Though I hadn’t been to a movie theater in a coon’s age, when Images Cinema reopened after a period of refurbishment, I felt moved to go to the first screening in the new space and renew my expired membership. The new entrance, direct from Spring St. instead of through a side alley, looked great (and reminiscent of the olden-days arrangement), and the new seats were a major upgrade. The film itself wasn’t bad either. I happened to be talking with two couples in succession recently, and one had said Jonathan Demme’s latest was terrible while the other recommended it. Me, I was glad to see it but I wouldn’t urge it upon the unwary. Basically, it’s Demme does Dogme -- handheld camera in long, roaming takes; no music except live within the action; in-your-face familial confrontation -- with a nod to Robert Altman’s Wedding as well. Anne Hathaway plays an addict released from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding, and she makes for a convincingly impossible person. (If you know her only as Disney’s diarizing princess--gag!--or the “smart, fat girl” in The Devil Wears Prada, this role seems totally out of character, but not so much if you’e seen Havoc.) The set-up is more than a little like Margot at the Wedding, but these two difficult sisters are somewhat easier to take. Rachel is well-played by Rosemary DeWitt (who was Don Draper’s first girlfriend in Mad Men), but the real delight to see is Debra Winger as their absconding mother, looking great and playing lots of subtle notes in her brief portrayal. The sororal relationship is believably complicated, and so is the sense of being present at the event, in all its joy and embarassment. Some people like all the live music and some people don’t, but it’s certainly justified in that the groom is in the music business, as well as many of the guests, not to mention Demme’s own concert work from Stop Making Sense to Heart of Gold. Being non-social myself, I found much of the film to be as excruciating as a wedding in the flesh, but as a fly on the wall it wasn’t too painful to observe. (2008, Images, n.) *7-* (MC-82.)
For one reason or another, I’ve been re-watching a variety of films on which I simply want to renew my recommendation. The Real Dirt on Farmer John (2006, MC-78) is definitely a documentary worth seeking out, working on a variety levels from personal portraiture to advertisement for Community Supported Agriculture. John Peterson is a fascinating amalgam of true son of a midwest family farm and countercultural fantasist. Through the vicissitudes of decades he loses and finds his vocation, obsessively observed first in home movies and then by his longtime friend Taggart Siegel, who is the director of this witty, moving, and informative film.
The Madness of King George (1994) got queued up in a Helen Mirren moment a few years ago, and it’s something I’ve thought of showing at the Clark. And it’s well worth a second look. Lady Helen is predictably excellent as the Queen, but Nigel Hawthorne as George III rules all. For a filmed play (written by Alan Bennett, and directed from stage to screen by Nicholas Hytner), the on-location spectacle of palaces and pageantry is very well handled, with plenty of humor and intrigue and even poignancy.
El Cid (1961) was an historical epic remembered fondly from my youth and highly praised in surveys of Anthony Mann’s directorial career, so reviews of a new Collector’s Edition led me to leap it to the top of my queue. Unfortunately Netflix, as is typical, sent an earlier DVD, widescreen but not digitally restored, so the viewing was not optimal. Still, it’s an impressive example of the overblown spectacles of its time, with Charlton Heston giving an unusually persuasive performance as the semi-mythical 11th-century Spanish knight who brought Christians and Muslims together to repel a Moorish invasion from Africa. Sophia Loren is a spectacle in herself as the love interest. As an independent producer, Samuel Bronston made a series of epics in Spain, but this one makes the most of Spanish landscapes, castles, and cathedrals, with scenes of combat escalating from a well-staged joust to an immense seaside assault on a walled city. Especially notable to me was the seeming authenticity of period art and decor -- this was not Malibu medievalism.
Also less than optimal was the disk of The Man from Laramie (1955), last of the celebrated Anthony Mann-Jimmy Stewart Westerns, quite an advance on The Furies and not just because it’s widescreen and technicolor. The story is familiar but not overly so, with plenty of surprises in both the action and the acting, with the feel for landscape that Mann is noted for, psychological instead of mythic in the Fordian vein. The retrospective elevation of Mann’s reputation seems justified, and his direction offers some guarantee of quality for those looking for oldies but goodies. Now that I’ve matched a Ford film series to a Remington exhibiton at the Clark, I will definitely behold the Mann if I ever do another series of Westerns.
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