I plan to resume regular reviewing, and give this blog a bit of a makeover by the first of the year, but I have to catch up with a backlog of random viewing, with only a few real recommendations among them.
Thankfully, the world of cinema is wide and deep, because most popular American movies seem to come out of a shallow, narrow pool. Good films do get made, and I will be covering the best of them in upcoming months, but most fail to rise above their formula.
As a journalistic convenience, many young American filmmakers in their twenties have been grouped under the rubric, “mumblecore.” Having made their first films with minimal means, about lives much like their own, self-absorbed young people struggling to find work and romance, some are trying to go mainstream. The Duplass brothers, for example, deliver a quirky comedy with Cyrus (2010, MC-74, NFX), and can’t go too far wrong with performers like John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, and unlikely man of the moment Jonah Hill. A hapless divorced man gets lucky with a beautiful babe, but then has to contend with the jealousy of her adult son still living at home. There’s never a moment’s doubt where this is headed, though there are some amusing moments, and some not so, along the way.
In Cold Weather (2011, MC-64, NFX), Aaron Katz tries to meld a mystery dynamic into the mumblecore formula of aimless conversation, but it’s all red herring or shaggy dog or some such indirection. Chilled out, anyway, in this story of four young people drifting through their twenties in Portland, OR. Katz brings a bit of visual flair, and also some real world observation, to the familiar world of hip anomie. Not a chore to watch, this effort left me flat in the end, but it’s not without wit and style.
Among popular comedies formula reigns supreme, “high concept” in the lingo, but really geared to the latest lowest common denominator. Take Bridesmaids (2011, MC-75, NFX) for instance -- all you have to tell the marketing department is “The Hangover for chicks.” I haven’t lost all respect for Judd Apatow as he extends his brand of loose and shambling comedy, producing this mess with director Paul Feig (co-creator of the short-lived but seminal tv series Freaks and Geeks). It is true, however, that there is more acting talent than writing ability on display in Hollywood today, even when, as with Kristen Wiig here, the actor is the writer. There are some mildly amusing sketches, and fellow SNL alum Maya Rudolph makes a winning foil, but truth of character or action is in short supply.
That is doubly true of Due Date (2010, MC-51, NFX), in which Robert Downey Jr. kept me watching long past the point where this odd couple buddy comedy flew off the bridge. I’m no fan of Zach Galifianakis, but he is capable of more characterization than this flimsy writing and haphazard direction allow (from Todd Phillips, between the two parts of The Hangover). The question remains whether formula is the starting point or the endpoint of the project. Throw two antagonistic guys together on a roadrip, and you can end up artfully with The Trip, or you can end up with this carwreck of a movie.
Where festivals like Sundance used to offer an alternative to Hollywood, now they are more like a feeder stream. I caught up with one former Sundance Audience Award winner, because of the presence of Kelly Macdonald. Two Family House (2000, MC-79, NFX) is slight but honest, and writer-director Raymond De Felitta does a good job of convincingly recreating Staten Island in the Fifties on a minimal budget. Buddy, as played by Michael Rispoli (whom you may recognize from The Sopranos, and also Katharine Narducci as his nagging wife), was once noticed by Arthur Godfrey for his singing and imagines he could have been Julius LaRosa, but drifts through failed schemes until he comes up with the idea of buying the house of the title and turning the downstairs into a bar where he would be the entertainment. Unfortunately he has to evict a very pregnant Kelly and her drunken older husband, but forms a connection with her that endures. This is an ethnic comedy-romance (the cover image begs comparison with Moonstruck) that gives indies a good name.
Another little-noticed film, which I caught up with on a friend’s recommendation, was Mao’s Last Dancer (2010, MC-55, NFX). This had escaped my attention even though directed by Bruce Beresford, who clicked with me on Tender Mercies and several other films in a long and checkered career. This one is well-made and fact-based, as it follows a young boy from a village in China, who is plucked out to attend ballet school in Beijing, and winds up defecting to perform for the Houston Ballet. All three actors who portray the progression of Li Cunxin (based on his memoir) are convincing, as are the depictions of three different worlds, but the film has its flaws, including an inadequate actress as first love interest, an ending of forced uplift, and an unfortunate habit of going to slow-motion during dance performances. Nonetheless I found it well worth watching.
Though I have persisted through two seasons, I still wonder whether Boardwalk Empire was worth watching on HBO, but I have no such qualms about Homeland (2011, MC-91) on Showtime, which is almost certainly the best series now running on television. Claire Danes plays an intriguingly flawed CIA counterterrorism agent, in pursuit of a similarly nuanced Damian Lewis, as a marine who may have been turned during eight years as a POW in Iraq. This thriller effectively ratchets up the suspense without betraying plausibility of character or event, and keeps on twisting. Catch up with it if you can.
I followed one episode by turning to another story of a beautiful blond CIA agent in Fair Game (2010, MC-69, NFX), this one for real. Naomi Watts plays Valerie Plame and Sean Pean plays Joe Wilson in Doug Liman’s authorized version of their two memoirs of being collateral damage to the Bush administration’s headlong and headstrong rush to war in Iraq. The political context is rather thin in this story of a marriage under stress, but convincing performances carry the day. Not a must-see, Fair Game is fair as far as it goes.
One of the alternative areas to look for new films of unexpected strength is Korea. Two impressive films by Chang-Dong Lee have reached the U.S. in the past year, each centered on a strong female lead. In Secret Sunshine (2010, MC-84, NFX), Do-Yeon Jeon is a young widow who goes to live in her dead husband’s hometown (its name translates to the title), creating a new home for her boy and setting up as a piano teacher, finding her way uncertainly into the community. Something bad happens, and she has to cope, sometimes with the help and sometimes with the hindrance of a semi-comic unwanted suitor. To say more would be to betray the experience of the film, in which ordinary life seems to unfold patiently, till the abyss opens and a desperate struggle for sanity and survival ensues.
In Lee’s Poetry (2011, MC-89, NFX), Jung-Hee Yun is a grandmother, just diagnosed with incipient Alzheimer’s, who is taking care of a sullen teenage grandson and getting by on a pension and as part-time maid for a rich old man. Despite the marginality of her existence, she still likes to make a nice appearance, with scarves and colorful clothes. For mental exercise, she enters an adult education class on poetry. Something bad happens, and she has to cope. Again, this is a film to be experienced at its own leisurely, observant pace. Ms. Yun apparently was a big star in Korea when younger, but this role is a comeback after nearly two decades of retirement; she commands the camera while seeming to do very little, again hypnotically ordinary, as she solves the enigma of her existence.
Another alternative to run of the mill feature films lies with documentaries. One that makes its point and does not overstay its welcome is Morgan Spurlock’s Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011, MC-66, NFX), or rather, POM Wonderful Presents: The… As with Super Size Me, Spurlock puts himself front and center, and he’s an amusing, adventurous guy to hang out with. This is a film by and about financing through product placement, and its funhouse self-reflection is quite effective, as the camera follows Morgan into a host of pitch meetings and promotional stunts. Is he selling out, or buying in? Or debunking the whole business of “hidden persuasion”? At any rate, my product awareness of pomegranate juice, in little snowman-shaped bottles, has gone up 100%.
Among other recent documentaries that I have liked are two about sports from HBO. Gemma Atwell’s Marathon Boy was of more general interest, for the story of an uncannily accomplished young runner in India, who completes 48 marathons by the time he is four years old, and then further endurance stunts. His coach and promoter runs an orphanage where the boy lives, until the state steps in. This is a fascinating and quirky window into Indian society, and an open-ended moral quandary. Marc Levin’s Prayer for a Perfect Season follows a basketball rivalry between Catholic prep schools in New Jersey, vying for #1 in the nation. I’m a sucker for any teammate of Hoop Dreams, one of the best documentaries ever, which towers over the court, but this film is a scrappy youngster who deserves a call from the bench.
Just a word on films I’ve recently watched again with Cinema Salon. Altman’s Player and Scorsese’s Aviator emerged slightly lower in my estimation of the works of a favorite director, but Visconti’s Leopard rose even higher. Of the films just mentioned here, Poetry is a candidate for showing to the film club, since it’s definitely a “film worth talking about.”
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