Margot at the Wedding

Quite a comedown from The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach’s new film boasts distinctive performances from Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh (his wife) as a pair of close but equally-impossible sisters, trying to get back together -- and at each other -- after an estrangement. Leigh is getting married to not-at-all-lovable loser Jack Black, and Kidman comes to the wedding -- along with her young teenage son (Zane Pais, performing manfully) -- mainly to talk her out of it. Their relationship is believably quirky and contentious, but the rest of the film does not come off at all. So after casting Laura Linney and then Nicole Kidman as his mom, maybe it’s time for Baumbach to move on from his fraught maternal connection. This was notable as the worst-looking film I’ve seen in ages, though maybe exacerbated by dim projection. It’s set on some undefined East Coast island, but conveys no sense of place at all, either outdoors or in. I appreciate the aspiration, but Noah -- just between me and you -- this ain’t Eric Rohmer. (2007, Images, n.) *6* (MC-66.)

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

Julia Jentsch is utterly convincing as the anti-Nazi college girl in Marc Rothemund’s meticulous recreation of the White Rose resistance movement at Munich University, through the capture, trial and execution of their ringleaders in 1943. Working from transcripts of interrogations and kangaroo court proceedings, the film offers a realistic depiction of the dialectic of heroism. Youthful idealism stands toe to toe with malevolent fanaticism -- the result is foreordained, but stirring nonetheless. This examination of conscience was as worthy a German nominee for the foreign film Oscar as the winner two years later, The Lives of Others. (2005, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-76 .)

Backward glances

Without any plan, based on broadcast or disk availability, my movie viewing has been proceeding into the past. I’m no fan of Anthony Mingella as a director, but I always like to watch Matt Dillon, so when I happened upon Mr. Wonderful (1992, *6+*) on HBO in HD, I tuned in and was rewarded with a flavorful if unsurprising romantic comedy. Dillon is a Con Ed electrician who spends his days underneath Manhattan, and wants to go in with his buddies on buying and restoring an old bowling alley, if only he could get out of paying alimony by marrying off his ex-wife, Annabella Sciorra, a girl from the neighborhood who left him behind when she went off to college. He is now with nurse Mary-Louise Parker, and the ex is having an affair with her English prof, William Hurt. Annabella is courted by a young and thin James Gandolfini, and Vincent D’Onofrio among others, but we know all along whom she is meant to wind up with. Still a lot of appealing performers convey a lot of local color, and if the story arc is evident from the get-go, there are some enlivening details along the way.

Then over on TCM, they were showing The Hustler (1961, *9*), which I’d re-watched not too long ago when it was only available in the woefully-misnamed “full screen” format. I vowed at that time to watch it again in genuine Cinemascope, and having now done so, I can completely reaffirm its classic status. Paul Newman is all that -- and more -- as pool shark Fast Eddie Felson, while Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott are indelible as Minnesota Fats and the gambler who pushes the buttons and pulls the strings, as is Piper Laurie as “Eddie’s girl,” though her story ends in a not-quite-realized scene that keeps the film out of absolute pantheon status. Robert Rossen does a great job of using the widescreen frame in claustrophobic interiors. Now I will follow up by re-watching Scorsese’s sequel, The Color of Money.

On the other hand, my earlier evaluation was not confirmed by re-watching Excalibur (1981, *6+*), as part of my intermittent Helen Mirren retrospective. Her role was not as large as I remembered, and John Boorman’s direction was not as sure-footed. Visually spectacular in parts, this retelling of Camelot is risible and incoherent in other parts. Though Nigel Terry is okay as Arthur, Lancelot and Guinivere are played by nonentities, and Nicol Williamson is a jokey Merlin. It was probably hard to keep a straight face in returning to this hoary tale after Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but the uncertainty of tone cripples the enterprise. It was amusing to see Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and others, in small roles at the beginnings of their careers, but this is no classic in need of resurrection.

And neither is The Bishop’s Wife (1947, *6*), which TCM showed on Christmas eve as an alternative to the ubiquitous It’s a Wonderful Life. In this one, Cary Grant is the angel who comes down to help out David Niven, playing an Episcopal bishop who has lost his way in trying to build a new cathedral in a generic, studio-set Manhattan. The bishop has fallen out of touch with his wife, Loretta Young, as well as his vocation, in pursuit of wealthy donors. Cary woos her back, but for the bishop or for himself? Though the charm is largely manufactured, Cary’s definitely got it, whether angel or not (he’s certainly better as no angel in Only Angels Have Wings), and makes the sentiment not a chore to watch.

Breach

Director Billy Ray follows his Shattered Glass with another true-life tale of deception and mendacity, this about an FBI mole who for two decades was passing secrets to the Russians while passing himself off as a pious Catholic straightshooter. The always-interesting Chris Cooper plays Robert Hanssen in the months before he was caught in early 2001, with Ryan Phillippe as the mole’s mole who serves as his clerk and driver, and Laura Linney as the latter’s FBI case agent in bringing down the former. The film has an impressive tenor of D.C. institutional veracity (the clerk’s real-life model was an on-set technical advisor), with authentic performances, especially by Cooper, and understated but gripping suspense. For example, instead of a car chase, the film features a scene of ratcheting tension in gridlock on the parkway. All it really lacks is some final insight into what made Hanssen tick, though its reticence about coming to a simple explanation is probably a virtue. (2007, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-74.)

Foreign excursions

Lately I’ve been watching a random assortment of foreign films, which I will take note of but not review in any detail. Foremost would be Ridicule (1996, *8*), part of my “In Amorous Fashion” film series at the Clark, which showed to great advantage on the big screen, confirming Patrice Leconte as one of the post-New Wave French directors to watch (like me, he was born in 1947) -- type his last name in “search this blog” box at top of this page to see my reviews of his recent films. This well-made film has the appeal of movie romance, lovely and witty, as well meticulous period depiction of the pre-Revolutionary court of Versailles.

Alain Resnais, along with Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, represents the remnant of the old New Wave that continues to lap against our shores refreshingly. Filling in his filmography, I watched Muriel (1963, *7-*) for the first time, though Resnais made it right between two of my favorites, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Le Guerre Est Finie. The subject matter is not as substantial (though the Algerian War figures largely as backstory), but the method of depiction is striking in its own right, and surprising in that it has not been emulated more (though today it might be compared to music-video style) -- the picture is a mosaic made of shards of action, discontinuous but chronological, that you have to piece together in your own mind, but that add up to strong images of place -- Boulogne -- and character -- Delphine Seyrig is an antiques dealer who accepts a visit from an old flame, who in turn brings a “niece” who falls in with her stepson, with confusion and deception ensuing among the quartet -- in a lively if inconsequential chamber piece.

I am struck by how often, when I give an old film a second chance based on its citations as a classic, my long-ago first reaction is reaffirmed by a re-viewing. I remember my lack of enthusiam for The Conformist (1970, *6*) back in the day, but I’ve grown in appreciation of Bertolucci over the years, so I thought it might be a revelation. It remained, however, gorgeous but nonsensical. Eye-popping in many scenes, there is not a plausible motive or emotion in the motion picture.

Zhang Yimou remains one of the world’s great filmmakers, though these days he seems to alternate between spectacle and sentiment, without the bold critical intelligence that first made a name for him in the West.
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005, *7-*, MC-73.) is in the vein of Not One Less or The Road Home, folk-tale-inflected depictions of contemporary Chinese peasantry, rather than the martial arts fantasies of Hero, et al. It is notable for surrounding Ken Takakura, known as “the Clint Eastwood of Japan,” with nonprofessional actors, amid astounding locations in Yunnan province, reminiscent of the Rockies and Bryce Canyon out West. Takakura is the impassive father of an estranged but dying son, who takes it into his head to connect with him by going to China to film a folk-opera (titled like the film) for a documentary the son will now never finish. After much low-ley comedy of mistranslation, Takakura goes to fetch the young son of the imprisoned opera singer he wants to film, and predictably, they form a heart-tugging surrogate relationship, though not speaking a word of the other’s language. If a cute kid melting the heart of a crusty old guy, along with breathtaking picture postcards of fascinating foreign terrain, is enough for you, then you should see this movie. Though beautiful, it’s a little overt for me, with an underlining voice-over.

No Country for Old Men

This is undeniably accomplished work by the Coen brothers and their usual creative team, but what exactly is accomplished by it? It’s apparently a faithful adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel, but I am no fan of his. It allows Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin to put effective flourishes on various macho stereotypes, on the way to delivering blood, mayhem, or their aftermath in nearly every scene. It uses all the resources of film to elicit suspense and dread, but ends up leaving nothing for our pains, or rather our pleasure at the pain of others. If you need more info than that, it’s a story about a big drug deal gone horrifically bad in the Texas desert, the hunter who stumbles on the result and makes off with the cash, and the various guys who come after him to get the money back. Violence ensues, in various quirky and horrific ways, graphic when it wants to be, and show-offy subtle when the point has been made (e.g. a longshot of the hit man coming out of a house and checking the bottom of his shoes for blood, after his latest unseen murder.) Well-made enough to have had an impact if it managed to bring itself round to a meaningful conclusion, the film ends with the shrug of a recounted dream that really left me feeling that I had been had. I have to admit I was along for the ride, but I had no use for the destination. (2007, Images, n.) *7---* (MC-91.)

Factory Girl

As in real life, Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) is a tragic charmer, who is let down by the two men with whom she shares the screen of celebrity. Guy Pearce is mostly believable as Andy Warhol, though the film emphasizes the emotional vacancy over the sly wit. Hayden Christensen is utterly vacant (where’s my lightsaber?) as the foil, a supposedly passionate folksinger who is lightly fictionalized -- here’s a hint: he wears this harmonica contraption around his neck and is reckless with motorcycles. I think we can infer that “Like a Rolling Stone” was written about Edie, but that this film couldn’t afford the music rights or the libel exposure to Dylan himself. Maybe a real actor (Cate Blanchett perhaps, though I have yet to see I’m Not There) could have created a credible simulacrum of that very familiar figure (I just caught on tv a replay of his potent Newport performances from 1963-65), but that big hole in the screen robs the film of significance, and makes it laughable in parts. But come back to Sienna Miller -- this is a star-making performance if I ever saw one. The premise of the film rests on her -- that this poor damaged girl could be a captivating presence -- and by herself she salvages George Hickenlooper’s overreaching film. (2007, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-45.)

Diabolique

I finally caught up with the film Henri-Georges Clouzot made between Wages of Fear and The Mystery of Picasso, two films of particular interest to me, and I was surprised that I had no recollection whatsoever of the film, though the title was so familiar. Just as well, so the suspense was undiluted, even though I did anticipate the final twist, probably because it has been imitated since. Hitchcock is the inevitable point of comparison here, starting from this film’s adaptation of a novel by a pair of French authors who then penned the source of Vertigo. Clouzot is similar not just as a master of cinematic suspense, but as a cold eye with a taste for kinky sexual subtexts, which are ultimately autobiographical. While Hitchcock plays out his murderous erotic fantasies with bland, blond beauties, Clouzot goes one better by casting his dark, fragile wife Vera as the victim of his tale. So presumably he himself is much like the sadistic headmaster in the film, driving all around him to have murderous thoughts, till his desperate wife and icy mistress (Simone Signoret) conspire to remove him from their lives. If you don’t know what happens next, then I won’t spoil it for you, though the twisted view of human nature might qualify your enjoyment of the twists of the story. (1955, TCM/T, n.) *7*

Ace in the Hole

This is Billy Wilder’s most personal and consequently most cynical film. He wrote and produced, as well as directed, so he took the hit when the film flopped, and retreated into presold, collaborative material for the rest of his career (and impressively so -- though I am not among those who count Some Like It Hot as the greatest of screen comedies, The Apartment made a deep impression on me when it first came out, and has remained a potent milestone in my filmgoing history.) Here Kirk Douglas makes for a memorable baddie as an unscrupulous reporter who digs up a great human interest story, and then excavates it to his own advantage and to the fatal disadvantage of his subject. A man is trapped in the cave-in of a cliffside pueblo in New Mexico, and Douglas exploits the accident for maximum coverage, in a forerunner of the media circus we have come to know so well. He hooks up with the trapped man’s wife, a bleach-blond party girl (Jan Stirling) who is trapped in the marriage and schemes her escape. This is noir under the baking desert sun, dark as pitch, with dialogue as hard-boiled as a 20-minute egg. There’s nothing like a sympathetic character in the film, Douglas is a little too much of a journalistic louse for us to believe or care about, and the pace staggers to a prolonged conclusion, so it’s not quite a lost masterpiece but it is awfully tasty and provocative for most of its length. (1951, TCM/T, n.) *7*

Superbad

Not supergood. Maybe I’m getting too old for high school grossout humor. This carries the Apatow brand (and features his repertory company) but wasn’t written or directed by him so maybe there’s an element of Uncle Judd’s maturity missing in this raunchy juvenile slapstick. Here the inmates have taken over the asylum, with the script written by Seth Rogen and his childhood buddy Evan Goldberg, about a character named Seth (Jonah Hill) and his buddy Evan (Michael Cera.) Rogen has a large, maybe too large, supporting role as one of the cops who is more childish than the party-mad kids, on their crazy quest to buy booze to get girls drunk enough to make a mistake -- “And we could be that mistake!” Humiliation is the order of the day, with perhaps a redemptive glimpse of humility. Greg Mottola directs, without any great regard for plausibility and with some distinct misogyny. There is a little poignant truth as well as a lot of raucous humor in the film’s celebration of male teen mania, but nothing one hasn’t seen before and better. (2007, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-76.)

The Railroad Man

Reminiscent of Bicycle Thieves in its neorealist look at a troubled working class father through the eyes of his young son, this film is a station on Pietro Germi’s way to his late, broadly satiric style. He plays the railroad engineer patriarch himself, as his life falls apart from one Christmas to the next, driving his older son and daughter away from home, losing his job through bad luck and excessive homage to the grape, and testing the resolve of his saintly wife. The younger son takes in all this family drama from his partly comprehending perspective, moving through sorrow to a fragile redemption. In the end it might have seemed sentimental or melodramatic, if not for the honest naturalism of character and detail. This is a good but nonessential specimen of later Italian neorealism, flavored by the influence of John Ford; I can’t find fault but I can’t get excited about it either. It does, however, make me glad that my own father made the conscious effort to move beyond the traditional boozy, autocratic style of our Italian forefathers. (1956, dvd, n.) *6+*

The Namesake

I’ve liked all of Mira Nair’s films, so I had high expectations that this film did not fulfill. Its ultimate effect on me was as illustration for an absent text, rather than a film complete in itself. I have not read Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, but now I’ve seen the movie, and I’m not impressed. There are many good things in the film, but it did not engage me in any profound or sustained way. Pretty people and pretty places, mostly fine characterizations and well-tuned locations, but they just do not accumulate to any focused effect or affect. Bollywood stars Irrfan Khan and Tabu are excellent as a couple who, after an arranged marriage, emigrate from Bengal to the outer boroughs of New York, raising a family through the ’80s and ’90s. The story comes to rest on the slightly shaky shoulders of Kal Penn, who graduates from dope-smoking student (like his Kumar in quest of White Castle) to novice architect, and from a rich WASP princess to a not-so-nice girl from back home. In the process he tries to come to terms with his bifurcated heritage and to choose his real name, between the unlikely literary moniker his father gave him, Gogol, and a Hindu name that is conveniently Anglicized to Nick. The years (and relationships) zip by, and the parents do age convincingly, but it’s just one thing after another -- birth, death, love, grief -- that do not add up to any particular end. (2007, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-82.)

After the Wedding

Danish director Susanne Bier had stylistic roots in the Dogme 95 movement, and still relies on a handheld camera, fractured editing, and super-close-ups of eyes or lips, but she’s definitely a distinctive filmmaker in her own right. This story is soap-opera-like but surprising, melodramatic but funny at times, with several twists that I won’t divulge. All the actors are good if unfamiliar, the one recognizable face being Mads Mikkelson, who was the villain in Casino Royale, and is here an expat who helps run an orphanage in Bombay. He is reluctantly called back to Denmark by a prospective donor, who then invites him to his daughter’s wedding, which sets off a string of revelations from a group of believably complicated characters, none of whom is quite what they seem at first glance. So even while plot-driven, the film is realistically ambiguous about motivation and emotion, and layered in its depiction of place and people. (2007, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-78.)

Amazing Grace

Whether or not this is “a Sunday-school version of one of history’s great social movements,” financed by a shadowy benefactor of the Religious Right, as alleged by the New York Review of Books, it’s still a pretty good movie with its heart in the right place, leagues better than something like Amistad in showing the struggle to overturn slavery. Michael Apted is a serious and accomplished director of features and documentaries, and if you’re going to make a hero out of your period protagonist, you could hardly do better than Horatio Hornblower himself, the Welsh dreamboat Ioan Gruffudd. He plays William Wilberforce, the persistent parliamentary agitator against slavery from the 1790s right up to its final abolition in Britain at the time of his death in 1833, and he is definitely appealing in his righteousness, evangelical activist though he may be and however much his other reactionary views may have been elided. The period is well evoked, and the periwigs are well inhabited by the likes of Michael Gambon, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, and Albert Finney. Youthful BBC veteran Romola Garai is the saucy but committed love interest, and new face Benedict Cumberbatch is convincing as William Pitt, Wilberforce’s Cambridge classmate and longtime ally, who at 24 became the youngest Prime Minister ever (and namesake of Pittsfield, of interest to those of us here in the Berkshires.) Though I am not devoted to strict chronology in film, this was the third film I’d seen in a week that would have made more sense told straight through instead of in flashback and flashforward, a needless complication to an already complicated story. Though the NYRB had a number of historical quibbles, I was struck by how each point was addressed if not elaborated by the film itself. So even if Wilberforce is advanced as the hero of this story, other contributions are noted. As is the contemporary relevance of slavery as a continuing issue, and the surprising transcendence of economic self-interest. Given slavery’s contribution to the British economy, it’s almost as if contemporary Americans should find the moral fiber to ban the import of oil. It’s possible the money behind the film wanted to push the parallel between abolition and anti-abortion crusades, but the movie as it stands offers a wealth of differing implications. (2007, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-65.)

Random viewing

Just a few brief notes to register several films I don’t intend to review in any detail.

Time to Leave (2005) is a so-so Francois Ozon film about a young fashion photographer who finds out he only has months to live -- it wasn’t a chore to watch but said nothing about the issues which led me to watch it (cf. Simon and The Sea Inside.) *6* (MC-67)

Narrow Margin (1952) is an effective low-budget noir from Richard Fleischer, about a cop trying to get a gangster’s widow from Chicago to a grand jury in L.A. on the Golden West Express. The dialogue is tasty and oh-so-hardboiled, the actors and actresses are A-1 B-movie characters, the twists keep coming through the swift running time, and the most is made of the least in the confined setting of a train. *7*

Flower of Evil (2002) is routine Claude Chabrol, in its depiction of the secret perversions of the bourgeoisie, but a pleasure to watch for the settings and three generations of very attractive women, Suzanne Flon as the grandmother, Nathalie Baye as the mother, and Melanie Doutey as the daughter. *6+*

La Vie en Rose (2007) takes an insanely discontinuous approach to the life of Edith Piaf, but has much of interest in it, primarily the performance of Marion Cotillard as “The Little Sparrow,” the Judy Garland-ish singer who was literally the voice of France in her era, and beyond. Also of interest were the original voice recordings, though they are maddeningly not subtitled on the dvd (apparently were in theatrical release.) Compared to Ray or Walk the Line, this shows that the musical biopic is one genre in which the Americans are way ahead of the French. *6+* (MC-66.)

The Long Good Friday (1979) is a generally overpraised film about a modern London gangster, played by Bob Hoskins in his breakthrough role, which I watched in my intermittent retrospective of Helen Mirren, who plays his classy wife. Updating the gangland genre to the era of globalizing business, John Mackenzie follows Hoskins on his yacht cruising the Thames, where he woos partners and investors to a plan for developing the Docklands (and building a stadium to host the ’88 Olympics.) Though he has avoided making enemies, suddenly someone starts blowing up his businesses and henchmen, and he must ruthlessly track down his nemesis, who turns out to be an unexpected group that gives the film even more topicality. Not my favorite sort of film, this has merit but does not transcend its genre. *6+*

Despite the critical raves and my own interest in monasticism, I couldn’t get with the program of Into Great Silence (2007), Philip Groening’s documentary about a year in the life of a Carthusian monastery in the French Alps. Intermittently lovely, the film was also interminable. It had to be quiet, slow, and repetitious to be true to its subject, but my feeling was enough is enough, too much of too little. Some critics saw the film as an antidote to the time and attention deficits of modern life, but that strikes me as a twisted form of sentimentality, as if boredom were a righteous discpline. To my mind, discipline was just what the film lacked. I could recommend it only if it lost a third of its 160 minutes. (MC-78) *6*

No End in Sight

Living up to its acclaim as the best documentary yet on the war in Iraq, Charles Ferguson’s film is non-inflammatory but all the more infuriating for its restraint. Though the viewpoint is clear enough, there are no partisan rants, but just the Bush administration condemned (most particularly, Rumsfeld and Bremer) out of the mouths of its own officials, as well as eyewitnesses on the ground, their testimony unclouded by the inky exudations of disinformation expelled by the Bushies. Few of the interviewees were against the war going in, and there may be some blame-evasion in their speaking for the record (vide Jay Garner, supplanted by Bremer and the CPA, and Richard Armitage, whose boss Colin Powell was bested by Rumsfeld in bureaucratic infighting), but enough credible witnesses tell interlocking stories, so a clear picture emerges of how Iraq became MessO’Potamia. In specific, the film argues convincingly that the disbandment of the Iraqi army was the single greatest mistake made. Overall, what comes through is the toxic blend of ignorance and arrogance that is the Bush trademark, and the legacy of the mess he has made. First-time director Ferguson is really the anti-Michael Moore, a scholar rather than a showman, and makes his argument convincingly, without shouting or grandstanding. The dvd includes lots of extended interviews that are just as worth watching as the film itself. (2007, dvd, n.) *8+* (MC-89.)

Into the Wild

Sean, old buddy, you were close to having a really good film. Here’s what I suggest to improve it by paring away excess: drop the arty and empty narration, tell the story straight through without the cumbersome flashback-flashforward structure, and cut out half the camera tricks. Show a little of your subject’s asceticism by showing some restraint yourself -- you can show off a little bit but not too much. Loved the super-slo-mos of tossed mortarboards and the spray of an improvised shower in the wilderness, for example, also the handwritten superscript, but hated the unmotivated direct address to camera and the steady stream of visual gimmicks. On top of all that rapturous landscape photography, it’s just too much, and leaves your main character opaque throughout, despite the appeal of Emile Hirsch in the role. Werner gets much deeper into his Grizzly Man than you get into yours, though you would have brought a lot to the role yourself as a young man. I can’t speak to how you’ve changed the character from Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction bestseller, about a new college graduate fleeing civilization and his old life by getting as deep into the wild as he could, all by himself. What you have done is mix diverse landscapes and characters within them, all well-embodied by the likes of Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, and Hal Holbrook, into a highly watchable road trip. But Mr. Penn, you might have had a worthy film in the great American tradition of Thoreau et al. You should learn their lesson -- to simplify, simplify. (2007, Images, n.) *6+* (MC-73.)

Spanglish

If you, like me, let bad reviews put you off this effort from reliable veteran James L. Brooks, then take my advice and pay them no mind. The critical response was an interesting phenomenon -- normally intelligent commentators became a pack of baying hounds, deploring the film as “smug ... despicable ... deeply unpleasant.” Anger was rife; one guy even claimed that it showed why the Democrats lost that year’s election (it was one thing for Bush to sieze power, but appalling and infuriating for him actually to win the popular vote after revealing who he truly was.) Sheesh -- maybe the film can be looked at a little more calmly now. It was an admiring reference in Kent Jones’ new collection of film criticism, Physical Evidence, that led me to give the film a chance, and I definitely was won over. Tea Leoni’s portrayal of a Type-A, Bel Air/Malibu, wife and mother was the crux of ire, or rather Brooks’ depiction of her, because no one could argue she didn’t make the role vivid and funny as well as horrifying, only whether her behavior was repellent enough to make her a scapegoat without redeeming qualities. I thought she and the film did a good job of showing that there was a decent person stuggling to emerge from the taut, manic, high-achieving persona. And I thought the film made plausible the unlikely relationship between her and her laid-back husband, Adam Sandler, a seeming doofus who was nonetheless a four-star chef. Into the volatile mix comes the va-va-voom Mexican maid embodied warmly and wisely by Paz Vega. And then there are the adolescent daughters of the antithetical women, played superbly by Sarah Steele and Shelbie Bruce. Cloris Leachman is also excellent as the boozy but experienced live-in mother-in-law. I found the film humorous and poignant, and not at all sit-commy. If you liked Brooks’ work from "Mary Tyler Moore" though Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As It Gets, be assured that this in not the trainwreck that has been reported. And the dvd has an exemplary extra in deleted scenes with commentary, which certainly makes the filmmakers seem more honorable in their intentions than most critics gave them credit for. (2004, dvd, n.) *8* (MC-48.)

The Deal

If you liked The Queen, and have some interest in British politics, then this earlier effort by the same team -- director Stephen Frears, writer Peter Morgan, actor Michael Sheen as Tony Blair -- is well worth seeing, intelligent and plausible. The “deal” is between Blair and Gordon Brown, between the Clintonesque smoothie who would bring Labor back into power and the dour Scot who was the brains and force behind the party’s revival. Tony was supposed to get two terms, and then it would be Gordon’s turn. The two friends, who had shared a tiny office as newly-elected backbenchers in opposition, would get to share power and lead Britain up from Thatcherism. As appealing as Blair can be, his painful wrongness on Iraq was also the excuse to keep Brown waiting for extra years, so just as with Bill & Hill, the well-intentioned pursuit and exercise of power was sometimes a matter of self-indulgence and betrayal. Is it possible to be a good person and an effective politician at the same time? This film will make it more interesting to watch from a distance what sort of PM Gordon Brown turns out to be. (2003, HBO/T, n.) *7-*

Hannah and Her Sisters

Despite the all-star cast, the true star of this film is -- as in so many Woody Allen films -- Manhattan itself, in a sequence of evocative locations that survey the particular charms of the Big Apple and the theatrical village within, where all the characters reside -- with parks and galleries, bookstores and restaurants, opera and jazz, show tunes and show people, all vying for attention and appreciation. This then is another sort of home movie, with Michael Caine as Woody’s stand-in as Mia Farrow’s husband, unable to resist the charms of her sister, Barbara Hershey (keeping it in the family, so to speak). Woody himself plays the ex-husband who winds up with Mia/Hannah’s other sister, Diane Wiest. Nearly every face that appears on screen is familiar now, even if they weren’t then (like John Turturro and Julia Louis Dreyfus in bit parts), while others are memorably gone (like Max von Sydow and Mia’s mom, Maureen O’Sullivan.) The locales are similarly familiar, and offer a time capsule of New York two decades ago. So there are manifold pleasures in the film, a reminder of Woody Allen at his peak, if not a timeless classic. (1986, TCM/T, r.) *7*

Knocked Up

I suppose you could call this “Seduced and Not Abandoned.” This film has been overpraised enough to set off a backlash, but it is always fun to revisit the heartfelt, raunchy, dope-fueled comedy of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and the gang from “Freaks & Geeks,” “Undeclared,” and 40-Year-Old Virgin. I enjoyed its two-hours-plus running time and extensive dvd extras, but in the end not quite up to its predecessors. Katherine Heigl is attractive and effective as the successful hottie who unaccountably has a one night stand with semi-loveable loser Seth, and when she gets pregnant makes allowances for the lunk’s desire to do the right thing and grow from manchild to caring dad, raggedy teddybear that he is. But Judd’s wife, Leslie Mann, is a revelation as the tightly-wound sister, and their two kids are delightful as well, along with Paul Rudd as their screen dad. The goofball Greek chorus of oversexed slackers with whom Seth shares a pad are all accomplished Apatow regulars. So it’s very much a family movie, despite the raucous raunch. I’m not sure where it takes you, but it’s a fun ride, like the roller coasters that figure in the story. (2007, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-85.)

Seduced and Abandoned

Not quite up to its predecessor, Divorce Italian Style (because it does not have the gift of Marcello Mastrioanni), this Pietro Germi film again uses the stunningly lovely Stefania Sandrelli as the lust object who reveals the absurdities of Sicilian manhood and society. Saro Urzi is the laughable patriarch driven to insanity and beyond by the imperative to protect his daughters’ virtue and his family’s honor. The comedy, however, is dark as the garb the women must wear, black as a nun’s habit but oh-so-shapely underneath. A dimwitted snake seduces the younger sister of his fiance, and then refuses the shotgun marriage because he wants to marry a virgin. All the men, from priest to fathers, agree that it’s the man’s right to ask and the woman’s duty to refuse, and that family honor is the paramount concern. It would all be simply hilarious, if it weren’t so pointed about the pathetic sexism of my paternal forebears. (1964, dvd, n.) *7*

This Sporting Life

A young Richard Harris is startlingly Brando-esque -- Stanley Kowalski with a Yorkshire accent -- in Lindsay Anderson’s film about a professional rugby player, and the widowed landlady he brutishly woos, played by Rachel Roberts. Whether referred to as Free Cinema or British New Wave or Cockney Neorealism, the English films of that era were significant to me at the time, and certainly set the stage for some of my favorites to come, like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but on re-viewing they tend to seem excessively gray and overwrought. This one in particular is freighted with a fractured time scheme that is hard to follow, set out in flashback as the protagonist is undergoing anasthesia while getting stumps of broken teeth removed after a face-bashing on the field. Its raw power and unflinching gaze are notable, but no longer the shock to the system they once were. (1963, TCM/T, r.) *6+*

Runnin’ Down a Dream: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

I don’t really pay any attention to new music, but as a recent convert to the cult of Leonard Cohen, I am now alive to the discovery of old music that I have missed. Thus I was primed for Peter Bogdanovich’s 4-hour documentary on the career of Tom Petty, and indeed I responded as warmly as I did to Scorsese on Dylan, or Demme on Young. Just as my favorite art exhibitions are career retrospectives, which allow one to follow the serial obsessions that inform a life and a body of work, so I am swayed by the story of an artist and a band who have worked continuously and evolved over more than three decades. Any documentary in which you can watch people age before your eyes has a built-in interest, and when the case is effectively made for the importance of the work they’ve done, then you really have something. Even at the length, I could have done with more concert footage, though vintage film and tv are combined nicely with a 2006 concert back in Gainesville FL, where the band came from. Tom Petty emerges as a figure of continuing interest, and the Heartbreakers become vivid both individually and collectively. At the end of the film, like the lab rat I am, I went straight online and ordered a two-disc Anthology of their career, and I suspect I will immerse myself in it as I did with the Essential Leonard Cohen -- the lyrics may not be quite so poetic but are suggestive of an engaging personality, and I’m as ready to rock out as most aging baby boomers. (2007, Sund/T, n.) *7+*

My Best Friend

This is one of those French comedies that will inevitably be remade in Hollywood, and with all Gallic suavity removed will be revealed as empty-headed. Director Patrice Leconte leavens the frivolity with his usual seriousness, as does French star Daniel Auteuil, but the film is unabashedly implausible right through to its game show climax. Auteuil is passionate about his art collecting, but disconnected from people. When his lovely partner tells him he has no friends, they wind up making a bet over whether he has an actual best friend. You know how it goes -- all the “friends” he approaches can’t really stand him, so he meets an unlikely, likable acquaintance whom he tries to pass off as his best friend. This cabbie is appeallingly played by Dany Boon, previously unknown to me, but despite some manufactured shocks, the story doesn’t go anywhere you don’t expect and doesn’t unearth any hidden truths, satisfied to be a pleasant fantasy with a simpleminded message. The cultural milieu, however, is well depicted, and the sentiment is not too sickeningly sweet. (2007, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-65.)

Crazy Love

I suspect one’s ability to enjoy Dan Klores’ documentary about a decades-long (dys)functional relationship between two unusual people depends on how kneejerk one’s reaction is to physical abuse of women by lying men. If you revile the characters, it can be hard to see how well-made this film is. This couple managed to be the subject of tabloid scandal in the ’50s, the ’70s, and the ’90s, and the film dredges through the archives to present a visual and musical evocation of various eras. It’s just as well if you don’t know the backstory going in, because then the film can unfold with surprise after surprise. So if you’re capable of suspending judgment, as this film does, then you will likely enjoy the psychological and sociological probing this story offers, along with wit and visual interest. (2007, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-69.)

Distant (Uzak)

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is walking in the footsteps of Tarkovsky and Kiarostami as the darling of international festivals for his excruciatingly-slow, emotionally-deadpan, anti-action films. But as with them, patience rewards. This Turkish film inventories all the forms of distance between people in proximity. An Istanbul photographer allows a country cousin to camp out in his apartment while looking for work, where they rub up against each other in ways that with subtle humor reveal their personalities, in long, static, but exquisitely composed takes. The photographer is disengaged and disenchanted, most especially in his relations with women. The younger cousin walks around in the snow and fog, looking for women as much as for work. They both fail to connect. Though there are moments of strange beauty, this is a bleak landscape indeed, like so many mega-cities around the world where people torn from their communal roots congregate in economic despair and personal isolation. (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-84.)

The Journey

In a newspaper column, I was running down a pretty fair list of recommended recent documentaries, when this title I’d never heard of was cited as the writer’s favorite, so it went straight to the top of my Netflix queue. Well, you know, I wound up liking it a lot, though I found myself wondering whether it was all a crock. Eric Saperston was just out of college when he came up with this scheme to go cross-country in a VW bus, along the way beating down doors to get interviews with successful older people, to ask their advice for younger people just starting out. He roped some friends into taking the journey with him and acting as crew. It might be taken as a huge vanity project, and yet there is an appealing nebbishy quality to our Eric’s efforts and travails. And even where the material is thin (the biggest “get” is Ann Richards, governor of Texas before she lost re-election to a certain unmentionable person), the various strands are layered together in a way that gives it substance as well as humor. (2001, dvd, n.) *7*

Crossing the Bridge

Apparently the success of Buena Vista Social Club has paved the way for other films in which some music industry veteran goes to some exotic locale and brings back a variety of indigenous music. Here we get “The Sound of Istanbul,” and because it’s made by Fatih Akin, director of the marvelous Head-On, we get an intimate cross-section of contemporary Turkey, emerging from the oppression of military rule, with a flourishing diversity of ethnic and popular music. Unfortunately we get way too much of this German dude lugging his recording equipment around and hovering at the edges while the various groups are performing. But when the performances are allowed to run uninterrupted, they can be transfixing -- from politically minded rappers and street buskers on a mission to longtime pop stars, from Romany dance music to Kurdish laments. Istanbul is of course the crossroads of the world, where Europe and Asia meet, with the Bosporus as an ever-present reminder. This film presents the bridge across, in the actual span and in music. (2005, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-73.)

Venus

Lots of notable talent here -- director Roger Michell, writer Hanif Kureishi, and of course Peter O’Toole and Vanessa Redgrave -- but all their labors depend on the success of newcomer Jodie Whittaker, who plays the rough northern teenager whom O’Toole woos in a climactic episode of geriatric satyriasis. And she’s good, unfolding from sullen brat into worthy goddess of love. O’Toole is fully convincing as the rascally old goat, engaging in antic byplay with old theatrical friend Leslie Phillips and wistfully pursuing the girl while treating her with a respect she’s never received before. Much of the film seems dark and smudgy, which is probably intended to deglamourize London and its theatrical milieu. Even the seaside escape is gray and cold. But there’s a little pilot light of lust, which ignites a steady flame of affection, and the tea gets made, though there is nothing cozy about it. (2006, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-82.)

Now that the baseball season has ended for me, as a stranger in the strange land of Red Sox Nation, I will have more time to watch films. I polished off a double feature by watching McCabe & Mrs. Miller for the umpteenth time, with particular attention to the use of Leonard Cohen’s songs, since they are my passion of the moment. It was also striking to revisit the young Julie Christie after recently seeing her lose her marbles in Away from Her, plus appropriate homage to Robert Altman after his recent passing. There’s no surprise to be had in seeing McCabe yet again, just confirmation of its frame by frame perfection and its place in my pantheon of transcendentally great films.

Chalk

Mike Akel’s modest indie mockumentary about teachers in a Texas high school, is presented by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and owes a good deal to the films of Christopher Guest. But it’s still a pleasantly homegrown effort, with convincingly local performers, which will resonate with those who frequent the teacher lounges of America. We follow several teachers and a novice administrator through a school year, as a fly on the wall in their classrooms, as an intimate of their confabs, and even as the voyeur of their afterhours webcams. Most of the jokes are funny and/or true, but the whole goes no place in particular, neither quite a celebration nor a satire of high school teaching. (2005, dvd, n.) *6-* (MC-70.)

In the Shadow of the Moon

Rave reviews got me out of the house to see David Sington’s documentary about the Apollo space program. And while it was certainly watchable, I could easily have waited to see it on the home screen. Some of the footage is dramatic and beautiful, but after decades of CGI space travel in movies, it looks less than spectacular. It’s ultimately more an interview piece with the surviving moon mission astronauts, and they are indeed interesting characters. There is some but not enough effort at historical context, from JFK’s initial invocation of the moon as the goal of the decade, through the tarnishing of grand Cold War gestures in the debacle of Vietnam, along with domestic unrest. For a long time the space program has seemed to me a government boondoggle for the military-industrial complex, but this film did resurrect the moment of “wonderful but ephemeral” achievement “for all mankind.” From the perspective of today, it seems inspiring yet foolish, an enormous waste of resources though a celebration of human resourcefulness. The film made me remember, but didn’t make me rethink. (2007, Images, n.) *7* (MC-84.)

Critical summary of 2006

This a compilation of my ratings of films released in the U.S. during last year, in comparison to four different critic polls. The basic ranking is taken from the Indiewire survey, which in seven previous years appeared in the Village Voice. It’s more offbeat than other lists, and incorporates many more documentaries and foreign films. Its numerical ranking is supplemented by the shorter and more mainstream lists of Premiere Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. That is followed by the decimal ratings of Metacritic (averaging critical scores on a scale of 100) and our very own Cinema Salon score on a scale of 10.

To summarize for those looking for films to put on their Netflix queue (where all these films are now available on DVD), here’s my ranking in rough order of the top features and top documentaries receiving official American theatrical release in 2006:

The Queen; Pan’s Labyrinth; Tristram Shandy; Volver; United 93; Days of Glory; Children of Men; Marie Antoinette; Fast Food Nation; Clean; Heading South.

49 Up; Neil Young: Heart of Gold; Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing; Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple; Street Fight; Wordplay.


Going down the list, you will find a number of others with a rating of *7*, which is my threshold of firm recommendation. For more information, you can reach my review easily by typing film title in search box at top of page.



1. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. MC-84 *7*
2. L'Enfant. MC-87 *6+*
3. The Departed. PM #6 EW #3 MC-85 *6*
4. Inland Empire. MC-72 *NR*
5. Army of Shadows. PM #3 MC-99 *6+*
6. Three Times. MC-80 *6*
7. Old Joy. MC-84 *6-*
8. United 93. PM #7 EW #4 MC-90 *8*
9. Children of Men. PM #8 MC-84. *8-*
10. Half Nelson. PM #13 MC-85 *7*
11. The Queen. PM #1 EW #1 MC-91 *9*
12. Climates. MC-72 *6+*
13. A Scanner Darkly. PM #66 EW #32 MC-73 *6*
14. Pan's Labyrinth. PM #2 MC-98 *9*
15. Borat. PM #11 EW #5 MC-89 *7*
16. A Prairie Home Companion. PM #23 EW #16 MC-75 *7*
17. Volver. PM #12 EW #6 MC-83 *8*
18. Battle in Heaven. MC-56. *5*
19. Letters From Iwo Jima. PM #9 EW #2 MC-89 *7*
20. Mutual Appreciation. MC-84 *6+*
21. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. MC-80 *8+*
22. Gabrielle. MC-79 *7-*
24. Clean. MC-75 *7+*
25. The Proposition. PM #26 MC-73 *6*
26. Inside Man. PM #16 EW #14 MC-76 *5+*
27. The Science of Sleep. PM #67 MC-70 *5*
28. Miami Vice. PM #57 EW #25 MC-65 *6*
29. Iraq in Fragments. MC-84. *7*
30. Woman Is the Future of Man. MC-63. *6+*
32. Casino Royale. PM #15 EW #8 MC-80 *6*
33. Brick. MC-72 *6-*
34. The Prestige. PM #61 EW #29 MC-66 *7-*
35. Flags of Our Fathers. PM #17 EW #15 MC-78 *7*
36. Little Children. PM #39 EW #12 MC-75 *6*
37. Our Daily Bread. MC-86 *7*
38. Neil Young: Heart of Gold. MC-85 *8*
39. Shortbus. PM #37 MC-64 *5+*
40. Le Petit Lieutenant. MC-71 *7*
41. Dave Chappelle's Block Party. EW #9 MC-84 *7*
42. Little Miss Sunshine. PM #18 EW #20 MC-80 *5+*
43. Marie Antoinette. PM #46 EW #35 MC-65 *8-*
44. Duck Season. MC-74 *6+*
48. An Inconvenient Truth. EW #7 MC-75 *7-*
50. The Devil and Daniel Johnston. MC-77 *7*
54. Days of Glory. MC-82 *8*
55. The Road to Guantanamo. MC-64 *7*
57. Deliver Us From Evil. PM #4 MC-86 *7*
58. Thank You for Smoking. PM #29 EW #13 MC-71 *6-*
60. Fast Food Nation. MC-64. *7+*
61. Babel. PM #50 EW #22 MC-69 *6*
64. C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America. MC-62 *5+
67. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. MC-79 *8*
69. The Good Shepherd. PM #32 EW #31 MC-61 *6-*
70. Notes on a Scandal. PM #20 MC-73 *7-*
74. 49 Up. PM #5 MC-84 *8*
76. The Illusionist. PM #38 MC-68 *6*
79. Water. MC-77 *6-*
80. Our Brand Is Crisis. MC-69 *6*
82. The Last King of Scotland. PM #25 EW #18 MC-74 *5+*
86. Tsotsi. MC-70 *6*
87. The Aura. MC-78 *6-*
88. Fateless. MC-87 *7*
99. Friends With Money. PM #28 MC-56 *5+*
100. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. PM #69 MC-56 *6-*
101. Quinceanera. PM #35 MC-72 *6*
103. Why We Fight. MC-78 *7*
105. Shut Up and Sing. PM #10 MC-77 *8*
120. House of Sand. MC-70 *6+*
123. The Ground Truth. MC-71 *5+*
125. The History Boys. PM #33 MC-74 *7*
126. The Painted Veil. PM #30 MC-69 *7-*
127. Street Fight. MC-85 *7+*
129. The Dead Girl. MC-65 *6+*
135. The Puffy Chair. MC-73 *6*
137. For Your Consideration. PM #48 MC-68 *7*
165. Heading South. MC-73 *7+*
167. Infamous. PM #34 MC-68 *6+*
175. Bobby. PM #81 MC-54 *6*
177. The Devil Wears Prada. PM #31 EW #30 MC-62 *6-*
179. This Film Is Not Yet Rated. MC-75 *6-*
180. Blood Diamond. PM #72 EW #34 MC-63 *5+*
NR. Jesus Camp. PM #19 MC-62 *7-*
NR. Dreamgirls. PM #22 EW #10 MC-76 *6-*
NR. Wordplay. PM #41 MC-73 *7+*

The Dead Girl

Writer-director Karen Moncrieff follows her promising debut in Blue Car with a grisly but honest inquest into the murder of young hooker, and the other “dead girls” whose lives intersect with the incident, in five discrete segments: The Stranger, The Sister, The Wife, The Mother, The Dead Girl. Toni Collette is the repressed woman who finds the body, browbeaten by her invalid mother (Piper Laurie, in full Carrie mode.) Marcia Gay Harden is the estranged mother who comes to identify the dead girl and learns that she has a granddaughter. Mary Beth Hurt discovers she is the wife of the murderer. Brittany Murphy is the dead girl herself, and the final episode leads up to her demise. Each part is populated by familiar names and faces, who can really act. The film came out of Moncrieff’s own experience on the jury of a murder trial, and it reeks of authenticity rather than exploitation, but there is still a heavy odor of sadness and waste about it. Not a fun night at the movies, but a truthful excavation of tragically limited lives -- and deaths. (2006, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-65.)

Thank goodness this film completes my review of films on the Indiewire poll for 2006, and now I can tardily put that year in film behind me. I watched as many of the 200 films on the list as I could bear, excluding only unappealing genre exercises or gorefests. My next post will summarize my own ratings, in tandem with four different tabulations of critical consensus.

Prince of the City

This was one of those films that rose to the top of my Netflix queue after such a long time that I forgot why I put in there in the first place. Maybe I was revisiting the high points of Sidney Lumet’s long, varied, and distinguished career as a director. This film implicitly is a sequel to Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, with Treat Williams stepping in for Al Pacino and more than living up to the role. It’s based on the true story of a young go-getting NYC detective who seeks absolution by selectively informing on police corruption, and is crushed between two institutions in self-protective mode. Long but not too draggy, even though there is more psychological gamesmanship and bureaucratic infighting than action, this Prince is a gritty and evenhanded tragedy of a man caught in the middle, enmeshed in his environment and entangled in his own missteps. Seriously intended and thoughtfully made, it's a police story with weight. (And yet another film by which The Departed suffers in comparison -- there is some truth to the cliche, “They don’t make ’em like they used to.”) (1981, dvd, r.) *7+*

Broken English

Parker Posey is ready for her close up. I’m a big fan of the indie queen, but here she goes deeper than the shiny, brittle, manic demeanor of many of her roles -- more natural, more naked, but still neurotic in her own inimitable way. So I was highly disposed to like this film, and debut writer-director Zoe Cassavetes didn’t mess it up too badly with her own neuroses. You sort of give away the autobiographical game when you cast your mom (Gena Rowlands) as your mom! Zoe -- daughter of John and sister of Nick in the indie director game -- goes awry when an honest look at the romantic panic of a youngish New York career girl devolves into rom-com convention and wish fulfillment. And then she really loses it by clipping her ending from Before Sunset -- a great model, but where is the line between appropriation and plagiarism? And where is the honest resolution to the questions you profess to address? I understand some viewers’ impatience with these proceedings, but I confess I’m a sucker for Parker. (2007, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-61.)

Private Fears in Public Places

I have had a keen appreciation for a number of Alain Resnais’ films over the years (Hiroshima Mon Amour, La Guerre Est Finie, Mon Oncle d’Amerique, Same Old Song), but what strikes me most about his latest is how far the 85-year-old director has come from his most famous and my least favorite: Last Year in Marienbad. That chilly exercise in enigmatic style has yielded over the years to a warmth of understanding bestowed on characters who are themselves trying to thaw the ice of their personalities. Private Fears in Public Places is based on the Alan Ayckbourn play of that name, transposed from London to Paris (and called Couers in France.) It is a series of blackout sketches (or more accurately whiteouts, for the scrim of falling snow that dissolves one scene into the next) involving a half-dozen interlocking characters in stylish Parisian sets. The common theme is the attempt for men and women to break through to connection, sexual or otherwise. And the tone is both amusing and sad, ironic and worldly-wise. These characters wear their hearts on their sleeves at the same time they are careful to keep them covered -- except for the pious striptease lady who heats things up (long story, too complicated to retell here.) If you would enjoy a bittersweet romantic comedy for adults, this is worth seeking out. (2006, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-77.)

Duck Season

My rating has to be provisional on this pleasantly minimalist film about four kids hanging out on a Sunday afternoon in a Mexico City apartment. They play video games, eat junk food, and make messes of many kinds. There’s a lot of deadpan humor and sly characterization. The two 14-year-old boys, 16-year-old neighbor girl, and a slightly older pizza delivery boy who comes to stay, are all appealing performers while remaining true to life. The black and white cinematography is jazzy and acute, when it isn’t gaping slackjawed, and the film doesn’t try too hard or overstay its welcome. And in fact, my viewing was cut five minutes short by a defective disk, so I don’t have a settled opinion. But if you give this debut film from Fernando Eimbcke a chance, you’ll likely start noticing and laughing in a process of gradual amplification. (2004, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-74.)

House of Sand

This is an intriguing home movie of sorts from Andrucha Waddington, the Brazilian director previously known for Me You Them. It stars his wife, Fernanda Torres, and his mother-in-law, Fernanda Montenegro, leapfrogging roles as mother and daughter through a story that spans sixty years. The setting is a remote desert region of Northern Brazil, near the ocean, and the women are first dragged there in 1910 by a crazed patriarch who has come by a deed to an isolated patch of sand. They spend decades longing for escape, but never really do, as the sands of time seep through and bury their house and their lives. The widescreen cinematography is spectacular, and if the story is sketchy, the actresses fill the screen admirably. It’s Woman of the Dunes with a samba beat, not adding up to much but lovely to look at and memorably scenic and sensuous. (2005, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-70.)

Woman is the Future of Man

South Korean cinema is hot on the international film festival circuit these days, and last year this Hong Sang-Soo film got a rare though limited American release and wound up at #30 in the Indiewire critics poll, and now comes to DVD with an introduction by the relentless cinema enthusiast Martin Scorsese. I found it intriguing but no great shakes, somewhat reminiscent of the American indie “mumblecore” movement in exploring the sexual and romantic entanglements of half-formed young people in the decade after college. In this case it explores the ambiguous friendship between a filmmaker just returned from the U.S. and a novice art history professor, both of whom had been involved during college with a woman they decide to re-visit on the drunken spur of the moment. Scorsese speaks accurately of the film’s “unfolding” quality, as the characters and their relationships emerge by indirection and asides. The story is small-scale and presented mostly in stable mid-shot, with minimal cutting or camera movement -- which seems characteristic of Asian cinema aside from chopsocky -- but with careful patterning and depth of field. There’s a fair amount of sex but it seems sad and inconsequential, so it’s wry humor and painful unconscious self-revelation that carry the film. The unfamiliarity of South Korean settings gives it continuous interest, even when the characters lose our sympathy. (2004, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-63.)

No excuses for sports spectating

I consider myself mostly a movie maven, but sometimes I’m a bit of a jock-head. And this has been a particularly gratifying season of viewing for a long-suffering Cleveland Indians fan with a subscription to MLB Extra Innings. So I’ve spent a lot of evenings watching Tribe games instead of films, and I hope to be doing more of the same deep into October (sorry, Red Sox fans -- and as for Yankee fans, tough luck!)

Other sports-related viewing that has occupied my time lately is catching up with the 22 hour-long episodes of the first season of Friday Night Lights on dvd. This NBC show has been critically-lauded and friend-recommended, though not widely watched and just barely renewed for a second season, which starts this coming Friday evening. But now I’m fully on board. The show may not be quite as good as the best HBO series such as The Wire, but does slot in with the all-time best network series dealing with high school life, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Freaks and Geeks -- high praise indeed! You may think you have no interest in Texas high school football, but this series has a depth and universality of characterization that opens its soap opera pleasures and intrique to a wider audience than has yet discovered it. The actors are appealing across the board, and the on-the-fly, three-camera filming of scenes shot without rehearsal or staging conveys a rare authenticity for network tv, and a genuine sense of community. Most of the actors are unfamiliar and thereby even more convincing, but the standout is the one carryover from the feature film (also quite good, and directed by Peter Berg who is the producer of the tv series), namely Connie Britton as the coach’s wife and high school guidance counselor. Kyle Chandler is tight-lipped but thoughtful as the coach, the players seem unusually true to life as teenagers, and the hotties that surround them are given significant substance. And I liked a lot of the football action -- though no fan of the game itself -- even if it was implausibly cliff-hanging week after week. My viewing partner, however, tended to sigh when the game started, the same way she used to sigh when Buffy started to kick ass, but despite the obligatory action sequences, she’s hooked on the series as well. And it’s a rare show I could share with my son, a recent college grad with lamentable taste in movies and no interest in football whatsoever. Give it a try, if you’re into regular tv viewing, or queue up the first season on Netflix.

Battle in Heaven

Though I am dragging out my final review of 2006 way too long, your humble scribe is still subjecting himself to films that are no fun to watch, so I can recommend the ones you ought watch anyway. This Mexican film by Carlos Reygadas (ranked #18 in Indiewire critics poll) is not one of them -- unless you hanker for fleeting but explicit glimpses of actual sex acts. To be fair, much of the film is hypnotically watchable (e.g. a sequence of soldiers raising a huge Mexican flag), but it’s hard to tell whether the story itself is odious or merely otiose. The use of nonprofessional actors is sub-Bressonian and the oblique action involves the death of a baby and the murder of a beautiful young woman, but not in any involving way, which suggests mostly sensationalism, rather than the political or even spiritual significance ascribed by some critics. It may be a good film to argue about, but is not otherwise edifying or enjoyable. Nonetheless, Reygadas might be a filmmaker to watch in the future, with a distinctive visual style. (2006, dvd, n.) *5* (MC-56.)

Foreign Correspondent

I remembered this as one of the better Hitchcocks but was surprised by the sweep of the staging. I usually think of him as indifferent to setting -- outside of his own narrow narrative purposes -- so that he repeatedly resorts to back projection or obvious stage sets. But here he offers vivid scenes of London and Amsterdam in the run up to World War II, as well as the set pieces that are his own motivation. With his background as set designer, Hitchcock exemplifies storyboarding technique. The point of the movie is truly to render such pre-visualized scenes as the escape of an assassin shot from above so all you see is a waving sea of umbrellas, or most impressively, a near silent sequence set inside a windmill, where intrepid reporter Joel McCrea spies on Nazi plotting while the huge gears of the windmill turn, and the camera keeps finding revelatory graphic perspectives. I remembered this famous sequence as the climax of the movie, but in fact it occurs less than halfway through. The other notable aspect of the film is its atypical topicality, capturing the moment when Britain went to war while the U.S. retained its uneasy neutrality, with Hitchcock the recent Hollywood immigrant offering moral support to his native England, though he is usually not blamed for the final propagandistic sequence evoking Edward R. Murrow’s broadcasts to America during the London Blitz. (1940, dvd, r.) *7*

Scoop

I used to think it admirable that Woody Allen could turn out almost a film per year strictly on his own terms, but I’m beginning to question the value of such sustained productivity. Maybe he should take a little longer, reach a little further. And he should definitely stop misusing Scarlett Johannson (here and in Match Point) and stop pairing himself with young lovelies. He has the ability to enlist superior performers, but apparently doesn’t give them adequate direction. Hugh Jackman, Ian McShane, and others are similarly wasted. Some of Woody’s own shtick is still wanly amusing, and the British settings convey some novelty, but we’ve basically seen this all before, better and sharper. I won’t bother to recapitulate the story, because it is utterly inconsequential. (2006, HBO, n.) *5* (MC-48.)

Coming attractions at the Clark

“Documenting Modern Artists: More Portraits in Film” picks up where the Clark's prior film series left off in June, offering feature length profiles of artists of the 20th century, sweeping from beginning to end, from two heroes of modernism to two antiheroes of postmodernism. Different styles of documentary filmmaking are explored as well as different styles of art. Screenings are Fridays at 4:00, with a repeat at 7:30.

September 28: The Mystery of Picasso. (1956, 75 min.) Unrivaled for immediacy, Henri-Georges Clouzot brings to this portrait of the fabled painter the same drive and dynamism that fueled his classic thrillers. It’s a bullfight! It’s an act of love! It’s a bravura performance! It’s Pablo painting. Nothing else is required to rivet your attention.

October 5: Homage to Chagall. (1977, 88 min.) Harry Rasky brings a more traditional approach to a film portrait of the artist and his work. Both life and work are admirable, demonstrating “The Colours of Love,” as the subtitle has it. The elderly Chagall and his wife make engaging interlocutors as well.

October 19: Crumb. (1994, 119 min.) Terry Zwigoff digs deep into the psyche of Robert Crumb, the underground cartoonist and obsessive draftsman, and elicits startling testimony from his brothers, wives, and other family, along the border between madness and genius, with equal attention to both sides.

October 26: How to Draw a Bunny. (2002, 90 min.) John W. Waters explores that same border in this inquest into the life and death of Ray Johnson, a denizen of the downtown New York scene who retreats to Long Island and obsession, with many major contemporary artists testifying to his importance.

If...

The first part of Lindsay Anderson’s film was so vivid, it was as if I had seen it just last month. The group portrait of English public school boys was indelible -- not just re-seeing Malcolm McDowell in his debut (after recently seeing him as Ari’s ex-boss on Entourage.) Equally impressive was the delineation of the school’s class structure, as an epitome of British society as a whole. And the film certainly took me back to the days when the “Missa Luba” was one of my most-played records, even though the music plays a surprisingly small role in the picture itself. But in total the movie is a sum of disparate parts that adds up to less than a whole. The line between reality and fantasy -- and between satire and violence -- is too wobbly. I guess you could blame the concluding but inconclusive hail of gunfire on the year of the film’s release, when insurrection and revolution seemed like live and not altogether unwelcome options. Here youthful anarchy has a different tone than in Vigo’s Zero de Conduite. Definitely worth seeing for the good parts, this is not a film I would recommend as a classic, despite the deluxe two-disk Criterion Collection treatment. (1968, dvd, r.) *7-*

Zodiac

David Fincher and serial killers are not two of my film favorites, and yet this movie held my interest throughout its protracted running time (destined to be even longer, and probably better, when the director’s cut comes out next year.) With good characters played by good actors -- led by Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, along with Robert Downey Jr., Chloe Sevigny, Brian Cox, and a host of familiar faces -- the film offers more than frissons of real-life horror. The sense of period and location is strong -- i.e. San Francisco and other California locales from the late Sixties on -- and so is the subtext of movie history, in this chronicle of the case of the Zodiac killer, who effectively played the newspapers and media to launch a prolonged reign of terror without ever being caught. Gyllenhaal is a newspaper cartoonist and Ruffalo a police detective, who retain the irrepressible urge to solve the case, even after decades, obsessively revisiting the scene of the crime just as the film does. It’s an impressive mix of gruesome thriller, police procedural, and newsroom drama, presented with a realism uncharacteristic of the director or the genre. (2007, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-78.)

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

I was disappointed by this film, either from inflated expectations or by post-midnight lapses in attention. Ken Loach is on my shortlist of great contemporary directors (and indeed I enjoyed the dvd-extra hour-long profile of him and his working methods more than the feature itself) and this film comes festooned with the Palme d’Or from Cannes, but I failed to engage with it deeply. I’m also a fan of Cillian Murphy going back to the BBC adaptation of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, and an inveterate watcher of films on Irish themes (going back to my long collaboration with Kevin O’Hara on his book of Irish travels, Last of the Donkey Pilgrims.) There’s also a distinct contemporary relevance to this look at the Irish struggle for independence around 1920 (the same era covered in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins) -- as guerrilla struggle against an occupying army leads from sectarian strife to internecine violence. There are some shocking scenes of Black & Tan brutality, as well as Republican retaliation, which have an honest sense of chaos and fear. So why did this film fail to click for me? It’s well-shot and well-acted, but strangely hollow, reminding me of the old Russian saying, “The tears of other people are only water.” We are meant to identify with the tragedy of Murphy’s character, destined to be a doctor but derailed from healing into death-dealing by both sides of a reign of terror, but I couldn’t help thinking all the way through -- he should have known better. My own views are virtually as socialist as Loach’s but far more pacifist. (2006, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-82.)

I must say, in contrast, that my screening of The Impressionists at the Clark exceeded expectations. Though I did’t expect to watch the 3-episode docudrama from the BBC all the way through again, I was riveted and enjoyed it along with a large and enthusiastic audience. I’m still bothered by the total absence of Pissarro on one hand, and Cassatt and Morisot on the other, but otherwise the film conveys a sense of authenticity, both in the stories of the individual painters and paintings, and in the dynamics of the movement. Well-acted, highly plausible, and visually spectacular, this is art history at its most painless.

Miss Potter

This film about Beatrix Potter will cap my winter film series at the Clark, on literature and landscape in pastoral Britain. When I found that one of the Thomas Hardy films I was considering (Far from the Madding Crowd) was currently unavailable on DVD, I needed to come up with something new and this release from the very end of 2006 seemed a candidate. Unfortunately it had been at the top of my Netflix queue for months, with the unvarying report, “very long wait.” It was also unavailable at any local video store. (I suspect some nefarious Harvey Weinstein scheme -- same with Factory Girl.) So I had to catch it on pay-per-view, which I had never used and never will again, the widescreen film being shown in the abominably misnamed “full screen” format. Nonetheless I wanted to like the film, and I did. Director Chris Noonan (of Babe fame) re-pairs Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor from the retro ’50s romantic comedy Down With Love, this time as the bestselling children’s author and her publisher-suitor in the late Victorian era. Emily Watson is his sister and her best friend. Why did such a film receive a lukewarm critical response and indifferent distribution? I found it delightful from start to finish, when in the end Beatrix surmounts tragedy by using the money from her Peter Rabbit books to acquire and preserve large plots of the Lake District, an especially telling link between literature and landscape in a series that begins with a film about Wordsworth and Coleridge (i.e. Pandaemonium, followed by Sense and Sensibility and Tess.) So anyway, I look forward to seeing Miss Potter again in true widescreen, and to seeing whether my audience responds as favorably as I. (2006, PPV, n.) *8-* (MC-57.)

Cheyenne Autumn

There are some superbly pictorial moments in John Ford’s last film, and if you dropped the risible elements and straightened out the meanders in the overblown production you might have something. Some respect is accorded to the Cheyenne, but there are clear limits to authenticity when the chief is played by Ricardo Montalban and the impetuous brave is Sal Mineo. Richard Widmark has some grit but mails in his performance as army captain, and Carroll Baker (“Baby Doll” herself!) is a hoot as the Quaker schoolmarm. Some of the cavalry action is stirring, but the ultimate battle scene is staged with all the verisimilitude of a high school play. The Cheyenne break out of the fort where they have sought refuge -- from the rigors of the long trek from the reservation they were assigned in arid Oklahoma back to their ancestral lands near Yellowstone --and the action is incoherent and implausible. Karl Malden is a Prussian officer supposedly sympathetic to the Indians who follows orders to imprison them till they agree to return to the reservation. Then there is the pathetic climax when Secretary of the Interior Edward G. Robinson rides out to make peace with the remaining Cheyenne, shot against back projection that looks superbad in Super Panavision. Not to mention an utterly inane narration, and a ludicrous comic interlude with James Stewart as Wyatt Earp. Despite the Remington paintings come to life in widescreen glory, I can’t justify showing this in my “John Ford and the American West” film series next spring at the Clark. (1964, dvd, n.) *5+*

P.S. -- Then I watched My Darling Clementine (1946) -- which I may never have seen before -- and it secured the final slot in the series. Henry Fonda is a decidedly more credible Wyatt Earp, and the film holds together much better. (Even though there was some push and pull over it, with the DVD having John Ford’s rediscovered original cut on one side and producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s release cut on the other.) So the lineup is set: Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Searchers. I’ll try to give Ford a fresh assessment at the time of the series, but I suspect he’ll never be a favorite of mine.

The Pirate

This flamboyant goof was groomed to be the next big MGM hit musical, starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, directed by Vincent Minnelli, with songs by Cole Porter. Apparently it flopped, just too queer for the day. Latterly it has become a cult film of sorts, with a gay aesthetic now out of the closet. I rather enjoyed the over-the-top-ness of it all -- the riot of color in a fantasy Caribbean, Judy’s on-the-edge emoting, Gene’s all-out hoofing -- but you definitely have to be in the right mindset not to dismiss it as ludicrous. (1948, dvd, n.) *6*

The Bourne Ultimatum

Now that’s what I call an action film -- nonstop, relentless action, from opening shot to closing credits. It’s a genre I would usually avoid, but for me Paul Greengrass is a must-see director. This film might have been called “Shattered Glass” if the title weren’t already taken. Not only is broken glass a recurring motif in the film, but its very style is composed of visual shards in dynamic mosaic. It’s really a lesson in how far humans have come in the ability to rapidly process fragmentary visual information. Oh yeah, there’s a story of sorts, an excuse for the chases and mayhem, and Greengrass is a serious man so amidst the frenzy there are some provocative implications about the surveillance state, but the game afoot is just to keep moving, which the film does admirably. Matt Damon (along with his stunt doubles) is very effective in the title role, and strong support is offered by the likes of David Straithairn and Albert Finney, Joan Allen and Julia Styles. I’m counting on Paul Greengrass to cash in this franchise success on some truly personal films. (2007, Regal at mall, n.) *7+* (MC-78.)

Mopping up

I have been doggedly making my way through all the best-reviewed films of 2006 (aside from certain genres, usually bloody) to match my own ratings -- and other critical compilations -- against the Indiewire critics poll rankings, and the summation will be a forthcoming blogpost. The capstone was supposed to be the just-released-on-dvd Inland Empire, which came in at #4 in the Indiewire poll. Well, I watched enough to get a sense of it, though there was precious little sense to be made of it. I’m no fan of David Lynch, the only film of his I really love is the most uncharacteristic, The Straight Story. And if I couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out Mulholland Drive, then I certainly didn’t have the patience for the self-indulgent, shot-on-DV, three endless hours of Inland Empire. If ever there was an artistic movement or sensibility that leaves me cold, it would be surrealism. Rather than “Oh wow!” I go “Oh puh-lease!” (*NR* MC-72.)

In the same boat sinks The Science of Sleep -- I jumped ship once I saw that Michel Gondry minus Charlie Kaufman does not equal another Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I like Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg enough to have finished the film sometime, but it was due back at the library, and c’est la vie -- so many movies, so little time. (*NR* MC-70.)

And though I really liked Nine Queens, it took me three tries to get through Fabien Bielinsky’s follow-up -- and final -- film, The Aura. Mostly set in the woods of Patagonia, this Argentine film is certainly pleasant enough to look at, but as a quirky thriller it is so far off beat as to lose me. Ricardo Darin is an epileptic taxidermist with a mental hobby of masterminding imaginary heists, who after killing someone in a hunting accident, finds himself in the middle of a real deal going down. But the film is slow and enigmatic rather than swift and propulsive. If you’re fond of puzzlers, you may like this more than I did -- many do. (*6-* MC-76.)

I also join the minority on Deepa Mehta’s Water, which again was lovely to look at but troubling to think about. The attempt to combine Bollywood-style romance with a serious exploration of the practice of widow sequestration -- which was controversial enough to have Hindu fundamentalists shut down the film so it had to be finished in Sri Lanka -- leads to wobbles in tone and impact. We follow a bewildered 8-year-old, widowed before she even realized she was married, as she is deposited at a group home for widows, who are forbidden to remarry and in effect outcast. There’s a monstrous madam who runs the joint, whose power is mitigated by a wiser and kindlier woman. And there’s the ridiculously beautiful young widow, who is prostituted for the home’s upkeep. She is espied by an oh-so-hunky young man who is espousing Gandhian principles, and wishes to espouse the lovely widow, until he learns the details of her life. Gandhi himself arrives on the scene, just released from a British prison in 1938, as a deus ex machina. There’s no actual dancing, but plenty of music, and the glossy drama of the model-beautiful couple muddles the feminist message of the film. If you’re not bothered by the film’s failure to coalesce, you may find it pretty enough to view favorably. (*6-* MC-77.)

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

This film is visually exciting and intermittently interesting, but finally too long and too cold. Director Tom Tykwer invests the suspenseless murder story with some of the kinetic energy of Run Lola Run, but the effort to squeeze in too much of the Patrick Suskind novel bogs down the proceedings. The depiction of 18th century Paris is picturesquely squalid, the worst smelling place on the planet, more miserable than Victor Hugo could imagine. The main character was born under a fishmonger’s table to a mother who abandoned him there and was subsequently hung for the offense. Besides an incredible instinct for survival, the babe has a preternatural sense of smell, and the film’s most distinctive aspect is the attempt to visualize smells and the act of smelling. After a childhood more Dickensian than the dickens, he goes to Paris and for the first time catches the scents of perfume and of young women, and then in his wild child ways, mishap leads to murder, and thence to a calling. The frail but indomitable Ben Whishaw apprentices himself to parfumeur Dustin Hoffman (in a perfume-y performance whose fragrance may tickle your nose but won’t linger.) From there the film follows him to Provence to complete his education in scent, and mingles the gorgeous with the macabre. Alan Rickman is a local noble who tries to protect his beautiful young daughter from the fate of other beautiful young women who are being murdered serially. With no satisfactory conclusion to the unsavory doings, the film wanders through some spectacular scenes to a vaporous ending. (2006, dvd, n.) *6-* (MC-56.)