W.

Neither the cathartic satire nor the excoriating expose it might have been, Oliver Stone’s film delivers a low-key but fairly honorable attempt to understand what makes Georgie Boy tick. Maybe it should have been a little wilder, but except for a fantasy sequence that is repeated long after we get what little point it has, the film comes across as a fairly straightforward docudrama with elements of sly humor. The big draw is seeing familiar faces impersonating other familiar faces, and they’re all spot on, from Josh Brolin as Bush and Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney on down--wait, isn’t that Rob Corddry as Ari Fleischer?! Jeffrey Wright channels Colin Powell as we hope he was, and Thandie Newton does a wicked caricature of Condi Rice. James Cornwell and Ellen Burstyn are uncanny as the not-so-proud parents, George and Barbara. And suddenly-ubiquitous local gal Elizabeth Banks does a creditable Laura Bush. You’ll spot a bunch more (like Toby Jones, aka Capote, as the ineffable “Turdblossom/Boy Genius” Karl Rove), but Richard as (you-don’t-know-) Dick is the key, making an implausible figure plausible, and his sit-room argument for invading Iraq is speculative and Strangelovian but rings true, as Powell asks “What’s our exit strategy? How do we get out?” and the little Napoleon answers chillingly, “We don’t. We stay.” I could have done with more scenes like that and fewer detailing the familiar tales of Dubya failing upward from fratboy to President, with the not-news flash that 43 was obsessed with earning the respect of and then surpassing 41, his aloof, patrician Poppy. Still, if you’re willing to spend any more time with--say it with me now!--The Worst President Ever, then you could do worse than watching W. (2008, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-56.)

Slumdog Millionaire

What pleases the crowd often pleases me not, but I was won over by the exuberance of Danny Boyle’s exploration of Mumbai, the clever exposition of a conventional story, and the appeal of Dev Patel as the central character in this gritty urban fairy tale of destined love. Three trios of attractive young actors hurtle the story backward and forward from the death of their mothers in anti-Muslim riots in the Bombay of the early ’80s to Patel’s appearance on the tv gameshow “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” in the booming Mumbai of the late ’90s. The borrowings from popular culture are unabashed and nonstop, from Boyle’s self-homage to the infamous toilet scene in Trainspotting, to obvious riffs on Dickens and Dumas, to the gameshow itself, and appropriation of stars and scenes from Bollywood movies. Like the characters, the camera and music hurtle through locations pulsing with life. I expected to be put off by a film revolving around a gameshow I never cared to watch, but was rather impressed by the way it triggered flashbacks to fill in the story. It’s impossible to take this film seriously, but equally impossible not to be swept along by its energy. Genial enough in spirit that I didn’t mind having my buttons pushed so insistently, this romantic fantasy is popular entertainment that is entertaining as well as popular. (2008, Images, n.) *8* (MC-86.)

Frozen River

This Sundance fave from Courtney Hunt is perhaps a little too well-made, too crafted for audience appeal. It loses some indie cred in its effective use of thriller-type suspense. But it’s certainly an open-eyed look at a rarely-seen aspect of the American Dream, where the goal is to move up from a trailer to a double-wide. And while illegal immigration is usually the province of the Mexican border, this looks at Asians coming across the frozen St. Lawrence River from Canada, taking advantage of the mixed jurisdiction of a Mohawk reservation that straddles the river. Melissa Leo is justifiably celebrated for her role as the trailer park mother of two boys, trying to get by when her gambling-addict husband absconds with the balloon payment on their about-to-be-delivered double-wide. The wonder of her performance is that she never seems as though she’s acting, but simply inhabiting the hardscrabble life and no-nonsense attitude of the character. The impassivity of the Mohawk woman who recruits her into risky car treks across the ice may be characterization, or perhaps simply nonprofessional acting, but it works for the story. Gunplay and a Christmas miracle take the proceedings over the top, but I still give the film props for honest observation of hidden lives. (2008, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-82.)

The Duchess

Perhaps I’m a sucker for plausible English Heritage productions, but I liked Saul Dibb’s film more than most. I discerned minor anachronisms in dialogue and attitude, but nothing like Becoming Jane or the most recent Pride and Prejudice. Meanwhile, the costumes and locations were enough to earn my endorsement. But beyond that, I found the film credible in the manner of (if a notch below) Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, making an 18th-century proto-celebrity intelligible and alive to a modern audience without excessive dumbing-down. As Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Keira Knightley is more appealing to me than she has been since Bend It Like Beckham, and manages to carry off the enormous hair-dos and confining dresses. She is taken in marriage (a most appropriate phrase) by the older Duke, one of the most powerful men in Britain and patron of the Whig Party in the 1780s. Ralph Fiennes gives the imperious cold fish many subtle shadings. The unhappy Duchess becomes the star of the Party and of Society, in a manner that is not too explicitly dependent on the fate of her descendent, Lady Di. Among her attendants are Charles Fox, the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (School for Scandal is inspired by her), and future Prime Minister Charles Gray. Meanwhile, she invites a distressed lady friend into her home, and then has to deal with the divorced woman’s continuing relationship with the Duke, while pursuing her own affair and affairs. This is my idea of adult entertainment. And at just over a hundred minutes, it does not overstay its welcome, a rarity these days. (2008, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-62.)

Watched in passing

For the past month I have been deeply involved with a manuscript that is now on its way to the publisher, so finally I can catch up with what I’ve been watching in passing. Certainly the most significant was another fine Japanese film resurrected by the Criterion Collection, Keisuke Kinoshita’s Twenty Four Eyes (1954). I watched it because I was looking for more of Hideko Takamine. Here she plays a beloved teacher in a village on the Inland Sea, the 24 eyes belonging to 12 students whose lives we follow from 1928 to 1946. Understandably this makes for a long and grim film, comparable to a Western “women’s weepie” and as such very popular in Japan. It’s sad and beautiful, but also slow going, and sometimes frustrating in its reliance on long shots. I mean, if you had Ingrid Bergman in your movie, you wouldn’t want to shoot her as a small figure in the landscape all the time. So just give me more of Hideko Takamine!

Inadvertently on a Japanese theme, I also watched The Cats of Mirikitani (2007, MC-73), a modest but moving personal documentary, about a homeless old Japanese painter that the filmmaker, Linda Hattendorf, discovers living on the streets of Manhattan. After 9/11 she takes him into her small apartment and in a self-effacing manner helps him put his life back together. He had been born in Sacramento but went back to Hiroshima with his mother, to return to the US to avoid being drafted before the war, only to wind up in an internment camp for three years. These are the obsessive subjects of his art, the remnants of his identity, lost along the way. Ms. Hattendorf helps him regain his citizenship and finds him a home, in an impressive act of human resurrection. There is not a false or excess moment in a film that could have been cloying and self-congratulatory.

Then there was the latest from two appealing British comics, both of which were funny enough in parts to be enjoyable, but neither close to being a good film. Steve Coogan plays a hapless high school drama teacher in Tucson in Hamlet 2 (2008, MC-54), which is in effect an understudy to the classic Waiting for Guffman. He has his moments, as does the film, and also supporting players like Catherine Keener, but as a whole it is no better than mildly amusing. (As is frequently the case, Stephanie Zacharek nails it in a way that leaves me with nothing else to say.) The same goes for Simon Pegg in Run, Fat Boy, Run (2008, MC-48), a loser who unaccountably leaves a lovely and pregnant Thandie Newton at the altar, only to try to woo her back years later by entering a London marathon to best her new stockbroker boyfriend (Hank Azaria). Both these films display an effortful wackiness but contain not the slightest surprise, basically just sitcoms on film.

As for TV itself, there’s some good stuff going these days. As a DirecTV subscriber, I’ve already watched the entire third season of Friday Night Lights (MC-84), which is now running on NBC. Recovering from some eye-rolling fumbles in Season 2, this reestablishes the show as a marvelous group portrait of a small rural Texas community where high school football is the only game in town. But it is certainly not the only game in the series, which has multiple soap opera pleasures as well as a delicious portrait of the marriage between Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. He’s Coach Taylor and she’s now the school principal. All their interaction is a delight to watch. And then of course, there are all the high school hunks and honeys. Though better to watch on dvd, this is the rare broadcast network series worth committing to. DirecTV has used the platform to launch another series created by Peter Berg, and it’s looking pretty good after three episodes. Wonderland explores the world of a NYC mental hospital based on Bellevue, and seems involvingly interwoven and slambang in impact.

Now in progress are the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactic (MC-85) on the SciFi Channel and the third season of Big Love (MC-79) on HBO. While each has its ludicrous moments, each ultimately is worth the time it takes to get into them. BG modulates its action with thought-provoking parallels to current international issues, and BL takes the premise of modern Mormon polygamy and delves into all sorts of amusing and touching areas of family life. The acting of the latter is more consistently up to snuff than the former, but both offer significant pleasures and provocations of continuity.