Movie Review of PROMISED LAND by Howard Casner
Posted: December 12, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dave Eggers, Frances McDormand, Gus Van Sant, Hal Holbrook, John Krasinski, Matt Damon, Promised Land, Rosemary DeWitt | 3 Comments »Gus Van Sant tends to go back and forth between two types of films. On one hand, he makes personal, edgy, independent movies like Mala Nocha, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Last Days, Gerry and the incredible Elephant. His other films are more conventional, like Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester and Milk. His more personal films are exciting, chance taking, challenging. His more conventional films are entertaining, but, well…conventional.
Promised Land is one of his conventional films. And it’s a fine film. A really fine film. No, I mean it, it’s perfectly fine. It’s also entertaining and has some moving moments, top notch acting, and I can’t imagine you’d be bored if you saw it. But in the end, well, the best thing to really say about it is that it’s a, well…a perfectly fine film.
The screenplay is by Matt Damon (as in co-writing Good Will Hunting Matt Damon) along with John Krasinski and Dave Eggers. The story basically revolves around Steve (played by Damon, yep, he’s in it, too), the representative of a natural gas company, and his efforts to convince a small farming community to lease their lands for fracking. This rep has just received a promotion because of his exceptional skills at selling pigs in a poke (and at a good bargain, to boot) and the town seems ripe for the picking, made up of citizens who seem desperate to get out from under their economic woes. But problems occur when a high school teacher who is not what he seems (a marvelous Hal Holbrook), suggests that maybe they should think about what they are doing before they actually, well, you know, do it. Complications then ensue when an environmental presence (Krasinski’s Dustin Noble, don’t you love that name and yep, Krasinski’s in the movie, too) shows up and challenges Steve not only for the hearts and souls of the locals, but also for the heart and soul of a local school marm (Rosemary DeWitt’s Alice).
The first part is the strongest aspect here. It moves at a solid pace. There’s a lot of wit and the characterizations are strong. The writers are especially good at creating very believable relationships. It’s obvious that Steve has been working with his partner, Frances McDormand’s Sue, for some time. The two have some very cute moments of people who know how to push each other’s buttons, both for good and for bad. And when Holbrook’s school teacher rises (with a face that feels as if it belongs on Mount Rushmore) and puts flies in Steve’s ointment, it’s a striking moment. At the same time, it’s also one of those moments that are there due to formula so that at this point, and with the arrival of Noble, the story starts, well…fracking apart a bit.
First, I found it just a bit hard to buy Steve’s innocence and naivety. According to the screenplay, he has no idea of the truth behind his company even though he’s been with it for so long and is such a good salesmen that he gets a promotion in the opening scene. Not only that, he has the ability to bribe a city official with a single bound, employing the cut throat skill of Rick Blaine paying off Captain Renault in Casablanca (I have to be honest, I did think of the good Captain’s line, “I’m shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on in here”, when it came to Steve). Yet still, in spite of all this, his character arc is basically that of someone losing his virginity.
But once Noble arrives, just when the tension should increase and the suspense mount, the plot actually loses forward momentum. Part of this is because the actual competition between Steve and Noble is not that well dramatized; you’re not given enough information to keep score, so you never know who is winning and who is losing. Steve keeps complaining that Noble is hurting their sales while at the same time claiming that they have the vast majority of the land leased. Noble keeps claiming he’s winning, but we see very little evidence of it. But perhaps the real issue that is not explained clearly is that the ultimate success of either party will be determined by a city vote—but exactly what this vote consists of or what they are voting on is never clearly stated. We’re not even sure how bad off this town is; people say they are in trouble, but there’s no real evidence of it. It’s all so vague that the conflict in the movie that is dramatized the strongest is not the battle over fracking, but the battle over Alice, as if that’s what’s really important, not the future of the farms. I mean, who cares if the land is raped and destroyed as long as our hero gets the girl, right? (The second conflict that is dramatized the strongest is whether Krasinski can replace Damon as the most charming actor in Hollywood these days–it’s a draw, but if I was Damon, I might be concerned). And the central fracking conflict (God, sometimes I feel like I’m on Battlestar Galactica) finally becomes so muddled that Steve’s come to Jesus moment is not really earned and is more there for formula rather than a true outcome of character.
The result is that the part of the movie that never really gets dealt with is the bigger and more important issue (certainly more important than who gets the girl) of a town being caught between a rock and a hard place—if they frack, they lose; if they don’t frack, they lose. But this philosophical through line just never plays that strong a part here. But in the end, isn’t it a little hard to root for a side if neither side can win?
Movie Review of CHEERFUL WEATHER FOR A WEDDING by Howard Casner
Posted: December 9, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anna Lavelle, Camille Benda, Cheerful Weather for a Wedding, Donald Rice, Felicity Jones, Fenella Woolgar, Luke Treadway, Mackenzie Crook, Mary Henely-Magill, Michael Price | 1,672 Comments »Halfway through the movie Cheerful Weather for a Wedding, the new veddy, stiff upper lip dramedy from writers Mary Henely-Magill and Donald Rice (who also directed), there is a scene that takes place at a country dance. Nary a word is spoken, but the emotions are palpable. And it’s in this scene where we finally realize how the two central characters, Dolly (don’t worry, no one says hello to her) and Joseph, really feel about each other. It’s also in this scene that I thought the movie might finally coalesce into something. But alas and alack, ‘twas not to be. Soon after, the film returns to its somewhat bland, unfocused story about a wedding day.
The real problem with Cheerful Weather… is that it is two movies in one. Half of it is a somewhat mild farce on the order of Somerset Maughm and Noel Coward, about a bunch of people gathering at a country house for some approaching nuptials (how veddy BBC/Merchant-Ivory can you get?). The other half is an introspective character study about two people, the bride (Dolly, played by Felicity Jones) and her ex-lover (Joseph, played by Luke Treadway), who can’t figure out how they feel about each other, or, if they could figure it out, what to even do about it. These two halves never really fit into a whole, and in fact work against each other, getting in each other’s way and constantly tripping over each other’s two left feet.
The most successful of the two halves is the demi-farce. It may not reach the manic energy of Death at a Funeral or even Four Weddings and a Funeral or any other comedy that revolves around a casket, but it does get its laughs. It also has the two most interesting characters, Nancy Dakin (Fenella Woolgar, who played Agatha Christie on a Dr. Who episode, and who looks like she should play Agatha Christie every chance she gets) and David Dakin (Mackenzie Crook, appropriate name that since he played Ragetti in Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as Gareth on The Office) as a middle aged couple who have reached that point in holy matrimony where they simply can’t stand each other, but can’t stand each other in such a way that you know, like those venerable lovers of Shakespeare, Beatrice and Benedict, that they really, deeply care for each other. It’s the resolution of their relationship that is the emotional high point of the film (for those who like movie references, they’re like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio; Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn in Without Love; and Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally…, relationships that are far more interesting and effective than the leads).
But oh, hello Dolly and Joseph (okay, I couldn’t resist). Unfortunately, Henely-Magill and Rice have failed to give us any compelling reason to care whether the two non-star crossed lovers end up together or not. But how could the authors, since they didn’t leave themselves enough time for it. So much of the plot is devoted to the hi-jinks of the rest of the gathering, that we’re never given a convincing explanation as to why the two knuckle heads didn’t get married in the first place or why Dolly’s mother (a somewhat mannered Elizabeth McGovern—I’ve a feeling we’re not in Downton Abbey anymore, Toto) is so against Joseph as a prospective bridegroom.
The technical aspects of the film are first rate. Everyone is tailored to within an inch of their lives with all the men looking like models in an arrow shirt ad and the women looking like Erté sketchings (costumes by Camille Benda). The mansion the whole thing takes place in is a model for BBC miniseries everywhere (production design by Anna Lavelle). But the highlight is the lovely score by Michael Price which often did what the writers couldn’t—convey the emotions necessary to understanding what was going on between the characters. It was so effective that when my friend who accompanied me commented on it, I agreed, saying it’s unfortunate that people so often talked over it.
Movie Review of DAMSELS IN DISTRESS by Howard Casner
Posted: December 7, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Analeigh Tipton, Damsels in Distress, Greta Gerwig, Whit Stillman | 2 Comments »Writer/director Whit Stillman made a trio of marvelous movies in the 1990’s: Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco, films that explored the lives, loves and semi-aspirations of the sons and daughters of the upper middle class/lower upper class with a staircase wit that was reminiscent of All About Eve and the plays of Philip Barry. But after The Last Days of Disco, he was ne’er to be seen until this year when he gave us Damsels in Distress, a somewhat arch character study of a quartet of women at a higher institute of learning who, like so many movies that take place at institutes of higher learning, almost never go to class or do homework, but somehow manage to remain in school.
In many ways, Damsels… has a number of Stillman’s virtues. There is definite wit here in the oddball conversations and off kilter trains of thoughts that come flowing from his unique characters. Stillman at times shows a lot of affection for his upper middle class youth (rather than mercilessly attack them as other films like Less Than Zero and Twelve do). And there is something so pleasantly weird about the whole situation. It should also be said that the actors do a pretty convincing job of speaking Stillman’s stylized dialog as if was a natural as a David Mamet play (it’s never that realistic, but neither was Oscar Wilde) while employing Stillman’s laid back acting style. At the same time, the movie just never quite comes together.
I think there are two clear reasons for this. The first and perhaps most important is that Stillman seems to have chosen the wrong central character. Analeigh Tipton plays Lily, a transfer student who is taken under wing by Violet, played by Greta Gerwig, someone who most people would call, well, quite a character (to be kind). By all rights Lily should be front and center. She’s the stranger in a strange land, the character in the movie that is a stand in for the audience. It’s through her eyes that we are to interpret everything. But the movie doesn’t begin with her, it begins with Violet. And as the movie goes on, Violet is such a, well, quite a character (to be kind), that Stillman allows her to steal the limelight until so much to too much of the movie seems to revolve around her.
But Violet is very off putting, very unlikable, and not in a particularly interesting or intriguing way. She has such a weird view of life and how to respond to everything that goes on around her, that it’s hard to empathize with her or take her remotely seriously. In fact, she seems so incredibly intolerant and small minded, you’re tempted to flee the movie so you don’t have to spend any more time with her than you have to. The only really interesting aspect of her character is her goal to create a new dance craze ala the waltz, Charleston and twist because dance crazes can really change the world by bringing people together and giving them meaning in life—an argument hard to, well, argue against. But even this part of her character feels rather limp in the context of the story.
This leads to the second issue. Stillman does give Lily a satisfying enough reason to originally become friends with Violet. Lily has no place to stay due to a bureaucratic flub by the college, so Violet has her move in with her and her entourage (what is known as the meet cute plot twist in a rom com). But once Lily moves in and gets to know Violet, Stillman really can’t come up with a satisfying reason for Lily to continue hanging out with Violet as much as she does. This also applies to the entourage as well. It becomes increasingly hard to fathom why anyone would want to be around Violet for any length of time. Even Rose, her best friend since fifth grade, isn’t convincing here. Most people don’t hang out with people they knew from elementary school, so it may be unclear exactly what compels Rose to. Violet is like Jean Brodie, but without the charisma and view of life that would attract anyone to her.
So what is the movie about? Lily’s coming of age and realizing that Violet either has worth or is seriously troubled? Or is it about Violet’s determination to change the world according to her own distorted vision? I suppose it could have been both, but right now, it’s neither fish nor foul.
The movie culminates with that dance craze that Violet hoped to create. It’s kind of a downer since it’s not that particularly an interesting or creative a light fantastic. It’s just a mish-mash of various ball room genres that is taught to the audience like the hokey-pokey or the time warp. I think it’s supposed to be celebratory and fill the audience with some sort of uplift, but, sad to say, it sort of falls flat, like the movie.
Movie Review of LIFE OF PI by Howard Casner
Posted: December 5, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ang Lee, Claudio Miranda, David Magee, Gerard Depardieu, Irrfan Khan, Life of Pi, Suraj Sharma, Yann Martel | 1 Comment »Sometimes a writer will give me two or three ideas for a possible screenplay and then will ask which one I think will make the most interesting film. I always have the same answer (and I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t have this answer as well): whichever one is the best written, of course.
This came to mind after seeing the movie Life of Pi, the new film directed by Ang Lee and written by David Magee from the celebrated novel by Yann Martel. Now the previews of this movie might make you think it’s a simple adventure story/rom com about a boy and tiger who meet cute on a lifeboat; can’t stand each other; and just when they fall in love, they go their separate ways (kind of like It Happened One Night with an unhappy ending). But in reality, it’s actually a movie that poses a theological argument for the existence of God. At the end of the movie, a character is given two versions of the same story (one the boy meets tiger story, one the reality of what happened) and he is asked which one he prefers. He chooses the boy meets tiger. The story teller then tells him that’s why he believes in God (i.e., God makes the more interesting story).
Now I can understand why someone might chose to believe that. It makes perfect psychological sense, especially based on what the central character experiences here. But I’m sorry and I’m sorry if what I’m going to say offends anybody’s religious beliefs, and it’s also quite possible that I completely misunderstood what was being said here, but I think this is one of the most ridiculous reasons for believing in God that I have ever heard. Let’s not believe in Him because He exists or doesn’t exist, but just because He makes the more interesting story. I was left aghast and just didn’t know what to say (a reaction my friends will probably not believe).
The story of Life of Pi is structured around a rather clunky set of scenes in which a writer interviews Pi as an adult as he tells this story. It’s basically divided into three parts. The first third is all exposition, and it feels like it. And in case you don’t realize that it’s exposition, the interviewer more or less tells you that that is all it is. This was the most difficult part of the movie for me to sit through since all I was thinking was “when is the movie going to start”.
The middle section is the adventure at sea with Pi as a young boy trapped on that lifeboat with the tiger after the ship he is on sinks. This is the most exciting part of the movie, tense and suspenseful, as Pi has to figure out just how one shares a small confine of space with a carnivore who is very, very…well, carnivorous.
This part is a tour de force of astonishing cinematography (by Claudio Miranda) that would put National Geographic to shame. It’s an at times fascinating tall tale filled with some mind blowing surrealistic scenes of a storm, a leaping whale, flying fish that descend upon the lifeboat like locusts, a sunken ship. And it all culminates with a magic realism trip to an island made of seaweed filled with marmots.
The third part then culminates with the adult Pi telling the writer the resolution of his young counterpart’s story: a rescued Pi must make a statement to the owners of the boat that sank. Here we eventually find out the true story that supposedly makes the theological argument for God. But it’s also somewhat of a let down to find out that this whole narrative that Pi told of his adventures at sea is a total fiction. It feels a cheat when it’s made clear that the purpose of Pi’s story is not the adventure at sea, but only to prove the existence of God. Actually, it feels like a terrible betrayal. And it just doesn’t gel in a very satisfying and dramatic way. In some odd way, in fact, since the story isn’t true, it actually makes the whole thing much less interesting, which sort of causes problems for the theological argument put forth.
The acting is fine, but nothing that exciting. Pi as a young man is played by Suraj Sharma. It’s his first movie role and his effectiveness comes and goes. Irrfan Khan (of Slumdog Millionaire) plays the adult Pi, and his calm, relaxed interpretation is probably the best thing here. Gerard Depardieu is in the movie for some reason; he has one scene and maybe half a dozen lines. But when it comes down to it, it’s the tiger that steals the show in the end, helped by some amazing CGI shots
If the movie had been nothing but the central story of a young boy trapped at sea and the incredible adventure he went on, then the film might have worked for me. But as it is, it’s a clunky plot told in a clunky way backed by some of the clunkiest theological reasonings I’ve ever heard.
Movie Review of HOLY MOTORS by Howard Casner
Posted: November 29, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Denis Levant, Eva Mendez, Holy Motors, Kylie Minogue, Leos Carax | 2 Comments »French writer/director Leos Carax’s Holy Motors is a WTF film. It’s also one of those films that you will probably love or hate. I loved it. My friend who went with me hated it. I mean, haaaaaated it.
Though the way many people talk about the film might lead you to believe there isn’t a story here, there actually is, and one that I ultimately found deeply moving. Denis Levant (who has been with Carax since Carax’s first feature, Boy Meets Girl—a film, if truth be told, turned me off completely to Carax at the time) plays a man who has, what some might call, a very odd job. He is picked up by a limo every day, a limo filled with costumes and make up and props; he is given a certain number of files with various scenarios; and at each stop, he assumes a fictional identity and plays out a role from the files, all for the delight of a strangely unseen audience who pays his salary.
These scenarios include an old beggar woman; an alien created by donning a special effects suit and performing before a green screen for a sci-fi extravaganza; a boulevard drama about the strained relationship between a father and his daughter; a Tarantino like crime drama; and perhaps most memorably an odd, leprechaun like creature that crawls through the sewer, comes out at a cemetery at a photo shoot with Eva Mendez as the model, whereupon he abducts her, takes her below the earth and what he does to her I won’t say except there is an erect penis involved, but don’t worry, it’s not remotely what you think; and finally, a Christophe Honore type encounter between Levant and a fellow limo actress (played by Kylie Minogue) who sings a haunting song in a deserted building that ends with a tragic finale.
Oh, and there’s an awesome, non sequitorial enter’acte, in which Levant plays an accordion in a church while marching around joined by more and more musicians. I mean it. It was aaaaaaaawesome.
It does take awhile for the story to get going. The beggar woman is the weakest section, partly because Carax cheats a little here by having some bodyguards, who were part of Levant’s previous scenario, tailing the old woman, which contradicts the old woman’s story—this makes the whole thing a bit confusing to follow for awhile. But once the movie gets going and it becomes clear what is happening, it’s a trip. I mean a real trip. I mean a realllllllllllllllllll trip.
But it is also a rather disturbing one because Levant’s character is beginning to crack. This is how he makes his living, this is what he does. But it’s taking his toll because he takes the roles so personally, he out methods James Dean and Marlon Brando, until he can’t leave the emotions behind. They begin to take over his life and the more tragic and disturbing the stories become, the more delicate his psyche becomes. And his job never ends. When the day is done (around midnight), he is taken for his final acting job for the day, a home where he becomes the man of the house for the night. At the same time, he can’t bring himself to quit. He’s stuck and my heart bled for him.
Levant is amazing here. He enters each character seamlessly. There have been many actors who have played multiple rolls in movies before (Alec Guiness in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove), and Levant is up there with them. He also puts Tom Hanks and others who tried the same thing in Cloud Atlas to shame (Holy Motors actually puts the whole of Cloud Atlas to shame—and on a much smaller budget). Levant’s performance is perhaps the best of the year so far (sorry, Daniel Day, but it happens).
The ending, like the beginning, is a bit of a letdown. It begins well as the limo returns to a garage called Holy Motors (hence, the title) where a huge number of limos are already pulling in. You realize then that Levant is only one of a huge number of people who do this exact same thing and the impact and sadness is palpable. But when the limos are left alone, they talk. Fine, an intriguing idea. The problem is they don’t really have anything much to say. The impulse was good, but I don’t think it really achieved anything of significance (how I wanted them to complain about how boring their day was and how nothing ever happened).
Can I recommend you see Holy Motors? It is a movie I think should be seen, especially if you are interested in movies as movies. At the same time, it’s not for everybody. It’s a weird, odd film that is a bit difficult to get into. I think the payoff is huge, but I also like Godard and Bresson. So let your conscious be your guide.
Moview Review of A ROYAL AFFAIR by Howard Casner
Posted: November 29, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: A Royal Affair, Mads Mikkelsen, Manon Rasmussen, Neils Sejer, Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg, Rasmus Videback | 2 Comments »With cinematography by Rasmus Videbaek, costumes by Manon Rasmussen and production design by Neils Sejer, the new Danish film A Royal Affair is a sensual series of scenes that makes you feel as if you’re turning the pages of a coffee table book or strolling through an art museum featuring an exhibition of Gainsborough, Constable and Turner. From a technical standpoint, the movie is a feast for the senses. The story itself, though never boring and even fun in a Masterpiece Theater soap opera type of way at times, is a bit more wibbly wobbly.
It takes place during the Enlightenment in Denmark, apparently the only European country at the time not to have had its cherry popped by that intellectual movement (and just to get it out of the way, yes, there’s something rotten here, okay?). The Danish king, Christian VII, is not quite all there in the head and is merely a puppet of an aristocracy that treats the rabble as, well, rabble, if not worse (though the movie plays a little fast and lose with exactly how crazy he is). He takes as his wife Caroline Matilda, an English princess with Enlightenment tendencies (who tells the story in flashback form through a series of somewhat clunky voice overs—she’s this witness person to the events, see, even events she never ever witnessed). Her Enlightenment tendencies even extend to the boudoir, when, after a truly awful wedding night (to put it politely), Caroline refuses to have sex with Christian again. And all that’s just the background.
The real story begins when Rantzau, a member of the aristocracy who has been exiled from the King’s inner circle, tries to get back into Christian’s good graces by suggesting a common doctor, Johan Struensee, become the King’s private physician, which Struensee does by playing a round of Shakespearian trivial pursuit with Christian (it makes sense if you see it). Struensee is a secret member of the Enlightenment (his alter ego is “anonymous”) and with the help of Rantzau and Caroline, plans to bring Denmark kicking and screaming into the 18th century (there are also plenty of parallels to issues facing America today if that’s your thing). Problems arise when Struensee starts sleeping with Caroline (don’t you hate when that happens?).
As was said, the story is always interesting. But at the same time, I don’t think it quite works on its own terms. The screenwriters Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel, who also directed (and a far cry from his international hit The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, one might safely say) try to sell Struensee’s story as a tragedy on the level of Shakespeare and Sophocles, if not Sir Thomas Mallory (who is referenced with a not so subtle lack of subtlety). According to Heisterberg and Arcel, Struensee’s downfall, his fatal flaw, was his passion and true love for Caroline (with the irony being that a man of Enlightenment ultimately couldn’t control his…reason).
Sorry, but I’m not convinced. Part of my credulity arises from a feeling that it wasn’t always passion that was driving Struensee, but an inability to control his own cock (yeah, I said it, what are you going to do about it), a situation men often like to think is the same thing, when it’s more often than not, not. And more to the point, there is plenty to suggest here that Struensee’s real flaw was not the tragic one of forbidden love, but the more down to earth failings of just not being smart enough to run the country; that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; and that there are limits as to how far Enlightenment ideas could actually solve the problems of the 18th century. In actuality, I suggest it was a far more complex situation than simply who was fucking who. Because of this, a strong beginning tends to lose some of its emotional tension in the second half as it becomes a somewhat routine doomed love story.
But A Royal Affair does have one thing going for it and that is its lead Mikkelson in the role of Struensee. I have to be honest; I can’t get enough of my Mads. An improbable leading man with a face of impossibly high cheek bones and a visage that looks like he was the loser in a boxing match, he commands the screen, and there is little point in fighting it. And there is heat between his doctor and Queen Caroline. So A Royal Affair may not be perfect, but it has its moments, especially when its leading man is on the screen.
Review of the Movie THE SESSIONS by Howard Casner
Posted: November 25, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ben Lewin, Helen Hunt, John Hawkes, Mark O'Brien, The Sessions, William H. Macy | 16 Comments »I think that if someone is disabled, they should at least have the decency of being bitter and angry. But I guess that Mark O’Brien, the central character in writer/director’s Ben Lewin’s movie The Sessions, didn’t get the memo. Mark, crippled by polio as a child and unable to breathe on his own for long periods of time, has, what some might term, a rather positive attitude toward life, attending college and becoming self-supporting as a writer. He never reaches the highs (or, perhaps more accurately, the lows) of Annie singing Tomorrow or the Von Trapp kids singing Do Re Mi. In fact, one of the funniest lines here is when Mark is asked if he believes in God and he says he has to, that life would be unbearable if he couldn’t blame someone for all the awful things that happen. But Mark has somehow managed to achieve an equilibrium about life that I doubt I’d be able to achieve in similar circumstances.
But there is one aspect of his life he has yet to explore. Now, one of the rules for screenwriters is that if you are going to write a story in a familiar genre, then you need to find a new perspective, a new twist, to justify the foray. And Lewin has more than learned that lesson. The Sessions is basically a story about a man losing his virginity. So we’ve had the horny teenage film (boy, have we had the horny teenager film) and we’ve had the middle aged man going all the way film (The 40 Year Old what’s his name). So what’s left? The man encased in an iron lung losing his virginity film, of course. I mean, it’s so obvious, the only thing surprising is that someone hasn’t thought of it before.
John Hawkes plays O’Brien with a constant wistful look in his eyes. But no matter how sad he is, Hawkes has this quality in his performance that won’t let you feel sorry for his character. And you find yourself doing exactly what everybody else in the movie does: you fall for him, you fall for him hard. And he has an advantage that many of us don’t—he is able to write love poems (taking a note apparently from Robin Williams’ teacher in The Dead Poet’s Society who told his students that the only reason one writes poetry is to woo women—though I always wondered how that applied to Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman).
Helen Hunt plays Cheryl, the sex surrogate who is called in like Dudley Do Right to help O’Brien achieve his goal, and it’s a perfect, if somewhat standard, roll for her, a character who starts off cold and distant, not able to share her emotions, finding herself forced to come out of herself (the Katherine Hepburn type part). William H. Macy takes time out from his over the top, hedonist of Shameless to play a down to earth, practical priest who can only enjoy his hedonism second hand. The previews make one think he’s going to be a caricature; but in reality, he brings a very relaxed and every day quality to his performance.
The movie is witty and touching and laugh out loud funny. The directing, though a little flat perhaps, doesn’t get in the way and gets the job done. There is one oddity that should be mentioned. For a movie that preaches sexual freedom and that one should be comfortable with one’s body and nudity, Lewin is actually a prude and a bit of a hypocrite. He has no problem showing the women in full frontal, but when it comes to the men, he uses a metaphorical fig leaf in the form of a very, very, very carefully placed mirror. In the end, it makes one wonder who’s really the more uncomfortable with sex, O’Brien or Lewin?
Review of the Movie FLIGHT by Howard Casner
Posted: November 24, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, flight movie, John Gatins, John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Peter Gerety, Robert Zemeckis | 9,450 Comments »Flight, the new film from writer John Gatins and director Robert Zemeckis, has an incredible set piece near the beginning of the movie in which a pilot (Denzel Washington) is forced to crash land a plane in nightmare conditions by making it roll 360 degrees (flying upside down for awhile) and coming down on a field near a church about ready to do some Sunday go to meeting baptisms. It’s an amazing technical feat (and not just the landing, but the filming as well) and it’s an exhilarating start. When this section is over, the movie sets up an equally incredible enigma: Whip, the pilot, was drunk and had cocaine in his system when he performed this unbelievable stunt; but that wasn’t the cause of the crash. And Whip’s handling of the landing was something that ten other pilots couldn’t have done sober. So the whole movie seems more than ready to tackle issues and questions brought up by this fascinating conundrum.
And then the movie becomes…something else, something else entirely, and something that has nothing to do with either the crash landing or what sort of punishment should be given to a pilot who is able to make a miraculous landing (Gatins’ words, not mine) while drunk. It actually becomes a rather routine, formulaic The Lost Weekend, The Days of Wine and Roses, When a Man Loves a Woman, Clean and Sober (fill in with your favorite film in the genre) story about an alcoholic.
Six people died in the crash and a huge number of people were seriously injured. But is this their story or is the story about the crash and what it means? No. Believe it or not, all of this is chopped liver. All of this is a macguffin, because the only reason for any of this, the only purpose for all these deaths, the only purpose of the crash, the only reason for all this destruction is so that Whip will start going to AA.
I’m not kidding. I am totally serious. And to back up this idea, there’s a ton of talk about God in the movie and whether everything is preordained or has a purpose, whether everything that happens is just part of an overall plan. To be fair, all this mention of God at times tends to be a bit metaphorical in that whenever the big guy’s name is mentioned, He’s a stand in for all the unforeseen and uncontrollable things that happen in life, as when destruction from a hurricane is an “act of God”. But still.
And it’s not that the movie is without its positive aspects. But oddly enough, it’s not when the film focuses on Whip’s journey, but when it focuses on the issues related to the crash that the movie really comes to life. Both Don Cheadle, as a long suffering lawyer, and Peter Gerety, as the owner of the airline, stand out as the few who really seem to understand what is really going on and that the meaning of the crash is the crash and that Whip’s journey is actually a hindrance and just getting in the way of the real issues. When Gerety tells everybody off, I thought, finally, someone who really gets what it’s all about.
Washington is fine as Whip, but he’s always a lot more fun when he’s playing anti-heroes like here, people you would not want to meet in a darkened alleyway. Melissa Leo also makes her mark at the end because, like Cheadle and Gerety, she’s in a different movie. The low point, though, has to be John Goodman as Whip’s connection. Goodman is one of our finest character actors, but here, as in Argo and some other recent films, he’s been reduced to playing, well, John Goodman roles, and he deserves better.
In all fairness, I should point out that many in the audience around me were deeply moved. But I just couldn’t join in. For me, if truth be told, I was bit offended. Here I thought that Leibnitz and the philosophy of “the best of all possible worlds” ended with Voltaire’s ruthless satire Voltaire. But apparently not. No matter how awful things are, no matter how many people die, no matter how much destruction there is, it’s okay, because there’s always a silver lining. People can die, but their death has meaning because it helped someone enter a recovery program. Really.
Movie Review of BEYOND THE HILLS, CAESER MUST DIE and CLANDESTINE CHILDHOOD by Howard Casner
Posted: November 22, 2012 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Benjamin Avila, Beyond the Hills, Caesar Must Die, Clandestine Childhood, Cristian Mungui, Paola Taviani, Vittorio Taviani | 1 Comment »Three movies that are each countries’ entry in the foreign film category for the Academy Awards.
The Romanians obviously have issues when it comes to their health care system. First, it was the powerful The Death of Mister Lazarescu wherein an elderly gentleman is shunted from one pompous doctor to another all the while trying to find someone who will take him seriously. And now we have Beyond the Hills, the new film from writer/director Cristian Mungui, in which a doctor releases a young woman, who is showing uncontrollable fits and outrageous behavior of the mental illness genre, back into the hands of the priest and nuns who first brought her in because the doctor thinks they are more likely to be able to help her than he can (and cue Tubular Bells). And when tragedy strikes, a doctor blames the Priest, who is then arrested.
However, the health care profession is not really the central theme here. Beyond the Hills is based on a true incident involving an exorcism which is more the centerpiece. Voichita, the very lonely and often severely depressed aforementioned young woman, looks up her ex-girlfriend Alina who is now staying at a monastery cum nunnery run by the aforementioned priest (this nunnery is an interesting establishment unto itself in that it’s quite Medieval and not when it comes to religious belief, but in that the woman are joining not so much because they have a spiritual calling, but because they can’t find work or a husband). Voichita wants Alina to leave and join her in Germany as they had always planned while growing up in an orphanage together. Alina refuses, having found peace at the nunnery; but soon after, Voichita starts acting like Linda Blair and no one knows what to do.
Mungui came to prominence after giving us 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, the devastating must see film about abortion and its illegality under Communist rule in Romania. Beyond the Hills may not have quite the same tension as 4 Months…, at least in the beginning, which is a bit leisurely to say the least. But once Voichita starts spiraling out of control and they decide to do an exorcism because they know of no other way to save her, there is no turning back. It’s a riveting, dark and even devastating piece of filmmaking.
Again based on a true story, sort of, the Italian film Caesar Must Die grew out of a program for prisoners in which they perform a play. Here, William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I must be honest. I have no idea what the Taviani brothers (Paola and Vittorio of Padre padrone fame) are trying to do here. It’s not a documentary. It’s obvious that what is being filmed takes place after the production has had its last curtain call, everything is so carefully staged (in a very forced and unbelievable way most of the time), and the rehearsal process is not remotely realistic (even the scripts they use are in screenplay format, not Shakespearian play format). We never get to know the prisoners or find out what any of this means to them or if it affects them in any way. There doesn’t seem to be a moral to the story (except that criminals can be good actors, I suppose, though many would think that’s just being redundant). We don’t even get the joy of Shakespeare’s dialog. He’s actually listed as one of the writers for the movie along with the Tavianis, but I call shenanigans on that. The excerpts from the play are not translated into Elizabethan verse, but into some sort of bastardized, everyday patois (even Et tu, Brute is subtitled into something like, And you, too, Brutus?). The only really interesting aspect of the script for me is the locations the actors choose to “rehearse” (and I mean those end quotes with all sincerity) certain scenes (which, of course, in the context here, would not have been chosen by the prisoners, but by the Tavianis). It might have been interesting to see Julius Caesar staged in a prison in which the convicts’ relationships were reflected by the play, or even to see a straightforward production of the play. But alas, ‘twas not to be. Many people loved it. I was totally lost.
And again based on a true story, or at least inspired by true events in the director Benjamin Avila’s life, the Argentine film Clandestine Childhood opens with an amazing scene of a young boy witnessing a shoot out involving his parents that turns into panels from a graphic novel. It’s an assault on the senses that one doesn’t soon forget. If only the rest of the movie astounded us with as much originality and vibrancy. But this technique is only used a couple more times in the course of the movie and instead the story jumps a few years and a slightly older boy is reunited with said parents in Argentina after growing up in Cuba where his parents had earlier fled and recently returned from so they could continue working against the government. At this point, it all turns into a rather standard, coming of age, first love film, one that you’ve seen a million times before. It’s sweet and effecting at times, but not that much more. What’s surprising is how little tension is added to the central characters flailing for a girlfriend by the background situation he finds himself trapped in. I suppose one could be somewhat comforted in the idea that life goes on even under totalitarian regimes, but I’m afraid that wasn’t enough for me. In the end, a formulaic story is a formulaic story, no matter what form of government runs the country. And in the end, rather than being deeply moved I found myself asking, what were these parents thinking smuggling their kids back into Argentina with death camping out on their doorstep? Easy for me to say, I suppose, sitting here typing as I am without much danger of being imprisoned for life for political thought, but still, the thought did occur to me.
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