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  1. <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:blogger="http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" version="2.0"><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2024 03:10:59 +0000</lastBuildDate><category>bauby</category><category>diving bell and the butterfly</category><category>harwood</category><category>max von sydow</category><category>movie</category><category>schnabel</category><title>Santa Monica Reporter</title><description>Santa Monica Reporter, the entertainment blog for Newslanc.com</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Doug McVay)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>14</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-4571993009416396135</guid><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:04:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-01-25T18:07:12.979-08:00</atom:updated><title>Awards Season</title><description>by Dan Cohen&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Motion Picture Academy has spoken, and every critic, executive, and psychic in Hollywood is working overtime to woo voters or second guess them. To mark the occasion, a few comments on the films I have yet to discuss, that will probably be making return appearances to local screens.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Doubt&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At the top of the heap, for a host of virtues, &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Doubt&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is solid and graceful. Yes, its source is a play, and yes the author wrote the screenplay (and directed too,) but the result is a thoroughly compelling movie that for reasons unknown to me, has been sideswiped by much of the high end media.  It seems almost aside from the point to praise the marvelous performances, because they’re simply of a piece with the entire film. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The story is simple; a charismatic priest, (Phillip Seymour Hoffman,) is accused of an impropriety with a young boy from his convent’s religious school. An imperious nun, (Meryl Streep) initiates an investigation, based largely on her gut reaction. What follows is a simple narrative mined for maximum complexity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Beyond the top rank cast and adroit flow of John Patrick Shanley&#39;s script, what I admired most about &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Doubt&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is the subtle period recreation, a function of Roger Deakins restrained camerawork and David Gropman&#39;s production design. There’s almost as much wit in the physical details as there is in the dialogue. You never for a moment question place and time, Brooklyn in 1964, which adds to the dramas urgency.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Slumdog Millionaire&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is the one to beat for the most coveted awards.  In fact &quot;Slumdog&quot; is the underdog most likely to be named Best Picture.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; It begins as a hyper real depiction of the depths of poverty, and concludes as a breathless fairy tale.  Danny Boyle directs in the deliriously, overheated style that is his hallmark, this time on a canvas that allows him to take his usually dazzling storytelling skills to a whole new level.  He’s proved his visual chops in &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Millions&quot;, &quot;Sunshine&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;28 Days Later.&quot; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;But this time he seems to have set his sights on half of India, from top to bottom. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The device by which the story unfolds, an Indian version of &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; serves as a clever launching pad for a long series of flashbacks.  But the device becomes less credible in the later stretches as Boyle increasingly relies on it to justify every dramatic turn.  Still, the camera work is so alive that it bulldozes the itching suspicion that there’s more emphasis on contrivance than emotion. And how can you  complain about a movie that starts with the most cringe inducing depiction of child abuse and concludes with these same kids , 20 years later, dancing their way through a spirited musical number in a train station?  For sheer nerve &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Slumdog&quot; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;earns the waves of audience love it’s receiving across the country.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Three ensembles of inspired actors play impoverished, Muslim inhabitants of a huge Mumbai slum at various stages of their young lives. They&#39;re all strong, especially the group just entering adolescence.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For me, one episode stood out from the rest; after toppling into a huge vat of sewage, a little boy, literally covered in shit, insinuates himself on a huge crowd gathered to meet a pop star. Unwilling to be denied he parts the startled crowd and gets the star’s autograph, without a trace of self consciousness.  Audaciously shot, the sequence is at once hilarious, shocking and moving.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Reader&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Certainly more involving than Kate Winslet&#39;s other showy role this year (in &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Revolutionary Road,&quot;The Reader&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; still disappoints.  Stephen Daldry&#39;s studious direction is finally overcome by a murky, inarticulate second half.  Once again, a complicated novel is diffused by a translation that hasn’t found a visual equivalent for the  written word.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The narrative, older woman seduces teenager in post war Germany, starts in an intriguing fashion. The movie looks like it means business. But when the issues become more weighty it becomes unclear how the characters feel and why.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are we to make of Ralph Fiennes doddering response upon discovering that the object of his adoration enthusiastically sent so many Jews to be exterminated?  And why does he hold back when he knows there may be mitigating circumstances? Thescript hedges.  On reflection, we wonder what compelled Kate Winslet’s character to bed an awkward teenager, who she contemptuously refers to as &quot;kid,&quot; long after she knows his name.  It&#39;s not like she’s a recluse; we see her in contact with other people right from the start.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lena Olin appears near the end, speaking a few incisive lines about death camps, but it doesn’t shed much light on the issues that have gone before. In fact, the strength of her single scene underscores the weakness of the rest.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Wrestler&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;The Wrestler,&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; plays mostly like a B movie, but done in the impromptu, cinema verite style, which well suits director Darren Aronofskys unflinching depiction of the grimy world of pro wrestling.  But the acting, to quote the words of another great warrior, &lt;em&gt;&quot;floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;  (Do you remember who?)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This genre conventions are familiar; they lean toward either &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Rocky,&quot; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;or &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Requiem for a Heavyweight,&quot; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;(a Rod Serling classic I highly recommend.) At any given point in &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;The Wrestler&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; you can probably guess what happens next. But it doesn’t take away from the movies pleasures; the performances are so fresh, and the direction so unfussy, the movie wins you over. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei give it all they’ve got, which for the most part means taking the parts so well we can&#39;t see their craft at work.  Evan Rachel Wood offers able support in a small role that&#39;s well focused. And the non pros, actual wrestlers, are seamlessly integrated. But at the end of the day aren’t all these guys actors?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is a good a crop of Academy contenders as we’ve seen in years.  Do bad times bring on better movies?  We&#39;ll continue the discussion as the bad times continue.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2009/01/awards-season.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-8854340727754223220</guid><pubDate>Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:18:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-12-27T17:24:37.514-08:00</atom:updated><title>Curious Affairs</title><description>&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;The Curious Case of Benjamin Button&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is a welcome departure for a director known for offbeat thrillers; David Fincher. It’s also a high point for Brad Pitt, and a nearly heroic gamble for the two studios behind it, Warner and Paramount. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is a quixotic, meditative movie with a sensibility unlike any other in recent memory. Its stubbornly adult story telling took me completely by surprise.  A rambling fable about the fleeting nature of love and life, it&#39;s most effective in its quietest moments, which are many.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The source material, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, sketches the life of a child born old, who becomes progressively younger with the passing of years. It’s a stunt, for sure, but it soon takes a back seat to larger issues.   And it&#39;s huge. Each of its many episodes is elaborately detailed, from a boisterous New Orleans in the 20s, to pre World War II Russia, to the theater scene in New York City during the 50s.  Most are visually striking, but what makes them work is how they’re married to the characters.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For a film that runs over two and a half hours the story line is almost frighteningly slim.  A horridly wrinkled newborn, abandoned by his birth father, is taken in by a kind African American, (played marvelously by Taraji P. Henson,) and raised in a home for the aged.  While not expected to live, the baby evolves into a decrepit 85 year old, and then, keeps getting younger.  Early on the “old” Benjamin becomes friends with Daisy, a precocious little girl who goes off to become a dancer. Although the two mature on their own, they eventually fall in love, only to grow apart as fate takes them to different destinies.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daisy, richly played by Cate Blanchett, is the only one who truly understands how Benjamin’s life has proceeded, and how it might end.  Their affair, as it blossoms, is delicately understated, in the best way. Unexpectedly the movie pleads a passionate case for the value of long term relationships.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are almost no large, showy moments. A single wartime episode is quick, effective, and then done.  People come and go like wisps of smoke that dissipate just as you realize their importance.  But the cumulative effect is quite powerful.  Fincher wisely chose to underplay the freakish nature of Benjamin’s life.  The few people with whom he has any continuity accept him for what he is; eventually so do we.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie has taken a rap in some quarters more for what it’s not than what it is.  Eric Roth, acclaimed screenwriter of &quot;Forrest Gump,&quot; has chosen a very different path here.  Gump was a also a big movie filled with startling effects, a classic &quot;tall tale&quot; narrated by a character with a profound handicap. But there the similarity ends.  Gump was a simpleton, whose nature was obvious to everyone he met. Button’s odd circumstances remain unknown to most.  As he matures, however, his youth subtly robs him, which gives the story just enough of an edge to illustrate the human dilemma from a slightly different point of view, a view that finally underscores the difficulty of breaking the confines of our solitary nature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are four or five too many flashbacks to the aged Blanchett, as she tries to explain Benjamin to her daughter.  These bookmarks, or bathroom breaks, if you will, make the events seem more protracted than they are.  Other than that the film’s main liability is its admirable restraint, which is likely to make it a difficult sell to a mainstream audience. &quot;The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,&quot; employs gargantuan resources to tell a story on strictly adult terms.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&#39;t like to write about ambitious movies that utterly fail; I&#39;d rather talk about better ones.  But &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Revolutionary Road&quot; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;is such a stand out I feel obliged to send out a smoke signal.  It&#39;s a dismal drone inspired by a renowned novel.  There, you’ve been warned.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kate Winslett and Leonardo Di Caprio meet in an intriguing first scene, in a New York night club, on the eve of the 50s.  He is&#39;t sure what he wants.  She aspires to a career in the theater.  After numerous drinks she tells him he&#39;s the most interesting person she&#39;s ever met.  But it’s all downhill from there as they scratch and bite each other through a nightmarish marriage, which ends very badly. Is it a hell of their own making, or a logical consequence of the commuter life style of post war suburbia?  The movie doesn&#39;t tell us. All we see is their rapid devolution and the willful blindness of those around them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; This is well trod movie territory, from &quot;The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit,&quot; to &quot;No Down Payment&quot; to &quot;Strangers When We Meet.&quot; But those movies were better invested in their characters. They had ups and downs.  This is a celluloid autopsy.  The three notes in gifted composer Thomas Newman&#39;s theme tell you all you need to know, over and over.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have to assume that director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe intended to transform writer RichardYates rough poetry into its visual equivalent. But the artistry that drove the book has remained on the printed page. While the photography and performances are strong, the movie is a one note, pretentious dirge.  There&quot;s more life in any single episode of &quot;Mad Men.&quot;</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/12/curious-affairs.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-4627750840325823465</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:11:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-12-05T18:14:22.419-08:00</atom:updated><title>A Satisfying &quot;Frost/Nixon&quot;</title><description>by Dan Cohen&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Frost/Nixon is first of all, stirring entertainment, provided you come to it with some knowledge of the period. I expected the predictable, but quickly found myself delighted by its multifaceted approach. The story and its many characters are revealed with intelligence, wit, and that most important of dramatic virtues, suspense. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Director Ron Howard, screenwriter/playwright Peter Morgan, and an outstanding cast have delivered two solid hours of high end drama. By adults and for adults.  And they do it with an emphasis on complexity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie, based on a play I did not see, begins with a whirlwind review of the events leading to Richard Nixon’s resignation in the middle of his second term.  The bullet points will suffice for those who lived through the period, or studied it.  Others may find it an overload, given the enormity of what occurred in this twilight of the Vietnam era.  Still, the movie does an admirable job of sketching Nixon&#39;s rapid demise, after he was linked to a bungled break in of Democratic headquarters located in a Washington hotel.  The most important things to know; he never admitted guilt or granted interviews.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;David Frost, who first came to our attention on a satirical TV show called &quot;That Was the Week That Was,&quot; (to some extent the precursor of &quot;Saturday Night Live.&quot;) was Nixon&#39;s unlikely interviewer/opponent.  Frost made his name in England, anchoring a show of the same name. He went on to enormous success helming a talk show that largely focused on entertainers.  After that ran its course, (several years,) he held forth on Australian TV.  In the movie’s view, chasing Nixon was the plum of his comeback plan.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie, somewhat miraculously, deals with Frost&#39;s problem getting the interview, financing it, and then facing one of the most enigmatic characters in modern history. But just as miraculously, it draws a sturdy portrait of the vilified and psychologically wounded Nixon without debasing or simplifying him.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This movie is a breathless high wire act, both intellectual and emotional.  It’s rooted in a strong screenplay, but director Ron Howard shows unusual tact in keeping the film moving and open minded.  It avoids the smug or pretentious, revealing both men for their strengths and weaknesses. Invariably, more questions are asked than answered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As their champions prepare for battle both Nixon&#39;s and Frost&#39;s people understand full well what&#39;s at stake. Nixon was getting a public forum, through an entertainer he considered a lightweight, and yet someone with similar roots.  Frost hungered for respect, and at least by the movie’s accounting, risked most of his own money trying to get it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones and others tackle meaty supporting parts that play like quiet thunder.  How much of the behind the scenes wrangling was made up, I can’t say, although the end results of the multi hour interview are as unquestionable as they were in 1977.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At first Frank Langella’s  Nixon appears a skillful mimicry, but as the story becomes richer he reaches unexpected depths.  The Academy will take note.  Michael Sheen, a distinguished theater actor, little known here, gives us Frost simultaneously fearful and determined.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’ll equivocate on one point; while I found &quot;Frost Nixon&quot; a constant stimulation it’s entire 2 hour running time, it will probably fail those uninterested in our recent past or the current Presidential flaps. For them, there’s always &quot;Transporter 3.&quot;</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/12/satisfying-frostnixon.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-2247550821443412880</guid><pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-11-17T16:52:51.658-08:00</atom:updated><title>A new Bond...  And a great performance.</title><description>by Dan Cohen&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The new James Bond is a let down. On the most basic level the movie lacks the suspense that made &quot;Casino Royale,&quot; such an overheated romp. What we get in &quot;Quantum of Solace,&quot; is a lot of furious action, but with little connecting tissue. And less heat.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As it begins we&#39;re told that Bond, the closed mouth Daniel Craig, is in a funk over the death of his latest love, the slinky, double dealing Vesper Lynd. And that he&#39;ll do anything to avenge her.  This makes him unreliable in the eyes of his employer, the infallible Judi Dench, who barely escapes an assassination attempt herself. But the screenwriters keep Bond’s assignment and dialogue to a minimum as trips through the expected set pieces. The most vivid element becomes Dench&#39;s increasing irritation, such that we remain more interested in her reactions than his jeopardy.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hitchcock, the master of suspense, even in comedy, always gave the audience as much information as possible, so it could get &quot;Quantum of Solace,&quot; (a title I’m still not sure I understand,) is that the story line is so murky it&#39;s hard to figure out what’s really going on or why. As a result the tension is muted.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The action however, is fast and frenetic.  A chase set in Siena, Italy, is a virtual symphony of elaborate camera moves.  But when it ends, like the other set pieces, with a bad guy neutralized, the movie has to be jump started by another baddie.  And finally, the central villain, played by Mathieu Amalric, who was so strong in &quot;Diving Bell and the Butterfly,&quot; fails to summon either the menace or humor of others before him. Olga Kurylenko, this years Bond girl isn&#39;t much help: she’s a stunner, but much less an emotional threat than Eva Green’s &quot;Vesper.&quot;  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The writers, Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade, are largely to blame for the opaque story. They&#39;ve substituted muscularity for the smug, knowing humor that punctuated the best Bonds. They took the same course, more successfully, with &quot;Casino Royale.&quot;  But that was drawn from a book with stronger elements. And director Marc Forster, the capable hand behind &quot;Finding Neverland,&quot; and &quot;Stranger than Fiction&quot; cross cuts his action scenes with such rapidity, half the time there&#39;s no telling how Bond gets out of the trouble the writers have contrived for him. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still, bland Bond is better than no Bond, especially in these troubled times.  And the initial box office, was  so huge, (both here and abroad,) that we needn&#39;t worry about Daniel Craig returning for the next installment.  At a reported cost of 200 million &quot;Quantum of Solace&quot; has a certain &quot;wow&quot; factor,  but after the roller coaster melodrama of &quot;Casino Royale,&quot; our appetite was whetted for just a little more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’d bet anybody that Anne Hathaway will be an Academy Award nominee for her heart rending performance in &quot;Rachel Getting Married.&quot;  Released from a live in rehab program to attend her sister’s wedding, she becomes the focal point from which a complex, extended family is seen and felt. The movie is amusing, touching and not a little scary.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jonathon Demme, who has directed nearly 40 films,  everything from B movies, (&quot;Crazy Mama,&quot;) to music docs, (&quot;Stop Making Sense&quot;) to A movies, (&quot;Philadelphia,&quot; &quot;Silence of the Lambs&quot;) goes in a completely different direction this time, borrowing heavily from the master of American cinema verite, John Cassavettes.  Working from a perceptive script by Jenny Lumet he’s found a near perfect means for getting under the characters’ skin, and ours.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kim has a problem. She was responsible for a tragic event that scarred this likable, decent clan, and complicated their relationships no end.  Since it&#39;s the sort of thing that never goes away, Kim remains the flash point for a recurring wild fire,  that, when it flares, burns everybody.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What&#39;s initially seen as Kim’s raging narcissism is eventually revealed as part of a process she’s devised to cope.  Hathaway, always likable in the sort of parts that made Julia Roberts a big star, here goes way deep.  But she never strains for effect, and is most appealing at her most helpless, usually when the camera is most mercilessly at her throat.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a half dozen indelible performances here; from Bill Irwin as a concerned father, to Rosemarie DeWitt as the conflicted bride, to Debra Winger as their troubled mother. And others, all believable.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie winds down a little in its last act, as the wedding evolves into a multicultural, concert of sorts. But the nerves it&#39;s touched remain sensitive.  These people, in spite of their best efforts, are never far from a dire crash, and we remain sensitive to that, and concerned for them, to the end credits.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-bond-and-great-performance.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-739329178071953858</guid><pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-10-16T18:10:17.327-07:00</atom:updated><title>What’s going on with the movies this fall?</title><description>The autumn harvest has brought us a crop of worm ridden apples : &quot;Lakeview Terrace,&quot;  &quot;Eagle Eye,&quot;  &quot;Bangkok Dangerous.&quot;  The art cinemas have shown a lot of low hanging fruit: &quot;Flash of Genius,&quot; &quot;The Duchess,&quot; &quot;What Just Happened,&quot; mostly main stream also rans that weren’t going to cut it in the suburban multiplexes.  There isn’t a single title that’s really captured the public’s imagination, except for maybe &quot;Beverly Hills Chihuahua.&quot;  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But at the same time our plates have been filled with high drama.  There’s the knock down drag &#39;em out battle of the titans, Obama and McCain, the edge of your seat disaster movie about our economy, the nearly surreal farce starring Sarah Palin.  These are the media events of the moment, against which the movies are poor competition.  Why?  On a case by case comparison they’re more compelling stories.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And while the movies may be little more than distractions from the main events of the moment, people are going.  The audience has been showing up in modest numbers for derivative thrillers,  &quot;Eagle Eye,&quot;   predictable romance, &quot;Nights in Rodanthe,&quot; and comfort food comedies,  the aforementioned &quot;Beverly Hills Chihuahua,&quot; which will probably turn out to be the biggest hit of the fall, given that Disney didn’t have to pay very much for the animated title character. Still these are studio productions, and hardly bargains to make.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The real winners of early fall are a few low budget features aimed at specific demographics,  like the horror movie &quot;Quarantine,&quot;   Bill Maher’s religion bashing documentary, &quot;Religulous,&quot; and its polar opposite, the Christian themed drama &quot;Fireproof.&quot;  These films have drawn audiences much larger than their costs, where &quot;Righteous Kill,&quot; with De Niro and Pacino, will barely return a third of their budgets, at least in theaters. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;The Women&quot; is another  example of a modestly budgeted production that found it’s audience. The powers that be at first balked at releasing this remake of a classic from 1939. Word was, critics were going to hate it, which was right.  But women went to see it, and it’ll probably be profitable before it goes to DVD.  Ironically, had it not been for the box office smash that was &quot;Sex and the City,&quot; &quot;The Women,&quot; might have been sent straight to cable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My point is that currently, the movies are performing like a slew of scruffy cable channels. The Networks appear to be out of favor; narrowcasting is in.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still another example; &quot;Nick and Norah’s Infinite Play list.&quot;  Never heard of it?  Well, your 15 year old daughter has.  Budgeted at 10 million, the movie has grossed twice that in two weeks of release, and will probably gross 30 before a hugely successful video release, after which it will probably haunt TV forever.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Nick and Norah&quot; isn’t a great movie. Save for the requisite gross out jokes, (yes, vomiting is once again used for comic relief) and predictable car wrecks, it moves very slowly. For most of its running time the characters chase around late night Manhattan looking for a legendary band that plays hide and seek with its fans.  The dialogue is sometimes insightful but more often labored.  And yet the characters are lightning rounds for teenage aspirations and anxieties, remarkably divined from the ether of the moment. And for this, its creative team, and the novel they’ve mined, deserve credit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nick, (Michael Cera) is a middle class senior from Hoboken; a melancholic nerd/musician who pines after Tris, (Alexis Dzienza)  a spoiled,  prep school sexpot who thrives on refusing his affections.  Norah, (Kat Denning,) a senior in the same prep school, and the daughter of a successful music entrepreneur, is similarly unlucky in love, but way better connected to the pop life they both thrive on. She comes from money, he drives the world’s oldest Yugo.  They seem an unlikely match, but their taste in music makes them soul mates of sorts.  As their Manhattan odyssey progresses, a clumsy and abrasive first meeting slowly turns into a mellow romance.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The casting doesn’t hurt.  Michael Cera, who you may recall from &quot;Juno,&quot; and &quot;Superbad,&quot; is the reigning underdog of the moment. The camera loves his less is more style. Also he’s gifted with the sort of voice that adds just the right element of confidence to his retiring presence. Kat Denning, who played Robert Downey’s daughter in &quot;Charlie Bartlett,&quot; has huge eyes and lips, and a fleshy quality that could turn her into a major movie diva. In any case they’re both square pegs in round holes, which serves the movie well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Nick and Norah&quot; has none of the bruising realism of &quot;One,&quot; or the sadly overlooked, &quot;In Search of a Midnight Kiss,&quot;  both of which are anchored by the unsentimental, almost casual heartbreak of every day life.  &quot;Kiss,&quot; and &quot;One&quot; are graced with well honed irony. Also their misaligned lovers are older, but not necessarily wiser. &quot;Nick and Norah&quot; as middle class teenagers, are so far, happily shielded from the hard knocks of the world beyond their  i-pods. Most of their experience of heart ache has been channeled from the music they’re constantly referencing.  They’re knowing, but sunny.  And that’s probably why they’re so attractive to the teenagers packing multiplexes to hang with them.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/10/whats-going-on-with-movies-this-fall.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-4353842046380211373</guid><pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:39:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-08-18T12:45:50.074-07:00</atom:updated><title>Late Summer Indies</title><description>By Dan Cohen&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As summer comes to a close it’s time to recognize a few small films that may not play the local theaters, but will make for a pleasant viewing on your DVD/flat screen set up. These aren&#39;t hits; they’re more like ground rule doubles. But none will insult your intelligence.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Tell No One,&quot; is probably the surprise art house hit of the summer. Even after it won a number of French &quot;Cesars,&quot; the larger American distributors passed on it, probably because some of it is unusually talky. At the same time there&#39;s much to recommend here.  Finally a little company out of Chicago called Music Box picked it up and it’s playing to packed houses of the middle aged all across the country.  Proving once again, adults like intelligent suspense films, and they don’t mind reading subtitles.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Written and directed by Guillame Canet, (from an American novel, &quot;Tell No One&quot; is an eclectic mix of styles and moods. Everybody in the insanely attractive cast has his or her quirks and the story takes us into every strata of current French society.  It&#39;s a voyeur&#39;s treat.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A doctor&#39;s wife is murdered at her country home. Her husband is beat up and left for dead.  Eight years later the still grieving spouse gets a message that she’s alive, but to &quot;tell no one.&quot;  Things get messy when the cops make him the number one suspect.  Complications follow; a daring chase, striking reversals, and finally, a credibility gap.  But along the way there&#39;s enough intrigue and color for three films. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Frozen River&quot; won the big award at Sundance. At the time critics fretted that it might not get a release. But here it is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The movie&#39;s depiction of life just above the poverty line in a godforsaken, frozen hell just south of the Canadian border is truthful to a fault.  But it wears its deliberate, almost witless tone like a badge of honor, and suffers as a consequence. Still, for its candor and compelling performances, the picture is an achievement.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Melissa Leo is a middle aged woman saddled with two kids, a dead end job and a gambler husband who takes off with all their money.  As a last ditch effort to keep the family together she ties up with a similarly disadvantaged, native American, who uses the Indian lands and their immunity from the law to smuggle illegals across a perilously “frozen” river.  The metaphors is worked for all its worth.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie is so lacking in sentimentality I hate to fault it, but Leo has trouble busting out of the constrictions of the material.  You cringe as she moves closer and closer to disaster, but at the same time wonder how she got where she is, and more important, what’s keeping her there. She appears smart and resourceful but the best she can get is a part time job in a dismal dollar store. Is she in any way responsible for her circumstances? The movie doesn&#39;t tell us. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; A lot of the explanation is fobbed off on a husband who never appears, but it isn’t enough.  And yet the situation is entirely fresh, and some of the imagery striking.  &lt;br /&gt;Ben Kingsley stretches just south of credibility, in &quot;The Wackness,&quot; a look back at a group of privileged but disoriented New Yorkers in the mid 90s.  He plays a pot addled psychologist who’s just as confused as his patients, including a smart kid, played by Josh Peck, who, in spite of good looks and attitude, can’t seem to lose his virginity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Olivia Thrilby, as Kingsley’s step daughter, stands out as a willful brat with more experience than Peck and probably most other boys her own age. Thrilby overwhelms everybody else in the cast, almost effortlessly. She also has the best lines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Wackness&quot; is sexy and funny in fits and starts, but succeeds more at creating atmosphere than compelling drama. And when it ends we feel like we&#39;ve spent the time pleasurably, but to little effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are so many coming of age &quot;dramadeys&quot; every year that the bar has been set pretty high. Time and place are just not enough to compel us, especially when the characters are as privileged s they are here.  And there are better examples of the genre. I think back to &quot;Igby Goes Down,&quot; from 2002 (available on disc) for its skill in mixing incongruous elements while remaining thoroughly grounded.  &quot;Igby&quot; found genuine loss in its protagonist, played by Kieran Culkin, without resorting to melodrama. It also required a little more than a passive viewing, and as a result, got lost in the shuffle in the same way that &quot;Wackness&quot; has.   The two films would make for an interesting double feature on your home screen.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/08/late-summer-indies.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-3934817253442528989</guid><pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:48:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-07-14T11:57:07.854-07:00</atom:updated><title>Summer Refreshers</title><description>by Dan Cohen&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We all know what comes with Summer;  heat, humidity and studio blockbusters.  School&#39;s out, so in theory at least, every night is Saturday night.  Adults are expected to take the kids, and more importantly pay for, an endless array of bloated comic book fare fired at us in fusillades of media.   So far we&#39;ve seen the good, &quot;Indiana Jones,&quot;  &quot;Ironman,&quot;  the bad, &quot;Zohan,&quot; &quot;Love Guru,&quot;  &quot;What Happens in Vegas,&quot; and the ugly, &quot;The Hulk.&quot;  And there’s  more to come.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But another species is blooming in the art house garden, propping up our expectations for adult entertainment this summer.  I&#39;ve seen two flat out winners, and several also rans. I recommend them to you with the hope that one of more will somehow find its way into the local multiplex.  This week, the winners.&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Kabluey,&quot;  (that’s right Kabluey) is more than a breath of fresh air, it&#39;s a blast; the sort of quirky comedy that puts the studio output to shame.  It&#39;s superior in every department; writing, acting, even cinematography. And it’s a pipsqueak of a production.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Salman, the black sheep of a middle class family, is dispatched from virtual homelessness,  to help his sister in law take care of two kids, while her husband, a national guardsman, is off on an extended stay in Iraq.  The kids are monsters, the house a chaotic wreck and the mom, at her wits end.  There&#39;s no way a simple recap of the  story can do justice to the comic invention and hilarity that follows. Somehow Salman ends up spending half his stay in an oversized blue creature suit, the &quot;mascot&quot; of a failed internet company, trying to rent office space in the cash starved companies headquarters.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Kabluey&quot; depicts our uniquely American disarray, social and economic, without a moment of pretension.  The story simply plops us down in the middle of our current mess, with no comment.   In that regard alone it&#39;s a triumph.  But there&#39;s a lot more; a pitch perfect performance from the divinely inspired Lisa Kudrow, and a host of dead on supporting players; Conchatta Ferrell, Terri Garr, Christine Taylor and more.  Writer/director Scott Prendergrast even succeeds in casting himself as the unfortunate &quot;Salman.&quot;  Then there are a couple of truly mean little boys, another casting coup.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie borders on the absurd at times, but that&#39;s a minor caveat. And the emotions it calls upon are well grounded in the realities of our current dilemmas.  The comic high points, both high and low, reduce you to helpless laughter.  For much of its running time, Kabluey takes you over completely; you&#39;re helpless in its comic grasp, and all the better for it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Kabluey&quot; is being released by Regent, a small LA based company.  It will surely find theaters in the major cities, but whether it cracks the multiplex barrier is yet to be seen.  And that&#39;s a shame, because it’s so much smarter and funnier than it&#39;s richer relations.  That it wasn&#39;t snapped up by one of the mini majors points to the dysfunctional state of current distribution.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Boy A,&quot; which is being released by the Weinstein Company, is almost the polar opposite of &quot;Kabluey,&quot; a sober, tough minded drama about a young man facing an almost insurmountable challenge.  This is a British film, in the tradition of the kitchen sink dramas born in the aftermath of the second world war, when Britain was crawling back to normalcy and birthing a new generation.  &quot;Boy A&quot; is a worthy successor to films like &quot;This Sporting Life,&quot; &quot;A Taste of Honey,&quot; and &quot;Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner,&quot; (all available on disk.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Boy A&quot; spent most of his youth in jail. The crime, of which he was an unwilling accomplice, is the worst kind.  (In order to maintain the story&#39;s integrity, I won&#39;t reveal it here.)  But the young man who&#39;s released is an altogether different individual than the child who was put away.  His tentative foray into the outside world is vivid, suspenseful and finally, unforgettable. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On paper this might seem like drudgery, or something we&#39;ve seen too many times.  Not in this case. Director John Crowley and screenwriter Mark O&#39;Rowe, adapting a novel by Jonathon Trigell, deliver a harrowing movie experience. &lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;Andrew Garfield, up to now a supporting player in television and movies, makes an indelible mark in the lead.  Garfield was born in the USA, but educated in Britain.   Watching this performance was like seeing Daniel Day Lewis reborn. He never seems to be reaching for effect; at all times he inhabits the character from the inside.  The performance alone creates an unusual level of tension, but there’s able support from veterans Peter Mullan and Siobhan Finneran.  Finneran, who I&#39;ve never seen before, is especially effective as an adult woman with a thinking and feeling side. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Boy A&quot; won several BAFTAs (British academy awards) and a prize at the Berlin festival.  It won&#39;t make a dent here commercially, but that doesn&#39;t mean you shouldn&#39;t see it, in the theater or on disk. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next time: Several also rans worth noting.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/07/summer-refreshers.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-8194909198993916746</guid><pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-06-17T21:09:01.083-07:00</atom:updated><title>Horrors!  by Dan Cohen</title><description>One of the earliest public exhibitions of a &quot;motion picture&quot; was a  static shot of a train moving towards the camera.  That several seconds of film, projected on a big screen in Paris, in 1896, sent unsuspecting viewers  running for the exits.  Ever since, people have been going to cinemas in the hope of being scared out of their seats.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Horror films can be as diverse as comedies, although lately most have followed the by now tired formula of popular &quot;torture porns&quot; like &quot;Saw,&quot; and &quot;Hostel.&quot;  Worldwide, horror movies sprout like weeds, sometimes choking their better bred relations, like last year&#39;s entry from Spain, &quot;The Orphanage,&quot; which made you uneasy without the need for an air sickness bag.  (Look for the DVD) &lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Now comes  M. Night Shayamalan, a superstar director, who takes the high road with a refined chiller that, like &quot;Sixth Sense&quot; and &quot;Signs,&quot; recalls other films at the same time it stakes territory of its own. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;The Happening&quot; has its awkward moments, but it digs deep into your conscious and won&#39;t let go.  The story, about a virus that erodes and then mutates human will, effectively exploits our fears about suicide and isolation.  It&#39;s a thriller for those who have contemplated the potential effects of a neutron bomb, chemical warfare, or the breakdown of the global ecology. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto renders the most pastoral settings with a taint of dread.  Visual effects, used sparingly, subtly heighten reality, instead of trying to subvert it.  Refreshingly, the most chilling moments occur in broad daylight.  City streets and pristine forests suddenly turn imperceptibly lethal. Though you can&#39;t see the menace you sense it lurking from the first shot. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;The Happening&quot; is at its most disturbing when showing ordinary people in quiet free-fall; nervous survivors stuffing themselves at a diner, the entire crew of a commuter train gathered in a knot of confusion, a woman standing alone in her yard as a breeze blows through her hair.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mark Wahlberg turns in a nuanced performance as an ordinary high school science teacher utterly incapable of coming to grips with disaster &amp;#150; like you and me.   Zooey Deschanel, as his childlike wife, is less compelling in an underwritten part.  But she&#39;s physically right, and that helps.  Shayamalan has  been shrewd in the casting of many smaller parts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are false steps along the way.  Some of the humor falls flat.  The dialogue, at times purposely banal,   comes close to alienating our affections for the characters. This is a function of the film&#39;s larger ambition to focus on the ordinary, for which I can&#39;t fault it. But as a writer Shayamalan has shown a firmer grasp of characters with broader pathologies, like the scared kid in &quot;Sixth Sense,&quot; or Mel Gibson&#39;s lapsed preacher in &quot;Signs.&quot;  Here, the bald messages his characters deliver are a bit artless.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For the most part critics have turned on this movie, but I think a lot of them so despise the writer/director&#39;s well documented arrogance that they willfully slight his inspired filmmaking.  This is ironic when just a month ago many of the same praised &quot;The Strangers,&quot; a stale and glum thriller that outstayed its welcome by at least an hour.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s no small achievement when a horror movie conjures palpable fear from thin air.  Call &quot;The Happening&quot; a triumph of dis-ease.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Foreign film alert.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You won&#39;t see &quot;Reprise&quot; in the local multiplex, but it&#39;s worth a trip to the art theater or a place in your Netflix queue.  It&#39;s the first film of a young Danish filmmaker, Joachim Trier,  and for those who crave the spirit of Truffaut or Godard, this will be a great pleasure.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Two young men send their first novels off to be published, dreaming of literary fame, success, and girls. One makes it right away, the other doesn&#39;t.  The movie follows their troubled friendship with gusto and energy.  The filmmaking is so eclectic it may lose you from time to time, but there are enough pauses for you to regain your footing.  Even when the characters take themselves too seriously the filmmaker knows better.  Where so many films about being young sink in their own bathos, this one soars.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/06/horrors.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Robert Field)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-1899459043869736143</guid><pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 15:07:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-05-14T08:21:43.704-07:00</atom:updated><title>Late Spring Round Up: Comedy at the Crossroads</title><description>&quot;Baby Mama,&quot; born of talent from &quot;Saturday Night Live,&quot; and &quot;Forgetting Sarah Marshall,&quot; the latest output from Judd Apatow&#39;s comedy factory, give us the opportunity to reflect on the state of funny in American movies.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First &quot;Baby Mama.&quot; Here&#39;s a sharp and funny premise; infertile executive hires trailer trash to carry her baby.  So, two women with nothing in common are forced to share one fertilized egg.  Add two proven TV performers, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, along with a host of top notch supporting talent that includes Steve Martin.  Pepper the stew with every plot element from an advanced seminar in screen writing.  Top it off with a volley of drop dead jokes.  Viola!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It made for a great trailer, but the movie is thin. Scenes flash by in a rush, perform their function and disintegrate.  For the most part they exist as set ups for jokes.  But when they don’t work, which is frequently, their transparency is almost embarrassing.  The chemistry between the leads keeps the movie afloat, but the director, Michael McCullers, never finds and settles on a confident tone.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Baby Mama&quot; is the work of a first time director, and it shows.  The box office, initially good, trailed off.  For the studios this one&#39;s a ground rule double.  The point is once again made, as it is over and over;  there&#39;s  a thirst in the market place for adult comedy.  It&#39;s just that the film wasn&#39;t strong enough for those adults to entice their peers into seeing it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A week after &quot;Baby Mama,&quot; &quot;Forgetting Sarah Marshall&quot; arrived.  Again, this is the work of a first time director, written and starring supporting players from producer Judd Apatow&#39;s well stocked stable of male nerds.   The writer of the screenplay, Scott Segel, doubles as the lead, and he&#39;s an appealing sad sack.  But &quot;Sarah Marshall&quot; is deliberately slow, close to slack at times.  And most of the physical humor is haphazard and ineptly staged.  What&#39;s new is an on screen appearance of Segel&#39;s sex organ and some fairly graphic screwing. Director Nick Stoller&#39;s touch for physical comedy is heavy handed, and yet the film&#39;s amiable candor about relationships keeps it from going completely awry. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apatow is a shrewd producer.  Each of his pictures exploits another aspect of sex, pushing the boundaries of the R rating. &quot;Knocked Up,&quot; &quot;Superbad,&quot; &quot;40 Year Old Virgin&quot;; the titles speak for themselves. &quot;Knocked Up&quot; is probably the smoothest of the bunch; it&#39;s fitfully funny and well cast.  And despite the  R rating, &quot;Superbad&quot; was last summer&#39;s want to see movie for teenagers.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But &quot;Sarah Marshall,&quot; &quot;Baby Mama&quot; and so many others this Spring, have failed to truly take off at the box office, in spite of their inspired ad campaigns.  They open well but then drop off.   It took &quot;PS I Love You,&quot; &quot;Over Her Dead Body&quot; and &quot;Fools Gold&quot; big names and saturation advertising  just  to return mediocre grosses. If a movie costs 30 million to make, 20 million to release, and then does 50 million at the box office (which has to be shared with the cinema owner),  it barely recoups half it&#39;s cost.  With DVD sales the title may break even, but it by no means supports huge studio overheads.  (This is a problem for another column.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My guess is that most adults, those who aren&#39;t addicted to the movie going habit, find what passes for comedy today boring and take a pass.  Teens, who can be satisfied by a hail of jokes and familiar sentimentality, are more easily amused and a better target for the studios.  Hence the studios aim their comedies at the post teen crowd and hope everyone else follows.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most successful romantic comedy this year, &quot;27 Wedding Dresses,&quot; did well, but that starred the indomitable Kathryn Heigel. &quot;Made of Honor,&quot; with TV heart throb Patrick Dempsey, failed. &quot;Fools Gold&quot; and &quot;PS I Love You,&quot; expensive movies that were heavily exploited, received horrible reviews and returned unexceptional grosses. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Two conspicuous box office smashes, &quot;Juno,&quot; and &quot;Little Miss Sunshine,&quot; made for a pittance by studio standards, point to the heart of the matter.  Both movies are adult in concept.  Both deal squarely with sexuality amid other domestic issues.  Both portray middle class American lifestyles without exaggeration or condescension.  And both are remarkably steadfast in tone.   What I mean by that is that the films characters rarely deviate from their own truth for the sake of a joke or a shock.  They deal a straight hand to the audience, much like comedies by Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges etc.   Both &quot;Juno&quot; and &quot;Little Miss Sunshine&quot; were huge popular successes.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&#39;s what set them apart from the studio output.  The set up and the style are established in the first twenty minutes and then remain within their parameters.  Credibility and consistency are honored.  Surprises are delivered, they don&#39;t come out of left field; they&#39;re organic.  When things resolve you think, yes, that&#39;s the way it should happen, only I wasn&#39;t aware of that while I was watching.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Juno&quot; is a terrific example.  A high school girl with a unique voice introduces us to her problem.  She&#39;s pregnant by a sweet, nerdy jock who she more or less seduced.  She doesn&#39;t want a baby and she&#39;s not the least bit reluctant about giving hers up for adoption.  But she does develop believable relationships with the couple she chooses to raise it. And as she gets to know them credible problems arise.  Even better,  these problems &amp;#151; and their tentative resolutions &amp;#151; become the film&#39;s most important assets.   Other elements are doled out in credible perspective.  The humor, in healthy dollops,  is character based.  The people are grounded in their settings.  Nobody sprouts wings for the sake of a joke.    The result: 160 million at the box office.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The same held true for &quot;Little Miss Sunshine.&quot;  And before that, &quot;Sideways.&quot;   Note that all three are lower budget Indies. You can add to that &quot;Napoleon Dynamite.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s a commonplace myth in the film community that romantic comedy has become impossible to pull off in the new millennium.  Critics remark that today&#39;s world lacks the sort of obstacles that kept people apart in the 20s, 30s and 40s.  The claim is that without economic tension there&#39;s no wedge between the protagonists.  But it wasn&#39;t a cash crunch that kept Tracey and Hepburn at odds. It was their different natures.  Most of the best screwball comedies were about the very rich, who hardly suffered the constraints of the pocket book.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Close attention to Turner Classics reveals the human heart as the greatest obstacle.  The struggle to capture and hold that heart is what audiences have always responded to, and will continue to as long as movies are popular.  The problem is that corporate Hollywood has lost the will or skill to seek it out.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An afterthought:  The French seem to understand how to create romantic comedy without resorting to the absurd.  For proof positive seek out &quot;Happily Ever After&quot; or the recent Audrey Tatou vehicle, &quot;Priceless&quot; on DVD.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/05/late-spring-round-up-comedy-at.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Doug McVay)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-568490561263942108</guid><pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:40:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-03-29T05:47:41.739-07:00</atom:updated><title>&quot;Under the Same Moon,&quot; And Others</title><description>It&#39;s hard to believe twenty five years have passed since Gregory Nava co-wrote and directed the sobering immigration epic, &quot;El Nort&amp;eacute;.&quot; Hard to believe because nothing seems to have changed: the debate over undocumented workers or their overall plight. If you can trust the headlines the situation has only gotten worse.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;El Nort&amp;eacute;&quot; depicted the trials of a brother and sister who flee war torn Guatemala only to arrive at a different battlefield in Los Angeles. Nava&#39;s movie was inspired in both form and content. No one has made a more powerful drama on the subject. Grab the DVD and you&#39;ll see.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But now two young filmmakers, writer Lighiah Villalobos with a background in TV and documentaries, and Patricia Riggen, a narrative director, have delivered their own take on the problem of borders. And while &quot;Under the Same Moon&quot; lives in the long shadows of &quot;El Nort&amp;eacute;,&quot; it carves out ample territory of its own. On top of that it&#39;s a real crowd pleaser.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rosario, (Kate del Castillo) a single mother, has made her way north to find a better life. She works two jobs in order to send money home to her aging mother and nine year old son, Carlitos, (Adrian Alonso.) Each week the two connect via pay phone to chat about an imagined point in the future when they&#39;ll be reunited, hopefully in Los Angeles. But when the grandmother dies Carlitos decides that it&#39;s no longer enough for he and his mother to dream under &quot;la misma luna&quot; (the same moon.) Having seen a woman arrange border crossings, and with a vague idea of where his mother might be, the boy takes off on his own.  A predictable series of events ensue, but the many rich details and the winning cast keep the movie one giant step ahead of its audience. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Carlitos is hardly the average nine year old. Street wise but hopeful, he&#39;s like a little man in a boy&#39;s body. This makes all the difference at points where his arduous journey stretches credulity. But even then we never doubt his determination or daring. Credit this to terrific casting. (In a recent Q and A Villalobos said that it took a year to fill the part.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kate del Castillo, as the mother, has a larger problem; her role is stitched from well worn cloth. In spite of it she keeps her head above the quicksand of cloying sentiment. It doesn&#39;t hurt that she&#39;s a natural beauty.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The movie has a final trump card in Mexican comic Eugenio Derbez, who plays Carlitos&#39;s reluctant travel partner. There&#39;s an old show biz adage that advises against playing opposite kids and animals. Derbez wins us over by staying true in every scene. There&#39;s none of the glib mugging comics usually resort in their film debuts. This character is built through small gestures and offhand moments, that culminate in an understated but heart-rending conclusion. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even when &quot;Misma Luna&quot; becomes schematic the details feel genuine: exploitative jobs, hardscrabble towns and road stops, loosely formed bonds that dissipate when &quot;la migra&quot; (the immigration police) show up. The story is also aided by skillful camera work and efficient editing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The talent pool of Mexican directors runs deep. In the past decade at least three have created huge international careers largely on their own terms: Alfonse Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro. For those unfamiliar with their work a brief recap.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cuaron, after several features on his home turf, made a well respected version of &quot;A Little Princess&quot; in English, then went back to Mexico and directed &quot;Y Tu Mama Tambien,&quot; which became a huge hit. &quot;Mama,&quot; a sexy neo-realist comedy, proved that a sexy movie in Spanish could cut it everywhere. Cuaron also directed perhaps the most energetic of the Harry Potter series. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Inarritu stormed the festivals with &quot;Amorres Perros,&quot; a stunning triptych on Mexico City, then continued along similar lines with the multi character dramas &quot;21 Grams&quot; and &quot;Babel.&quot; Inarritu is a confident stylist, although I wasn&#39;t persuaded by either of them. For the most part the characters felt moored to a reductive world view that sold them short. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Del Toro came up in the horror genre. His &quot;Cronos&quot; boasted an original vision and startling visuals. &quot;Mimic,&quot; more horror, about a race of human like cockroaches living in the subway, was several steps above the ordinary. Then came &quot;Pan&#39;s Labyrinth,&quot; a genre-bending fantasy that saw international acclaim and success.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And let us not forget Luis Mandoki, an immaculate craftsman who has been working both here and in Mexico since the 80s.  His under seen and under-appreciated &quot;Innocent Voices&quot; vividly portrays the tragedy of poverty stricken children forced to become soldiers during the ghastly civil war in El Salvador. It deserved a wider audience here, but lives on in DVD. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m eager to see what Patricia Riggen and Lighiah Villalobos come up with next.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A final note: &quot;Misma Luna&quot; opened in approximately 260 theaters, a large scale &quot;limited&quot; release. The first weekend it averaged a walloping 10 thousand per screen.  While this is an exception rather than the rule it&#39;s worth noting that the film is in Spanish, has no major stars, and no violence. The material, fronted by an aggressive campaign, found an audience. Someone should take notice. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/03/under-same-moon-and-others.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Doug McVay)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-3589656667052457854</guid><pubDate>Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:07:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-06-17T11:07:57.942-07:00</atom:updated><title>A &#39;Bank Job&#39; that pays</title><description>An early title tells us that &quot;The Bank Job&quot; is based on a true story. In 1970, thieves tunneled into the safe deposit vault of an esteemed London bank and made off with more than 3 million pounds in jewelry and securities. To this day, there have been no arrests. But there was more to it than that, and director Roger Donaldson, (&quot;The World&#39;s Fastest Indian,&quot; &quot;13 Days&quot;) and the eclectic writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (&quot;Across the Universe,&quot; &quot;Flushed Away&quot;) have conjured a complex brew of fact and fiction that keeps your head spinning for the movie&#39;s full running time. That title sets up certain expectations. But five minutes in we&#39;re knee deep in the familiar conventions of the heist genre: a bunch of guys on the outs, a femme fatale with a connection, a bank with a flawed security system, and some shady doings involving pictures taken during a vacation tryst in the Caribbean. Other than the puzzling opening on a beach, you know the territory. But that isn&#39;t a bad thing, because in this case there&#39;s a lot more to come. And it&#39;s expertly handled. And surprise, Donaldson and company have used the story to effortlessly comment on English society during that time. Some one has taken compromising photos of a prominent higher-up letting loose in the sun. The photos are placed in a bank&#39;s safe deposit box by a notorious black radical. A former model (and this is the story’s weakest link) gets pressured into recruiting her criminally inclined friends to retrieve the photos after she gets pinched for drugs. That model, well played by Saffron Burrows, is a little too upper crust for this bunch, so we have to cut the movie a little slack in its opening reel. But we’re rewarded! The movie goes above and beyond the genre&#39;s allegiance to plot twists and turnarounds. Civil servants, a pornographer, corrupt cops and several tiers of British society are credibly tied to circumstances here. The script pulls together so much information so quickly you’re hardly inclined to question it. Be warned, if you leave your chair for more than a minute or so you&#39;re likely to lose track of the tastier elements. The crooks, led by the sturdy presence of Jason Statham (&quot;Transporter&quot; and a host of other action movies) are believably thick. The caper is refreshingly low tech, and the gritty period details are spot on. The story doesn&#39;t race so much as hurtle forward, with a minimum of violence. That the characters are stock and a lot of their dialogue perfunctory barely registers; they&#39;re more than offset by expert plotting. An awkward romantic angle is mercifully brief. As it ripens, &quot;The Bank Job&quot; turns surprisingly sober. Events devolve credibly from lark to nightmare. The foibles of one class take a lethal toll on others. Characters, when pressed, behave in recognizably human fashion. As it turns out, a civil servant linked by coincidence really did come to a grisly end. Two murders were never solved. Almost as important, the movie&#39;s ending isn&#39;t reliant on screeching tires and crashing metal! (For those in need of that, see &quot;Vantage Point,&quot; an enjoyable mess of a political thriller.) Because the writers, director, cast and production designer have cast an eye to reality they&#39;ve given us a bit more than slick entertainment. This &quot;job&quot; is a pointed look backward. A technical note: &quot;The Bank Job,&quot; shot digitally, has a terrific look. It is moody without being stark, vividly detailed, and more. A lot of people still refer to this as &quot;high def video,&quot; which seems wrong to me. Digital filmmaking covers a vast range of &quot;image capture,&quot; and movies are moving wholesale into this newish format. Not to worry; it no longer looks anything like the &quot;video&quot; of news reporting or reality TV. Roger Donaldson has directed everything from intimate dramas (&quot;Smash Palace&quot;) to lavish adventures (&quot;The Bounty&quot;) to docudramas (&quot;13 Days&quot;), all shot on film. In addition, he has worked as a cinematographer and production designer. During a Q and A after a screening of &quot;The Bank Job,&quot; he extolled the format, saying that he expects &quot;film&quot; to die off in the next few years. I&#39;ll discuss this in a future column, but for now, take his word. He knows what he&#39;s talking about.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/03/bank-job-that-pays.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Unknown)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-4522563207916771528</guid><pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:00:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-02-18T12:05:33.602-08:00</atom:updated><title>Why &quot;There Will Be Blood&quot;</title><description>While &quot;No Country For Old Men,&quot; a movie I have deep reservations about, seems poised to sweep the Oscars, I think another problematic contender is gaining momentum. And the way it has been packaged and received by audiences tells you a lot about the &quot;quality&quot; film business at this moment.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;There Will Be Blood,&quot; loosely adapted from a novel by Sinclair Lewis (that I’m guessing nobody has read in at least fifty years), is the type of sprawling but modestly budgeted period piece that the high-end movie-going audience in this country seems to relish.  It deals with something many of us know a little about but practically all of us have an opinion, even if it’s an opinion based on mythology.  And that is the rise of a megalomaniacal oil tycoon. It features a towering performance by one of our most widely acknowledged eccentrics, Daniel Day Lewis. And it&#39;s crafted with exquisite attention to detail, at least for most of its running time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Its virtues go beyond just craft.  At its heart is a seamless interplay between actor Lewis and writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson. The character at the movie&#39;s core and the environment around him has an obsessive focus that all totaled amount to a vision of another planet. It&#39;s just that this planet happens to be one we lived in, nearly a century ago.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When the camera is on him (Lewis) the movie is mesmerizing. His involvement with the character goes beyond anything in the script and makes Jason Robards&#39;s canny remark,  &quot;if it ain&#39;t on the page, it ain&#39;t on the stage,&quot; almost aside from the point. We can&#39;t shake this guy from our minds, even if we wanted to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then there&#39;s the director, who&#39;s been called a &quot;master&quot; with only a handful of films to his credit. Not yet 40, Anderson is a favorite among young Hollywood. He won a major following after &quot;Boogie Nights,&quot; the last word on the porno business which grew like weeds in Hollywood&#39;s back yard during the early 70s.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Located mainly in the sprawling San Fernando Valley, many commentators took a perverse pleasure in porno&#39;s ups and downs, because in a way they mirrored the &quot;legitimate&quot; industry to which it aspired. Anderson got that, long before it became commonplace.  He caught its hard side, soft side, and almost comic pretensions. The movie was amazing for its energy, performances and twisty story lines. It capped the career of Burt Reynolds and arguably gave birth to that of Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham, John  C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Not bad.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anderson has wonderful instincts for actors. He knows what to do with them, and better, how to create character through striking visuals. Most of his films (see &quot;Hard Eight,&quot; &quot;Magnolia,&quot; and &quot;Punch  Drunk Love&quot;) resolve in ways that leave us irritated because he seems not to care about resolving stories in ways that leave us satisfied.  I don&#39;t think that&#39;s any excuse for downright incoherence (which I think he is guilty of, over and over),  but the  reality is, he&#39;s  managed to get a pass from a devoted following that has a taste for his taste. Both here and abroad.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Blood&quot; is no exception  to the Anderson canon. As narrative it shows signs of hopping the tracks about halfway in, when after a sterling hour or so, Lewis&#39;s oil man becomes harder and harder to read. He seems to lose focus on a child he adopted in the early going. He&#39;d used the child as a prop to move his career along, but their decline as a family is irregularly detailed. Small fissures in the narrative become chasms as we get to the last chapter, thirty years on, to the point where I overheard several people wondering whether the film was missing a reel. But no, I think Anderson made choices that put coherence on the back burner. I think he figured he&#39;d done enough to earn the melodramatic punches in the last reel, and that smoother transitions would have flirted with clich&amp;eacute;. I disagree. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The deepest revelations of character can be married to the best designed story lines.  John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola have shown us how it&#39;s done. Anderson is lucky that the art house crowd has allowed him considerable latitude to indulge himself. He may even get rewarded for it on Oscar night.  But for me, this time, the blood ran cold. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;Foreign Film Alert:  &lt;/span&gt;I don&#39;t know how it happened that the Cannes winner, &quot;4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,&quot; failed to get an Oscar nomination. To summarize the plot, which follows one young woman&#39;s attempt to help another get an abortion, is to sell the film way short of its suspense and irony.  Don&#39;t worry: the unpleasant aspects are deftly handled, so the squirm factor is minimized. The impact comes from indelible characters and a window into a society (Romania under the grip of its last dictator) with issues we can understand even if we have no knowledge about the country. Romania seems to have come out of the lost movie closet, the way Spain did after Franco went.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may not see &quot;4 Weeks&quot; in theaters but get the DVD, sit back and let it work its spell. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-there-will-be-blood.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Doug McVay)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-6351767786413660923</guid><pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2008 01:26:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-01-27T17:32:41.772-08:00</atom:updated><title>Crime and the Movies</title><description>&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;Crime and the movies &lt;/span&gt;have gone hand in hand since Edwin S. Porter made &quot;The Great Train Robbery&quot; in 1903.  So it should come as no surprise that movie theaters were filled with the unlawful and their minions in 2007. But the range and quality was surprising.  So let&#39;s review the more noteworthy from last year&#39;s wild bunch, even if, at this point, most of them are destined for screenings in your living room. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;Gone Baby Gone.&quot;  &lt;/span&gt;An Oscar contender for Amy Ryan&#39;s fiery performance as a mother whose only redeeming quality is her raging life force.  &quot;Gone&quot; was generally overlooked by audiences when it was released in early fall. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s a nerve jangling, twisty thriller about a kidnap/murder that takes no prisoners in depicting lower middle class life in Boston&#39;s south bay. You rarely get such unvarnished portrayals of social disarray, even in low budget genre pieces, but Ben Affleck&#39;s focused direction translates Dennis Lehane&#39;s dependable novel with true grit. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A key sequence, the cause of much confusion, is repeated a little too often, mainly to present &quot;new&quot; information, but this is a minor caveat; the material stays true to core beliefs about its people.  The cast including Casey Affleck, Michelle Monahan, Morgan Freeman.  And the inimitable Ed Harris is uniformly up to the challenge. This is the sort of movie where even the smallest roles stick to your guts. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;Michael Clayton.&quot;  &lt;/span&gt;I think the temptation among critics was to credit Tony Gilroy and George Clooney for getting a smart movie made, then to overlook the more subtle and complex virtues of their good lawyer/ bad lawyer story. Thankfully, the Academy, which generally looks after its own, recognized Clooney&#39;s complex performance as well as writer/director Gilroy&#39;s smart material for what they are: terrific adult entertainment.  These days it takes a major star and a proven writer for any studio to get behind material with such a low body count, so we have to be thankful that they persisted.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Clooney  is an unsuspecting fall guy in amoral Sidney Pollack&#39;s law firm, Tom Wilkerson is a partner losing his mind, and Tilda Swinton, as the opposition, sweats more than any woman ever in expensive business wear. In the process she becomes excellent competition for Amy Ryan&#39;s Oscar bid.  Gilroy ratchets up the tension with equal measures of precision and glee. The last few minutes show us once again, why Clooney is both a movie star and a terrific actor.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;Until the Devil Knows You&#39;re Dead.&quot;  &lt;/span&gt;I&#39;m not sure what, if anything, this wallow in family squalor amounts to, but its obsessive focus holds you in its grip from beginning to end.  Credit that to 83 year old director Sidney Lumet, who delivers every lurid moment with matter of fact, but unflinching candor. The relationship between brothers Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke deteriorates in nano seconds after an attempted robbery of their parents&#39; jewelry store goes horribly awry. What&#39;s surprising is how many others they take down with them. This isn&#39;t up to the level of say, John Huston&#39;s &quot;Asphalt Jungle,&quot; but those drawn to the dark side will not be disappointed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;American Gangster.&quot;&lt;/span&gt;  In any other recent year, director Ridley Scott, writer Steve Zaillian, Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, would have swept critics off their feet with this intelligent depiction of a drug dealer who takes his cues from corporate American.  Instead they compared it unfavorably to &quot;The Godfather,&quot; or complained about insufficient screen time between the two leads. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But Washington delivered a restrained, thoughtful performance and Crowe, as his nemesis, playing of all things, a homely Jewish detective, gave a new spin to the genre.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Gangster&quot; isn&#39;t so much an epic, as a study in contrasting personal styles. It&#39;s a tortoise and hare race, vividly observed.  And while the high end production values may be a bit showy, and the symmetry of the opposites  (honest scumbag cop versus family loyal dope pusher) might have appeared superficially predictable, new and rich details abound.  Also, keep an eye out for Ruby Dee in a small, but compelling part as a mom who keeps her mouth shut until she can’t.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;No Country For Old Men.&quot;&lt;/span&gt;  I wish I could flow with the wave of critical enthusiasm for the Coen brothers latest, I found it a far cry from  &quot;Fargo.&quot;  In fact I liked &quot;Miller&#39;s Crossing,&quot; another indulgent, but livelier hodge podge, much more satisfying.  The first half of &quot;No Country,&quot; meticulously detailed and tense, doesn&#39;t really speak to the second, where the narrative flies apart in a hail of unlikely plot turns. Wily wrongdoers suddenly turn stupid, while robotic killers become psychic. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tommy Lee Jones provides a stoic narration, a novelistic device that&#39;s supposed to ground the movie with a &quot;theme,&quot; but his part is only tangential. For all the impact he has on events he might as well have been reading off screen.  And while graduate student types are likely to proclaim the Coen&#39;s methods as the stuff of art (largely because they so self consciously depart from audience expectations,) don’t believe it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Country&quot; will be the cause of much late night babble in dorms and coffee houses, but the results of that are likely to be little more than bleary eyes and missed morning classes.   And I know it was taken from a novel. Novels are different.</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/01/crime-and-movies.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Doug McVay)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077868832263117019.post-8946437525649720113</guid><pubDate>Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:39:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2008-01-18T11:04:57.178-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">bauby</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">diving bell and the butterfly</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">harwood</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">max von sydow</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">movie</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">schnabel</category><title>Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly</title><description>We&#39;ve never seen anything quite like &quot;The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,&quot; and that alone makes it worth our attention.  Based on the memoir of Dominique Bauby, a French magazine editor who suffered a massive stroke at 43, the movie employs a bold strategy that forces us to see the world from its protagonists agonized and frightening point of view. That condition, described by Bauby&#39;s intrepid doctors as &quot;locked in&quot; syndrome, left Bauby completely paralyzed save for vision and movement in one eye.&lt;br /&gt;The movie begins with a confused awakening; blurry images and sound from a hospital room; doctors, nurses, and their conflicted and conflicting dialogue on the patient&#39;s condition. Then the patient&#39;s gradual realization that while he thinks he&#39;s talking, he&#39;s unable to say a word. For a while every moment is seen from the agonized view of Bauby&#39;s one functioning eye.  A sense of dread,  that we&#39;re going to spend the film&#39;s entire running time seeing through one eye, is eventually leavened by a rich series of flashbacks.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bauby was a talented and chauvinistic editor of Elle. In addition to the gorgeous wife and kids he sported a stunning mistress and a coterie of sycophants.  Even in the hospital he&#39;s attended by three wispily beautiful therapists, almost as taken with his reputation and power as his former underlings.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Imprisoned in the &quot;diving bell&quot; of his afflicted body, Bauby is forced to endure a procession of well meaning but helpless friends and lovers, more problematic than helpful.  His only relief comes from a determined therapist who contrives a tiny escape hatch for the &quot;butterfly&quot; within. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Director Julian Schnabel, working from Bauby’s memoir and an inspired script by Ronald Harwood, has elected to keep the narrators diffident and unsparing &quot;voice&quot; intact. This is most effective in several unnerving confrontations; between aging father, (Max Von Sydow) and stricken son, dutiful wife and fearful mistress, confused friends and colleagues. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bauby&#39;s painful struggle to re enter the flow of life is punctuated with flights of fancy that will remind some of the Javier Bardem film &quot;The Sea Within,&quot; from  a couple years back. Sardonic humor and an undiminished taste for the pleasures of the female body serve as distractions, reinforcing the character’s refusal to give in to his infirmity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the chosen form of storytelling is as problematic as it is problem solving. Because the film begins with Bauby already afflicted we don’t get involved in the ebb and flow his prior life.  That life is represented in snippets of recollection; vividly shot, but not quite enough to win our complete sympathy. By eschewing traditional narrative Schnabel and Harwood leave a bit of a vacuum.  The movie captures your attention more often than your heart.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I mention this deficit mainly by way of comparison with Schnabel&#39;s last film, the stellar &quot;Before Night Falls,&quot; probably the decade&#39;s best film about the inner life of a writer.  The fabric of that story; a gay writer/poet growing up in pre-Castro Cuba, was played against such a sprawling canvas, it&#39;s almost impossible to top.  Still, &quot;Diving Bell and the Butterfly&quot; aided by several late occuring revelations, builds to a deeply moving conclusion. Highly recommended. In French, true to its source.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By the way, don’t hesitate to seek &quot;Before Night Falls,&quot; from your chosen video library.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</description><link>http://entertainmentlanc.blogspot.com/2008/01/review-diving-bell-and-butterfly.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Doug McVay)</author></item></channel></rss>

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