined to become a cult classic that will inspire many levels of interpretations for years to come.
Best Foreign Film
How could Pan’s Labyrinth not win best foreign film? It won awards for make-up, cinematography, and art direction. Guillermo de Toro’s fantastical, haunting narrative set against Franco’s Spain has a terrible beauty. It was with some resistance that I went to see The Lives of Others that had snatched the Oscar away from Pan. To begin with my lowered expectations were justified. It was talky, talky, in German, yet. Compared to Pan’s opulent, rococo art design, here was almost the complete absence of set decoration. Rooms were Spartan, devoid of embellishment. Sterile. I fidgeted, I squirmed and eventually I nodded off. Then something happened. I got sucked in. The pivotal premise of the film is that the protagonist experiences a transformation and I experienced that same transformation myself as I totally identified and understood the forces behind his change.
The screenplay writer and director, Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck had the lead actor in mind when fabricating his narrative so there is a perceptible perfect blending of character and characterization. Weisler, his protagonist, is a steely ruthless STASI, secret police interrogator. He is assigned to put full surveillance on an apparently loyal party member, an imminent playwright. The assignment is set up to get something on the guy, not because he has done anything suspicious but because a higher-up, a corpulent, repulsive minister has an itch for the dramatist’s girlfriend, a popular actress and he wants his competition out of the way.
The writer’s apartment is fully bugged and the secret agent becomes transfixed listening to the comings and goings. He is seduced by the mundane warmth that emanates therein. He is enticed by the power of art, the possibility of love and the beauty of music. What a subtle and magnificent theme!
The Lives of Others is a classic. It fully deserves all the awards it has received here and in other countries.
ZODIAC
Don’t be afraid to see Zodiac. It is only gory at the beginning. Then it turns into a police procedural that peels back layers and layers like an onion. Each new layer is more amazing than the last. Napa, Santa Rosa, Vallejo, San Francisco, Modesto all lay a dubious claim to fame as the aforementioned serial killer commits his crimes up and down the state, sometimes taking credit for heinous deeds he could not have possible perpetrated. It is not farfetched, having grown up in this area, to have a friend or relative with a Zodiac connection. But, I have two connections: one to a person who was victimized and one to the man suspected of being the killer himself. Neither party chooses to discuss the connection. They prefer to remain anonymous and shun the spotlight. Can’t say that I blame them.
David Fincher who directed Seven and The Fight Club has given us this film. It is right up his alley. It is a tale of obsession. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a Boy Scout type and a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle who messes up his marriage to doggedly chase lead after lead. Eventually his fixation pays off as he writes the book from which the screenplay was adapted. Of course, the assailant’s modus operandi was to taunt the police with coded messages. After the FBI and the CIA had failed, the initial code was cracked by a schoolteacher and his wife. The story tells how important details were over looked due to a lack of communication. Robert Downey Jr. is the reporter that everyone wants to emulate, hard drinking and charismatic. He is at first, a comrade to Graysmith dropping out at last succumbing to his own devils. Mark Ruffalo is Dave Toschi, the San Francisco police detective, who pursued the suspect on the most dangerous levels. Brian Cox makes a cameo appearance as flamboyant lawyer, Melvin Belli whose own notoriety appealed to killer.
At almost three hours, I am most impressed by the filmmaker’s pace. Even though he deals with multiple time and place situations everything perks along seamlessly. The director is not so much interested in psychology, he does not try to get into the mind of the killer. He stays with the facts and he is meticulous in his exposition. Every puzzle piece is put into place yet at the end there is no defined conclusion because that is the reality of the case. The Zodiac killer terrorized Northern California in the late 60’s and 70’s. This recreation brings back that terror with artistic expertise.
Venus
The awards are over and I am glad that Martin Scorsese won best director. But, I don’t think that The Departed was his best effort at all. Babel and Little Miss Sunshine continue to resonate while I can barely remember the plot of The Departed. Of course, Forrest Whitaker got the golden man for The Last King of Scotland and it was truly deserved. Whitaker has been quietly delivering worthy performances for years. What about the other nominees for best actor? I think that Leonardo Di Caprio, Ryan Gosling, and Will Smith never had a chance. What about Peter O’Toole? Peter O’Toole was honored last year with one of those lifetime achievement awards that he unwillingly accepted. He wasn’t being unappreciative or rude. His premise was, hey I’m still in the game! In other words, despite his numerous nominations he felt he was not so old nor so beyond his peak that he couldn’t still win the big prize on his own merits. He was indeed nominated once again this year for Venus.
Venus is the kind of film that we, Americans, would never make. It examines and somewhat celebrates old age. Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi , the directors and screenwriter of Venus, had collaborated previously on The Mother which featured a randy menopausal woman who falls into a tempestuous affair with studly Daniel Craig, filmed before he became James Bond. Venus revolves around a bunch of old codgers who hang out together, put each other down but are part of a support system. Sensing he is losing his strength, one of the pals sends for his grand niece excepting her to do the cooking and cleaning. However she turns out to be slovenly and sluttish. The Peter O’ Toole character takes her under his wing and they form an unlikely friendship that is, at times, prurient and pathetic. At other times, it is an absolute joy for both. Jessie, the niece is not a mean person and Maurice, O’Toole, is a charmer. They are like Eliza Doolittle and Mr. Higgins. Vanessa Redgrave, also an actress of a certain age, plays O’Toole’s long-suffering ex-wife with whom he has an amicable relationship.
Having been a bon vivant all his life, O’Toole is 74 and looks every day of it. Remember how gorgeous he was in Lawrence of Arabia? Now there is a certain fragility about him that bolsters his performance as the terminal Maurice. Maybe the guy was right. Maybe he can still muster up the energy to win on his own. He is a master of the craft in Venus.
Viva La Raza
Along with a massive Hispanic migration, the U. S. is experiencing an artistic ingress as well. Two Mexican directors have created two of the most prestigious and honored pictures of the year. Guillermo del Toro has given us Pan’s Labyrinth, and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Babel. Innaritu was born in Mexico City, del Toro, in Guadalajara. They are friends. They became film buffs at an early age.
I credit most of their success to their ethnic sensibilities. My favorite literary genre has always been “magical realism.” Latin Americans seem to have an innate affinity for this delicate mixing of real and unreal. What the Mexican artists seem to have is a certain wild and quixotic imagination. We are much less whimsical. This concept coupled with a certain flamboyancy with symbols and a sensitivity to color and texture engenders the director’s auteur techniques. However that abstract magical element is described or how it is ultimately expressed, it is difficult to put on film. These men have done so with genius.
Guillermo del Toro came to the international scene with Cronos and made his Hollywood debut with Mimic. The meddling of studio executives was a disheartening experience for him and he returned to Mexico. Next, he did The Devil’s Backbone, a Spanish civil war ghost story which pleased critics and audiences and he decided to give the U.S. another try and he came back and directed Blade II and Hellboy. He was raised by his strict Catholic grandmother who he has said resembled the Piper Laurie character in Carrie. She once made him wear bottle caps inside his shoes as a punishment. Religious symbols and artifacts often feature prominently in his films.
Innaritu familiarized himself with American audiences with Amores Perros, his first feature. Scoring commercially always opens the doors to Hollywood and his second movie in English was 21 Grams starring Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Naomi Watts. All received Academy recognition for their participation. Then came the huge sweeping canvas that is Babel. Because the film is multi-lingual and spans the globe, Innaritu had this to say about his cast, “Directing non-actors is difficult, Directing actors in a foreign language is even more difficult. Directing non-actors in a language that you yourself don’t understand is the craziest thing you can possible think of.” But it turned out to be magic. Babel is magnificent.
!Viva los directors!
The Gray Ladies
In youth worshipping, Barbie doll, bosom obsessed Hollywood, the attention given to ladies of a certain age recently is startling. Of course, these ladies happen all to be consummate actresses: Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench. All Academy Award nominees, none appears to have been lifted, injected with chemicals surgically enhanced or otherwise embalmed. They all embrace their age gracefully.
Meryl Streep has long been considered America’s greatest living actress. She has been acknowledged by the academy an astonishing 14 times, a record. Known for her ability to master accents, she is a graduate of Yale. After the death of her fiancé, John Cazale, Freddo the weak brother in the Godfather series, she quietly married sculptor, Don Gummer and had four children. She won the Oscar for her roles in The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs. Kramer, and as the desperate mother in the Nazi death camp in Sophie’s Choice. Other stellar performances followed in Silkwood, Out of Africa and The Bridges of Madison County. This year she has been nominated as best actress in The Devil Wears Prada, in which she plays a villainous fashion editor. In her own life, Meryl has never succumbed to the whole glamour syndrome.
Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Miranov the grand daughter of a Russian Tsarist who became stranded in England during the revolution. Although she has been nominated for several awards for portraying queens, she is decidedly less regal and actually quite salty in person. She has described herself as, “being famous for being cool about not being gorgeous.” Helen was in Calendar Girls which features a group of menopausal maidens who pose in the el buffo for the aforementioned calendar which is to be sold as a charity fund raising item. This year she has been nominated for awards by portraying Queen Elizabeth I and II. Some are unaware that she was also the voice of the queen in the animated feature, Prince of Egypt. Shall we say that Helen has a regal presence if not a regal persona.
Judi Dench , along with Helen is officially a dame. She is the imperious and mysterious M in the James Bond series. In Notes on a Scandal, she plays an over weight, frowzy/dowdy teacher. In the past she has starred in the prestigious Room with a View and Chocolat with Johnny Depp and Juliet Binoche but she has also lent her talents to the bomb The Chronicles of Riddick. This is her sixth nomination. She has one statuette for supporting player for portraying, what else, the queen in Shakespeare In Love.
Meryl Streep is 57. Helen Mirren is 61 and Judi Dench is 72. Let‚s hear for the grand dames of the theater.
Perry Marker's BEST OF 2006
The Top Ten:
#10 Children of Men – a dark, futuristic tale set in 2027 when, for 18 years, no children have been born on the planet. A bleak look into our future, but a tinge of hope is evident. Clive Owen is magnificent and Michael Caine delivers a great performance as a wise, old, hippie.
#9 United 93- A must see film that shows just how unprepared we were for the unthinkable. An intense thrill ride from the opening credits to the end that chronicles the chaos, horror and indecision that were part of a tragic day in our history. This movie marks the beginning of the mismanagement of the Bush administration’s response to terror.
#8 A Prairie Home Companion – A film that only Robert Altman could make (and it would be his last and one of his best). His quirky, vignette-style is a perfect fit for Garrison Keillor’s iconoclastic, midwestern style. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are excellent but Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly) steal the show. Lindsay Lohan is surprisingly good. You need not be a fan of Prairie Home Companion to enjoy this movie.
#7 The Pursuit of Happyness – Will Smith and his real life son, Jaden, are remarkavble on this riff on the Declaration of Independence, class and homelessness based on a true story of a life in America. Smith deserved his oscar nomination for this role. The scene in the BART restroom of father and son is as sad and moving as you will ever see on film. The last scene in the film shows the real life main character played by Will Smith.
#6 Casino Royale – James Bond is given a face-lift in this gritty and surprisingly sparse film. This is the edgiest Bond yet, stunningly portrayed by Daniel Craig. This is a film with plenty of action, yet very few gadgets. It works on all levels as we see Bond at the beginning of his 007 career. Eva Green is very hot as agent Vesper Lynd. Daniel Craig is the Bond for the 21st century, and in his initial film, he is as good as Sean Connery was in his debut as Bond. I think Daniel Craig portrays the Bond that author Ian Flemming had in mind when he invented the most famous secret agent in the world.
#5 The Good Shepard – Mat Damon delivers one of his best performances as Edward Wilson, a briiliant Yale grad who is recruited to work for the CIA. And so begins a long, torturous slide into the abyss of the world of espionage. The term “anything for one’s country” comes to mind here. Damon should have been nominated for an Oscar for this performance. Robert De Niro also stars and directs.
#4 Shut Up and Sing – The Dixie Chicks sold more CD’s than anyone in the past nine years, but after making an anti-Bush comment at a concert in London, country radio stations and their redneck fans boycotted their music. This movie documents their journey into the heart of compassionate conservative behavior, and its assault of free speech. These girls have guts and principles and their music is excellent. I highly recommend this even if you are NOT a Dixie Chicks fan.
#3 Venus – Peter O’Tooleis magnificent in his portrayal of an old actor whose friendship with a twenty-something woman turn his world inside-out. This is a dark, yet uplifting tale of love, lust and lost youth. The scenes between the old man and the young woman are erotic and electric. O’Toole is one of our greatest actors and deserves the Oscar for this role that has for so long eluded him
#2 The Queen – An incredible performance delivered by Helen Mirren as QE-II. Set during the week after the death of Princess Di, the movie explores the fascinating tension between centuries of tradition and the public pressure on the monarchy to conform to modern mores and beliefs. A performance most deserving of a best actress nomination.
#1 Babel – The story of three disparate families whose lives are forever changed by a single event that connects them all. This movie is complex, intense, and riveting. Its take on addressing several important social issues at once is the most interesting feature of this film. The screenplay is first-rate and Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are outstanding with excellent performances given by a host of lesser known actors.
Honarable Mention (in no particular order):
The Departed – Martin Scorcese’s latest take on the gangster movie. The cast is incredibly stunning (Jack Nicholson, LeonardoDiCaprio, Mark Walberg, Matt Damon). Jack hasn’t been so demented since The Shining. The movie is put together incredibly well, with great acting and a fantastic script, but it breaks no new ground as a typical Scorcese film. It’s hard to spot a good guy in this one and beware, this movie is very violent. The moral of the movie: never trust a cop. Scorcese may finally get his Oscar for this one.
Notes on a Scandal – The story of ateacher who goes astray and her colleague whose pathological friendship puts a unique twist on their relationship. Both Judi Dench and Cate Blanchhett received oscar nominations for their roles. Dench is wickedly good and Blanchett is stunningly beautiful. A must see just to see these two wonderful actresses perform together.
This Movie is Not Yet Rated – A provocative documentary of the bizarre system used to rate films. Kirby Dick exposes favoritism corrupted by big money and the hypocritical views of sex and violence that go into these ratings. This movie has already resulted in some big changes in the rating system. The comments of John Waters are priceless.
Little Children – Ahhhh, life in 21st century suburbia. Not much has changed since the 50’s but this story about the intersection of the lives of several adults acting like little children grabs you and keeps you hooked until the end. This movie features Kate Winslett in her best performance, ever.
WordPlay - I really don’t give a rip about crossword puzzles (my wife, Marty, is a major freak however) but this movie has it all: humor, pathos, drama, inspiration and awe inspiring intellect. It is a highly entertaining study of the crossword puzzle world, one in which you enter at your own risk.
Thanks for Smoking – A wickedly funny satire of the smoking industry and its attempts to spin the truth to fits its needs. However, the movie also shows how argumentative behavior is not necessarily about the truth more that is about selling, winning, and ultimately convincing folks that the other guy is wrong. This film is a metaphor for what is wrong with the endless spinning of ideas and manufacturing of “truth.”
Cars - A tour de force in the state of the art of animation – you simply won’t see anything better. However, the film is long on sentimentality and short on action. It becomes somewhat tedious in the middle parts and has a cheesy ending. Worth seeing for the animation alone.
Why We Fight - The beauty of this movie is not that it tells you something that you didn’t know (republicans excepted) about why we got into Iraq and ultimately, why we fight wars, rather it lays out the case for why we fight using the old saw, “follow the money.” A riveting account of the military-industrial complex, and the absolute seamlessness with which the war machine runs the economy and our government. The scariest part of this film is the point made that the war machine is so prevalent that it has become invisible and that our capitalistic spirit is a threat to our democratic way of life.
An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore’s film about global warming is perhaps the most powerful horror flick you’ll ever see. He lays out a strong case for global warming and the consequences of it ( this is the horror part) if we choose to do nothing. But beyond a scary picture of the future. it is also hopeful in that we can still choose how we can save our planet. It’s a movie all should see regardless of how you feel about Gore, or what your politics are. This film’s remarkable contribution is that it moved global warming from a speculative theory to a generally accepted phenomenon and world wide problem in the eye of the mass public.
The Devil Wears Prada – Meryl Strepp delivers one of her finest performances in years as a take no prisoners fashion designer. Ann Hathaway is stunningly beautiful as her much maligned assistant. A very smart, funny film.
Half Nelson – A very strange story about a social studies teacher (oh why oh why did it have to be a social studies teacher!?) seriously strung out on drugs who befriends a hopeless little waif in his class. Frankly this is rather poor attempt at illustrating the existential tension between teacher and student, but it is just interesting enough to merit watching. Good acting, but beware, this one is more than a little depressing.
Little Miss Sunshine – A quirky comedy about a road trip that a dysfunctional family takes to a little girl’s beauty pageant/talent show. Alan Alda steals the show, and Steve Carrel gives a hilarious performance.
Dreamgirls – Film adaptation of the Broadway play. Eddie Murphy gives a command performance in this half true, half fiction chronicle of rise of The Supremes. See it in a THX theatre for a great sound experience.
Volver – The seductivePenelope Cruz in her best performance to date as a sister and daughter who struggles to cope with her mother’s death while trying to keep her family together. Funny and poignant.
The Oh in Ohio - A fun story about a married, suburbanite woman’s quest for her first orgasm. Parker Posey and Danny DeVito give stellar performances.
By Perry Marker
The Worst Films of 2006
Posted Feb. 5, 2007 -------- It is difficult to ferret out the real bombs for a list because reviews are everywhere and if they are not good, one just avoids the film. But since I have seen over one-hundred movies in theatrical release, I have inevitably run into some movies that have given me distress. Some I knew had been poorly reviewed, some had mixed reviews, some I wanted to give a “chance” and two appear on some best lists. Here are my ten disaster movies in alphabetical order:
#1 Art School Confidential… Terry Zwigoff also directed Ghostworld……this was so boring I don’t even remember what is was about.
#2 Borat ,etc….a three hundred pound naked man on top of another naked man while his testicles dangle in the guy’s face…..I’m sorry …I don’t get it..
#3 The Da Vinci Code…….it was such an exciting page turner of a book…..what a disappointment …..I fell asleep
#4 Deliver Us From Evil…..this documentary concerns the white-hot, searing issue of clerical abuse and makes it dull..
#5 Lady in the Water……a sea nymph turns up in an apartment complex swimming pool….M. Night Shyamalan needs to drown his ego
#6 Pink Panther…..Steve Martin, what were you thinking???
#7 Scanner Darkly…..director, Richard Linklater uses rotoscoping to further distance us from his druggie protagonists who weren’t that attractive in the first place…
#8 Strangers with Candy……an elderly Amy Sedaris returns to high school …her face screwed up in a grotesque grimace
#9 Trust the Man…..something about couples…proof that couple, Julianne Moore and director husband Bart Freundlich, shouldn’t work together.
#10 The Wicker Man……Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn…… laughably ludicrous…aims to shock…the only shock is how awful it is …
The Ten Most Significant Films of 2006
Posted Feb. 1, 2007 -------- All criticism absolutely reflects the personal tastes of the criticizer. For example, I know that Dreamgirls is a tip-top production but when characters sing dialogue it tears my "willing suspension of disbelief" to shreds. I can't go there. My preferences tend toward the heavily dramatic or the terminally bizarre.
# 10 Hard Candy (did anyone see it???? ) an intelligent psychological thriller. A teen is bent on avenging the death of her friend by gaslighting an Internet predator.
# 9 The Proposition -- an Australian Western -- oxymoronically both lyrically poetic and viciously brutal.
# 8 Happy Feet- sorry John Lasseter over there in Sonoma(director of Cars) ...it has an ecological theme rivaling An Inconvenient Truth -- syncopated, mesmerizing, hypnotic tapping and adorable, cuddle-worthy penguins.
# 7 Apocalypto -- demonstrates amazing archeological and anthropological
research -- Mel Gibson may be a nutcase but he knows how to make a chase movie.
# 6 Little Children -- uncovers a hot bed of suburban sexuality -- steaming hot infidelity, child molestation, a little castration -- lots of twists and turns -- Kate Winslet is on fire.
# 5 Prairie Home Companion -- down home bit of Americana -- Meryl Streep sings, Kevin Kline is ironic and even Lindsay Lohan delivers in a prophetically posthumous homage to director, Bernard Altman, Virginia Madsen portrays an angel of death...
# 4 The Last King of Scotland...Forrest Whitaker shines…his performance nuances the brutal and fatal charm of Idi Amin
# 3 United 93 -- director, Paul Greengrass, recreates 9/11 in riveting real time -- the resulting chaos is appalling
# 2 Little Miss Sunshine -- an indie darling -- meet the Hoovers -- one of the most deliciously delightful dysfunctional families you'll ever meet.
# 1 Babel -- director, Innaritu, unleashes a primal vision and seamlessly weaves together three disparate stories in Mexico, Morocco and Tokyo -- its gravitas is both shocking and compelling.
Honorable Mention: The Illusionist, House of Sand, Water, The Painted Veil, Notes on a Scandal, Pan's Labyrinth
Reader comments, additions, deletions appreciated.
Asian Battlefields
Posted Jan. 22, 2007 ---------- One film, Letters from Iwo Jima, takes place on a Pacific Island in 1945; the other, The Curse of the Golden Flower, transpires during the short-lived Tang dynasty in the 10th century. Both are concerned with military encounters but that is where the similarity ends
The first, “Letters”, is meant as a companion piece to Clint Eastwood’s other effort, Flags of Our Fathers, which is told from the point of view of the U. S. in that crucial tactical battle, “Letters’ is told from the Japanese perspective. Neither portrait particularly revels in the glory of war. That icon impressed on the consciousness of the American psyche of the valiant warriors erecting the flag on Mt. Suribachi is somewhat besmirched in “Flags” as staged propaganda. “Letters” shows us that the Japanese were not only short on able bodies but were low on the basic necessities such as water and food. Their communications systems were down and they were denied air cover. The command seems to have been torn between leaders who were reasonable and modern and those who believed in the ancient Japanese traditions of war. Our victory, touted as heroic, was more like shooting fish in a barrel. One hundred thousand U.S. troops against twenty thousand Japanese was a massacre. Ken Watanabe as General Kuribayashi, is a bright spot in a rather dismal and tedious production. The desolate island is filmed in a desaturated palette of gray tones against which against which the flashing of bursting artillery is particularly dramatic. Is it an oxymoron to say that the action is slow? Nineteen thousand Japanese died, seven thousand Americans died, twenty thousand maimed. Will we ever learn? It is always my tendency to blame war on testosterone. But, guys, in the next film The Curse of the Golden Flower, the estrogen factor is just as deadly. What “Letters” lacked in color The Curse of the Golden Flower makes up for generously. I have been a fan of director, Zhang Yimou ever since Raise the Red Lantern. The man is a color genius extraordinaire. Even if one is not attracted to his narratives just sit there and watch, his films are like paintings that moves. In this, the Empress, the gorgeous Gong Li, is being poisoned by the Emperor, Chow Yun Fat. Not the least of her crimes is an incestuous affair with here stepson, who in turn is in an incestuous relationship with his half-sister. It is beyond Shakespearean. It is Greek tragedy on a grande scale. The visuals are breathtaking, thousands and thousands of golden armored knights hypnotically marching is an awesome spectacle, no less wonderful when one knows it is CGI. The Chinese use Technicolor, we don’t. It is too expensive. The colors are blinding, fluorescent.
Both films are in their native languages and are subtitled.
Volver
Posted Jan. 16, 2007 -------- Volver has garnered a cache of awards internationally and had been nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film. The star of Volver, Penelope Cruz, has also been nominated for a “globe” as best actress in a motion picture drama. I can’t figure out what all the fuss is about.
The Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, is the darling of the artsy set. I was aware of his talents before he became the celebrity du jour. Way back in 1988, I chanced upon a showing of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Here was a kind of weird, quirky humor that no one in Hollywood attempts. It is at times, whimsical, juvenile, poignant and near slapstick but it is nothing like what we produce in this country. Also Almodovar creates female characters as only a gay man could. His best films have been mostly about the trials and tribulations of women: Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down, The Flower of My Secret.
He was born in the La Mancha region of Spain which seems appropriate as one could make many comparisons to the man of La Mancha himself, Don Quixote. The director couldn’t afford film school which were eventually shut down by the Franco government anyway. He bought a camera and his short features quickly found an audience with the counterculture. I am a real fan of some of Almodovar’s work and Volver is a charming, delightful film but it lacks the gravitas to make it a contender, to receive the acclaim that it has. It opens with a scene in a graveyard as headstones are being dusted and fresh flowers set out. We meet Raimunda, the luscious Penelope Cruz, never has she been shown to better advantage. She is in her element here and she sizzles and sparkles in a way that she never has in her American movies. Also at the cemetery are Penelope’s daughter and her sister and a neighbor who is terminally ill. At this point the plot swirls out in many different directions. There is a murder, a cover up, Penelope finds her niche as a cateress and there is a surprise appearance of her mother supposedly dead. Sprinkle in a little singing and a dab of incest and you have a grand telenovela but not a world-class feature film. Volver is in Spanish with English subtitles.
The Golden Globes
Posted January 2, 2007 -------- The Academy Awards are somber as compared to the Golden Globes that are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Globes are a big party with eating and drinking. Winners have been caught in the restroom, they have tried to pass on their golden tokens to those more worthy and they have been televised when obviously having imbibed a little too much, maybe a little more than a little.
The Globes do something very different from the Academy. They separate best picture nominees into two separate categories: drama and musicals. It makes sense. There are times when it seems Academy members are forced to choose between apples and oranges. However, I can also understand the Academy’s position of subdividing ad infinitum. They have capitulated in recent years by establishing an animation division. Stars were adamant. Their egos got in the way. They were paranoid about being replaced by cartoons. Anyway, the logic of both groups is understandable. This year the Golden Globe nominations for best Motion Picture drama in alphabetical order are Babel, Bobby, The Departed, Little Children and the Queen.
In Babel, director, Innaritu has created a massive symphonic canvass that unfolds in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo and elicited bravo performances from Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt. It is emotionally resonant as it highlights how alike and how different human beings are.
Bobby, directed by Emilio Estevez, gives a background scenario for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Archival clips are spliced between the fictionalized, mundane lives of the workers at the Ambassador Hotel that fateful night. The ensemble cast includes Estevez’ father, Martin Sheen.
Will always a bridesmaid, Martin Scorsese, score this year with his blood-drenched saga of crime and corruption in Boston? The Departed features boffo performances by Matt Damon, Leonardo Di Caprio and of course, that old scenery chewer, Jack Nicholson.
Little Children is an electrifying picture of seething sexuality in suburbia. Kate Winslet is on fire in her role of an over educated, bored housewife. Its relevancy is acute.
Finally, The Queen should be lauded more for the performance than the behind the scenes docu-drama depicting the royal reaction to the death of Princess Diana. Helen Mirren channels the queen. She is simply magnificent.
I always hate to bet on the results of these contests because oftentimes one must choose between the film one wants to win and the film one thinks will get the most votes. This year I think it will be a horse race between Babel and The Departed. As much as I feel that it is Martin Scorsese’s turn, I would choose Babel because of the overwhelming hugeness of it. Although its narrative is disparate it metaphorically touches us all.
The King and the Queen
Posted Dec. 24, 2006 -------- On the Oscar radar are two standout performances – Helen Mirren in The Queen and Forrest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. I would bet money on their nominations. They are actors at the zenith of their craft.
Forrest Whitaker is one of those shadowy supporting actors, excellent in all respects but never before given the opportunity to take on a big, showy starring role. In The Last King of Scotland he is given his chance to shine at last. He embodies the flamboyant personality of Idi Amin whose regime from 1971 to 1979 represents the darkest of times for the nation of Uganda. In this film, the show belongs to Whitaker who is larger than life. He makes Amin believable and one can understand why people followed him into the abyss. Whitaker channels the dictator who at any given moment in time can be charming, volatile, manipulative and bestial. It is a truly brilliant performance.
The Last king of Scotland has been withdrawn from theaters and will be re-released closer to Academy voting time. This is how calculating the powers behind the films can be. They should have been more confident. Whitaker is a shoo-in.
Helen Mirren is one of those British actresses whose diction is crisp. She never slurs a word. She plays Elizabeth II, the present queen of England in the troubled week that followed the death of Princess Diana. Even though we, in the United States, may find it difficult to understand the deference the British give to an antiquated office with an apparently glacial figurehead, Mirren gives Elizabeth humanity which is a difficult task for someone who has been taught to sublimate emotion. Michael Sheen as Tony Blair vacillates between obsequiousness and defiance as the monarchy resists officially responding to Diana’s death. Mirren plays Elizabeth as a woman trapped by circumstance trying to behave as she thinks she should when in fact her subjects are crying out for her to show compassion. Very delicate nuances are required.
I couldn’t help but think if the Queen had seen the film – I wondered if she had – what she would have thought of a not particularly flattering portrait? What would Idi Amin have thought of Forrest Whitaker’s portrayal? Even more provocative perhaps is what will the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences think? Will these two impeccable performances be honored?
Happy Feet
Entertainment Weekly has indicated in their news notes that, "Penguins now are officially bigger stars than Julia Roberts, George Clooney and that hot, shirtless spy." Last year‚s best documentary Oscar went to the March of the Penguins and this year‚s animation award may go to Happy Feet, those little feet as you may have suspected are attached to the aforementioned tuxedo clad avian. Already penguins are popping up all over at fast food chains and on shirts and pajamas. Penguins rock!
Certainly the real life film was a charmer. The terrible, harsh beauty of the Antarctic is captured impressively all this while we are being massaged by the mellifluous voice of Morgan Freeman as he narrates the tortuous odyssey of the birds across some of the most brutal landscape on the globe. Winds can whip at 100 miles per hour and the temperature can drop to seventy degrees below zero. These birds are the quintessence of cute. Imagine a bunch of overweight nuns waddling rhythmically while saying their rosaries. They are adorable so it was almost inevitable that they were destined to be computer animated.
Happy Feet is the story of Mumbles who cannot produce a heartsong, a mating call, to attract his true love. Even though he has rhythm and can tap his little toes with the best of them: Bo Jangles, Shirley Temple, Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis Jr. But because he is so off tune, so "different" his colony wants to blame him for their newest catastrophe, their dwindling food supply. He goes off to find the real reason for the fish decline where he meets a group of decidedly Latino birds headed by ring-leader, Ramon, who is voiced by Robin Williams. There are other superstar voices here besides Robin. Mumbles is voiced by Elijah Wood, his mother, by Nicole Kidman, his father, Hugh Jackman and his girlfriend, by Brittany Murphy. The soundtrack which leans heavily on rhythm and blues propels the narrative.
There are lots of themes here: environmental responsibility, intolerance, conformity but the greater theme of celebrating oneself overshadows them all. The simultaneous tapping of hundreds of penguins is intoxicating, exhilarating. Happy Feet is a perfect happy holiday flick.
The Best of DVD
The Best of Youth
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2006 -------- Having just returned from Italy, I am tuned into Italian culture, which one can be totally immersed in by watching The Best of Youth, La Melgior de Juventud -- recently released on DVD. But it is a commitment. The Best of Youth is Six hours long. It is an example of story telling at its zenith.
Intimate, sweeping, resonant, director Marco Tullio Giordana, developed his film from a 600 page script. He allows us to come to know characters and become vitally involved in their lives. The story line covers the decades from the 60’s to the present. It is the saga of a famiglia, the Casirati’s. They are middle class, mother is a teacher, father is an entrepreneur. Although there are four siblings, the narrative more closely follows the two boys who are the middle children rather than the girls who are the bookends. Nicola’s field is medicine. He is warm, sensitive and outgoing. Matteo studies literature and from the beginning we sense a kind of brooding pathology that is inherent in his demeanor. Impulsive and hostile, Matteo abruptly abducts a patient he had been tending, Georgia, an ethereally beautiful but mentally unstable young woman who joins their pre-planned road trip and who will profoundly influence both of the brother’s loves. Matteo and Nicola are followed through the trials and tribulations of their youth.: births, marriages, deaths, all the while they are playing against the panorama of Italian history. These socially significant events are not always skillfully embedded. While some transitions are smooth, at times we are confronted with some landmark action and it is startling. Background influences include the Florence floods, the layoffs at Fiat in Turin, the government versus the Mafia in Palermo and the infamous escapades of The Red Brigade.
This is an impassioned film on a grande scale as ornate and
complex as the Renaissance. It is long, but life is long. The six hours flies
by.
Intrepid Navigator movie critic travels over the pond and back in time.
Marie Antoinette and Babel
Posted Monday, Nov. 27, 2006 --------- Marie Antoinette is not eye candy, it is a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Sofia Coppola’s sophomore effort is a visual feast—sumptuous, voluptuous. Kirsten Dunst is perfect to portray the 14-year-old Austrian princess who enters into an arranged marriage with the future King Louis XVI in order to cement relations between the two countries. In the film, Marie’s historical excesses are explained as more due to cluelessness rather than any evil intent. The initial lack of character development is a flaw. I wanted to know Marie and Louis, her disinterested spouse, played by Jason Schwartzman, Coppola’s cousin. Another flaw is the presence of the boom, clearly visible in the upper frame, so much so that my audience tittered. This is a $44 million production. Get rid of the boom. I wanted to be there in the 1700’s with Marie. The presence of 20th century technology destroyed my “willing suspension of disbelief.” Sofia uses contemporary music that is startling but somehow intensely creative rather than innerving. I don’t know why the French booed this film at Cannes. Maybe they didn’t want an American interpreting material they considered sacrosanct or the boom also distracted them.
Babel is as gritty as Marie Antoinette is fluffy. Director, Alejandro Gonzalez Innarritu brings us into his character’s hearts and we weep for them. Using three disparate scenarios, he tangles his storylines and makes them eventually converge. Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt are vacationing in Morocco, both recovering from a tragic occurrence. Cate is shot by a stray bullet, terrorism is assumed and an international incident is created. In Tokyo a deaf teenager longs for love -- desperately trying to come to terms with her mother’s death. In San Diego an illegal immigrant nanny takes her two charges across the border to attend her son’s wedding. Babel is complex because of the shifting story lines but not mystifying. Innaritu’s theme is admirable as he shows us the shared humanity of the global village. I was thinking about his film and drove the wrong way down Sebastopol’s main street. I explained to the cop who stopped me that the film was resonating in my head. He started asking me questions about the movie. I didn’t get a ticket.
Red States
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006 -------- Perusing the calendar section of the Bodega Bay Navigator several weeks ago, I happened to see an announcement for a film called Red States. Having a penchant for the controversial, it caught my eye, especially when it was noted that the director would be available after the screening for a Q and A. The film was sponsored by and was shown in the town hall of beautiful, downtown Tomales. I had forgotten what a quaint and funky place Tomales is. It appears out of nowhere amidst fields of cows. The air belies the nearness of the sea, a remote , charming hamlet that despite its sleepy appearance seems to be, if not a hot bed of protest at least a small cot of dissent.
Red States was directed by Michael Shea, a denizen of the nether regions of our state, Elay, that is, and a sometimes director of MTV. Distressed and somewhat mystified by the results of the presidential election, he cut his hair and shaved his beard so as not to be threatening and then set off to see what makes people tick in those scarlet heartland areas. Michael’s idea was grand but the execution of his premise is faulty. Michael narrates the film with a slow monotone and I wanted to put him on fast forward. Some of his interviews badly needed editing. I would have liked to have fewer long shots of the countryside, which seemed like fillers, and more interviews. That said, one would have to give Michael credit for making a valiant effort to be open and unbiased, to make an honest assessment. There was no evident sarcasm even when his subjects made outrageous statements. Basically, the bottom line is that people who live in the middle, don’t have the cosmopolitan, sophisticated influences of the coastal areas which are true blue. The midlanders at times support core values imbedded with lurking layers of extremism. They purport to love and honor Jesus Christ and put him first yet seem to condone bigotry and torture. They do not appear to have deep concerns about the war in Iraq or global warning but find the specter of gay marriage and abortion abhorrent and overwhelming. Michael becomes torn: these are nice people but they are nutcases. He still does not understand. He is probably is more frustrated now than when he began. The conclusion to which he comes is this: one must suspend logic to have faith so there is no common ground for dialogue. Check the availability of Red States online.
Iraq For Sale and Loose Change
Posted Monday Nov. 13, 2006 --------- I am going to call to your attention two films that are not in theaters. They are either playing in libraries, town halls, on line, or in people’s living rooms. The first is: Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers. It is another film by Robert Greenwald who also helmed: Uncovered: The War on Iraq. The subtitle for his latest is “Who is Getting Killed and Who is Making a Killing?”
The documentary begins with stories of civilian truck drivers killed in Iraq. These men were not soldiers but private citizens. The question is whether or not they were given proper protection by Blackwater Security. Their deaths and mutilations brought some public outcry if the company had taken adequate precautions. Within 48 hours, Blackwater lobbyists met with top Republican leaders, $2 million was donated to conservative causes and to add insult to injury Backwater was awarded $ 200 millionish in future contracts. These are the facts, Man. And so it goes.
The second film wandering the byways is Loose Change. Before 9/11 George W. Bush was a joke, a figure set up for ridicule. Undoubtedly were it not for the events of that fateful day, the presidency would have been added to his long list of failures. He would have been toast. Nine/eleven changed all that. Suddenly the president was transformed to a wartime demagogue with political capital and a pillar of strength with an arrogant swagger.
As much as I abhor the man as a misguided, maniacal moron, I don’t think he and his cohorts engineered the Twin Towers tragedy. This is what the film Loose Change proposes. Although experts are recruited to expound on facts, for example, a prominent architect asserts that the way the building crumbled belies some kind of planned demolition. Prior stock market activity occurred, dubious insurance policies were issued, contents of the black boxes on the planes were kept secret, a lack of bodies at the site of the pentagon crash is cited; these are mysteries left for the viewer to mull over. The scariest conundrum is the fact that Bush’s brother, Marvin, was at one time the head of security at the World Trade Center!
The premise is wild, but man has rarely forgone any folly of which he was capable. Yet, how could such a mammoth conspiracy involving so many people be kept quiet? For a copy of Loose Change, and don’t ask me to explain what the title has to do with the subject matter, download it from the Internet. Then, decide for yourself.
An Inconvenient Truth
It is noteworthy that many churches are stepping up to the plate and acknowledging stewardship and screening An Inconvenient Truth. If you missed the film in theaters, check it out in church!
Want to see a horror movie starring Al Gore? This is the film for you. Gore follows all the rules of the genre. He starts out all warm and fuzzy and then blasts us with Chicken Little statistics and dire warnings that scare the heck out of us. Using a power point presentation the global warming scenario is set out in diagrams and cartoons so that even a third grader could understand the concept. The argument is tight, loopholes are closed. Thousands of scientists corroborate what is no longer a half-baked opinion but concrete fact. Although periods of temperature fluctuation are normal, what is occurring now fits no previous model in the aspect of acceleration. The ten hottest years ever recorded have been recorded within the last fourteen. Ocean temperatures are rising and the heated water births disasters such as Katrina, the arctic ice cap is melting, glaciers are dissolving. The public seems so placidly in denial or disinterested. The president will mention terr