The Best of Youth (La Meglio Gioventu)

Originally made for Italian tv, this six-hour family saga had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. last year, so it certainly ranks in my book as the Best Film of 2005. A leisurely unfolding of complicated familial dynamics against the news of the last forty years in Italy, the film focuses on two brothers (though the two sisters are also given their due, as is everyone who is swept up into the broad canvas) coming of age in the Sixties and pursuing divergent (and yet ultimately convergent) paths through the succeeding decades. Luckily that takes them from Rome to Turin to Florence to Palermo and points along the way, so the film works as a beautiful travelogue as well as a primer on recent Italian history. But it is even better as character study charted against time and the times, with novelistic breadth and depth, flawlessly acted by a large cast. Marco Tullio Giordano admirably follows in the tradition of directors like Visconti, Rosi, or Olmi. There’s no way to encapsulate the story, you have to immerse yourself in it, which I advise you to do. If you can’t lay your hands on the dvd, I hope to be able to offer a special event screening at the Clark this September. (2003, dvd, n.) *9-* (MC-89, RT-95.)

The American President

For me this holds up better than The Truman Show, seems funnier and deeper over time. Especially given the afterlife of these knowingly Capra-esque capers in an authentically rendered White House, what with writer Aaron Sorkin taking the chops honed here to The West Wing, where Martin Sheen moved up from chief of staff to the President’s chair. Michael Douglas is effectively triple-threat -- jut-jawed as widowed President, believably smitten by lobbyist Annette Bening (she of the wide-open eyes and wit as quick as her words), able to take his pratfalls with expert timing. Michael Fox, David Paymer, and others are also familiar to these precincts, and Richard Dreyfuss contributes a turn as the opposing Republican candidate. Watching the film again, a telling instance of the Hollywoodization of Washington, offers plenty of reflection on the intervening ten years of presidential politics. Foreshadowing Monicagate behind the scenes, the film’s focus on global warming and energy consumption as an issue is as fresh as today’s news. Astounding that ten years have passed without the first step being taken, as proposed here. Amazing how different the political environment -- except not so. The Republican electoral strategy described here has certainly been followed to a T: find something to fear and find someone to blame. Rob Reiner has definitely made sharp, funny films in his day, though now he’s probably looking to retire to the California governor’s mansion. (1995, dvd@cai, r.) *7+*

It’s only worth taking note of the harmless but juiceless The Boys and Girl from County Clare (2004) to make the promise that Kevin O’Hara and I will team up to write a much more flavorful screenplay, both tighter and more open-ended, out of some of the same Irish themes and scenes, as we adapt the just-optioned Last of the Donkey Pilgrims for the screen. Mike Haley is set to produce, soon after he is honored this May at the first Berkshire International Film Festival, for a long career culminating with an Emmy for the HBO production of Angels in America. (At the moment he is off to Morocco for location scouting on Charlie Wilson’s War, a film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Mike Nichols.) So if my blogging slows down, you’ll know it’s because I’m trying to make a movie instead of commenting on them.

The Truman Show

Upon reconsideration I had a rather lukewarm response to this prescient but pallid pastel parable of our mediated future. Certainly it skewers the medium of reality tv before it really got started, but by now Charlie Kauffman and Spike Jonze have raised the bar on mindblowing, so this quirky script from Andrew Niccol with placid direction from Peter Weir does not seem all that surprising in retrospect. The creation of the artificial world of Seahaven out of the artificial world of Disney’s made-up town of Celebration is very well done, and keeps your mind spinning between what is real and what is fake. Jim Carrey goes beyond mugging but not so far as involving or enlightening performance, as the real person whose whole life has been created for a real-time tv soap opera master-minded by Ed Harris, the God-like director whom he gives a human dimension. Future indie icons such as Paul Giammati and Laura Linney put in an appearance, and while the latter is perfectly plastic as Truman’s pretend wife, that’s not exactly what you want from an actress who exudes warmth and humanity, even when playing a monster like the mother in The Squid and the Whale. Natascha McElhone is wasted as the figurehead of freedom and escape into reality, but is indicative of the quality that went into this production. So by all means see this film if you missed it, but don’t bother revisiting it as a presumptive classic. The set-up raises a lot of interesting questions, but the film changes the channel without really answering them. That might be a virtue in some respects, but left me slightly unsatisfied in this case. (1998, dvd, r.) *7* (MC-90, RT-96.)

Downfall

This is a nominee for Best Foreign Film in this year’s Oscar race, and it would be a worthy choice. Not everybody will want to spend quality time with Hitler and his crew during their last ten days in the bunker, not even for the exhausting catalogue of ways and means to commit suicide. But I can’t imagine any film conveying a greater sense of “you are there,” whether you want to be or not. Picking up from a recent documentary about Hitler’s young secretary, the film convincingly answers the question of how you might get into that situation, and how you might get through it. Bruno Ganz makes Hitler believable and almost understandable, if not quite sympathetic. Eva Braun, Albert Speer, the Goebbels family, and all the rest of the characters in this lumpen Gotterdammerung are also believably real if unbelievably misguided people. For its native German audience, this must be a particularly powerful, perhaps necessary experience. For the rest of us, Oliver Hirschbiegel delivers impeccable filmmaking if not a lot of laughs or tears. (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-82, RT-91.)

Match Point

My number grade on this film is an approximate average, since I’d give at least a *7* to the first half of Woody Allen’s Hitchcockian departure from Manhattan to London, but barely a *5* to the second half when the shotgun comes in and plausibility goes out the window. Initially Woody’s misogyny is obscured by a wittily dyspectic misanthropy, but when the film turns against Scarlett Johansson something goes seriously wrong, since there is no other character to care about in this chilly, passionless depiction of crimes of passion. Jonathan Rhys Meyers works as a sort of Brit Joaquin Phoenix, but it is impossible to put yourself in his place, trying to decide between sultry Scarlett and twittering twit Emily Mortimer, who has to work hard to subdue her innate charm into upper-class inanity. I wouldn’t join those who call this a return to form for Woody, but it is a worthwhile exercise for a craftsman who turns out a more or less competent film every year, and occasionally something decidedly more. He remains a model of independence and indefatigability, if not a wholly admirable artist. (2005, Images, n.) *6* (MC-72, RT-78.)

Some Mother's Son

This is a remarkably uninflammatory film about the 1981 IRA hunger strike, led by Bobby Sands in the Maze prison of Ulster. Iron Maiden Maggie Thatcher and her minions are skewered, but all other sides are given due consideration. Directed by Terry George, with Jim Sheridan as producer and co-writer, this is a companion piece to the stirring In the Name of the Father, written by George and directed by Sheridan. The film centers around the always-estimable Helen Mirren, and also Fionnula Flanagan, as the mothers of two of the hunger strikers. When it comes to Ireland today, this is thankfully distant history, but the issues of terrorism as a political vs. a criminal act are as current as the latest news from Gitmo. This film admirably puts a human face on the question. (1996, Sund/T, n.) *7*

I am in the middle of two tv miniseries that I will write about when I finish them, the first season of HBO’s Deadwood on dvd, and the Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Bleak House on PBS.

I’ve also been catching up with some unseen oldies on Turner Classic Movies’ “31 Days of Oscar,” notably F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927) and Laurel & Hardy’s Way Out West (1937.) The former is important, one of the great culminating silent films, frequently on lists of the best of all time, well worth watching especially with double time to get through the really slow parts -- it reminds one how amazingly quicker we “get it” these days. There are very few title cards at all, but when they have to bring back a two-sentence piece of dialogue for a second read, you know the old audience was a little slow on the uptake. So it’s hard to recommend viewing this film, despite the striking Expressionist visual style, imported from Germany to Hollywood, contrasting city and country life. Janet Gaynor won the very first Best Actress Oscar for her role as “The Wife.” I suspect I may have watched Way Out West on tv as a kid in the Fifties, certainly there was a lot of Laurel and Hardy on the tube back then, so the memories were engaging if the movie was not.

Hustle and Flow

As attracted to Black culture as I have always been, I’ve never been able to get down with hip-hop, and its whole pimps ‘n’ ho’s aesthetic. Give me Smokey Robinson or Marvin Gaye any day. And yet Memphis white boy Craig Brewer as writer/director has infused the scene with a satisfying creative passion, the drive to make that demo tape of crunk a direct parallel to his own quest to make the movie. The whole struggle-to-breakthrough story arc is tried and true, but there is plenty of local color and flavor along the way. His passion recruited director John Singleton to produce, and eventually to finance it himself when none other could be found. The film won multiple awards at Sundance last year, and Terrence Howard’s performance has been deservedly nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. He’s a scuffling-to-get-by pimp and dealer who glimpses redemption in getting his story out and his rapping noticed. Yeah, yeah, everybody’s got a dream. But more importantly none of the details are fudged, this is not what you would call an admirable character here, but you do root for the dream to be realized. The whores and bandmates are well-sketched characters as well. The uppers and downers of the story are nicely-balanced, but it’s just not my scene. (2005, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-68, RT-81.)

African American Lives

Reluctant to commit to another multi-episode tv documentary after the disappointment of Country Boys, I was also put off by the focus here on Oprah and Whoopi and other Black celebrities, but some very positive reviews made me tune into this blandly-titled presentation by Henry Louis Gates Jr., head of African-American Studies at Harvard. And I’m very glad I did. Skip Gates is an utterly charming guide, the stories told are profoundly moving, the archival footage is thoroughly engrossing, and the exploration of genealogical and DNA research is intriguing in its own right. Following nine family trees back through the Great Migration to slave times and all the way back to Africa, this series delves into a past that is both tragic and uplifting. (2006, PBS/T, n.) *7+*

Munich

Pure punishment. Never in my life have I hated a movie this much. The moral confusion of its preachiness. The queasiness of its thriller apparatus. The unredeemed and unredeemable violence. The opaqueness of its characters. The sheer unreality and boredom of it all. Never have I been more reluctant to suspend disbelief. This is not a political but an aesthetic judgment. As to the politics of the situation, my feeling is strictly “seven plagues on both their houses,” so this film’s presumed evenhandedness offends me on both sides. I went into this Best Picture nominee with no preconception, but I found it excruciating from start to finish, neither entertaining nor thought-provoking, both obvious and incomprehensible. All the food and kitchen scenes made me want to puke. As “Avram’s Eleven,” it disgusts me. As “Israeliana,” it leaves me in the dark without a glimmer of light coming from the screen. Hands down, this wins my Worst Picture award. What a waste of the talent involved!(2005, Images, n.) *0* (MC-74, RT-78.)

In Her Shoes

What I find interesting about this film is how precisely opposite it is to Wedding Crashers, and not just because one is a chick flick and the other is a buddy movie. Here I found the first 20 minutes rather shticky and off-putting, and I was on the verge of cutting it off (except that I am a Toni Collette fan from way back -- e.g. Muriel’s Wedding), but the film got more involving as it went along, though it went on too long and the resolution was a little too pat. High-quality, against-type direction from Curtis Hanson made the proceedings more appealing and elicited pleasingly subtle performances from Cameron Diaz and Shirley Maclaine, as Toni’s antithetical sister and long-lost grandmother respectively. I will date myself here by remembering when Shirley (Irma La Douce) was for a teenage boy the heart (and other organ) throb that Cameron is today. Okay, the message that the body and the brain need to learn from each other is not exactly novel, nor that sisterhood is powerful, but both the sentiment and humor of this story reached me. I find it intriguing that the critic with whom I agree most often, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com, had exactly opposite reactions to this and Wedding Crashers -- must be an anti-gender thing. (2005, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-60, RT-74.)

Garden State

Strenuously strange, if a trifle thin and ultimately quite conventional, Zach Braff’s one-man show -- he writes, directs, and stars -- is made palatable by the presence of Natalie Portman as his love interest. He also enlists the support of reliable actors such as Ian Holm and Peter Sarsgaard, but does not give them much to do. The protagonist is a marginal actor who returns from LA to NJ for his mother’s funeral, meets up with various old friends and classmates who have made their own way or not in the decade since high school, and eventually emerges from the longterm numbness caused by a not very convincing old family tragedy. Quirky without genuine originality, heavy without real emotion, this is nonetheless a watchably humorous effort from a twentysomething with some promise. (2003, HBO/T, n.) *6* (MC-67, RT-87.)

Only the Strong Survive (2002) is not up to the normal standard of eminent documentarians D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, nor as infectiously delightful as similar films such as Wattstax or Standing in the Shadows of Motown, but makes for a pleasant return visit with Seventies soul singers such as Rufus and Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, and Sam Moore of Sam and Dave.

The Candidate

Though I have seen this film many times -- sat through it twice in a row when it first came out -- I haven’t watched in a while, and couldn’t resist when I saw the title while scrolling the TiVo listing of upcoming movies. Robert Redford and Michael Ritchie’s follow up to Downhill Racer is certainly one of the arguments for the early ’70s as the last golden age of Hollywood. It remains fresh and startlingly prescient about the unholy synergy of politics and media. Joe McGinniss had already written The Selling of the President but The War Room was twenty years off. Writer Jeremy Larner had been with RFK in ’68 so he knew his way around the scene. For Redford as the telegenic candidate for senator from California, there is a built-in meta-level about the leveraging of physical appeal into a political role. Melvyn Douglas is perfectly cast in the supporting role of the candidate’s former-governor father. Peter Boyle and Allan Garfield set the mold for the Carvilles and Aileses to come. This would be fun to pair in a double feature with Warren Beatty’s Bulworth. (1972, HBO/T, r.) *9*

Michael Ritchie makes for an argument against the auteur theory. He went on to complete a sort of trilogy on the American scene with Smile, a broad but deep satire on teenage beauty pageants. Then he had a big hit with Bad News Bears (which is not among my favorite baseball films) and never made another lasting film in three decades of regular work. There may be personal reasons for his decline from a super start, but perhaps it indicates that the tenor of the times, the liveliness and risktaking of the environment in which movies are produced, can be as much a factor in their worth as the director’s sensibility and skill. You could credit Redford as producer too, but he wasn’t involved in Smile.