Archive for the ‘Reviews A-E’ Category

 

Duplicity

Seeing Stars

May 1st, 2009

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To those who lament the lack of movie stars in motion pictures, “Duplicity” offers solace.

Presently, Hollywood showcases actors of varying talents; what it doesn’t have on a consistent basis is silver screen icons. There are a plethora of good actors who hold our attention, surely, but far too many seem to favor self-indulgent and disconnected parts. Bankable names like Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale choose roles where they almost exclusively portray loners, apparently finding comfort in their character’s insularity and by losing themselves in costumes, accents and affectations. Powerful but distant, their detachment makes them feel small and isolated. There are thespians, fine artisans such as Philip Seymour Hoffman or Hillary Swank, who, bluntly, just don‘t radiate that “It” quality. And we’re encumbered with another generation of headshot pretty, vacant line readers; while that may be no different than the age of the studio contracts, it doesn’t alter the perception that they are merely wisps of space. Animation and special effects have nudged out, if not supplanted in many instances, live actors, both the gifted and the rubbish.

Perhaps nowhere has this dearth of magnetism been more telling than in romanticism because those box-office behemoths are just too comfortable playing the emotionally unavailable. Has Crowe ever cuddled on-screen? Has Depp ever swept a paramour off her feet? Has Bale ever swooned? It seems they’re too laden with breast plates and scissor hands for a little slap and tickle. With A-List actresses summarily jilted, it’s left to foreign flicks like “Priceless” or independent films such as “Milk” or even animation to provide the spark. It is telling that “WALL-E” was one of 2008’s most meaningful expositions on intimacy. It’s gotten so desperate that it can’t be too long until lesser lights attempt a computer-generated romance; coming this autumn, “PS, CGI Love You.”

In “Duplicity,“ Julia Roberts and Clive Owen exemplify not only the essence of being a movie star; they show self-indulgent SAG sack superstars how to bring sexy back. In his follow-up to the fabulous “Michael Clayton,” director and writer Tony Gilroy returns to the rubric of corporate intrigue through a lighter prism with Roberts and Owen as CIA and MI6 operatives who become lovers, retire from government spying, and enter the nefarious domain of corporate espionage by working for competing cutthroat multinational cosmetics companies. A byzantine plot trundles in a circuitous route, leaping back and forth through the last six years, skipping across continents. And while the film never flags, the labyrinthine machinations deviate from what makes “Duplicity” so much fun: the unforced chemistry from two scintillating performers. Through all of the plot twists and story subterfuge, Roberts and Owen deliver performances that accrete seamlessly as they let fly with sharp, flirtatious repartee that harkens to an age when witty verbal jousts between besotted equals were commonplace.

Roberts radiates the supreme confidence of a Tinseltown pro in her turn as the Claire Stenwick. With a twinkle in her eye, she has a certain Rosalind Russell vibe when swatting away Owen‘s chat up lines, or feeding him one of her own. Owen cleans up quite nicely for this film. In recent years, he‘s carved out a terrific resume in such films as “Sin City,” “Children of Men” and “Shoot ‘Em Up,” where he carried a perpetual seven o‘clock shadow like it was a trusty six shooter. But with smooth, high cheekbones shading his face like a single bruise on an apple, a clean-shaven Owen generates a stellar comic technique as Ray Koval. Wearing button down shirts even when on vacation, he looks like the dapper stud in the Lancôme cologne ads. (Before this film, if he was being paid in scents, it would have been British Sterling.)

Gilroy casts the additional, secondary roles with astute choices. Tom Wilkinson is eerie disquiet as Howard Tully, the paranoid conglomerate CEO. Wilkinson is wickedly adept at finding the unnerving in a normal moment. As his rival, Richard Garsik, a snarling Paul Giamatti continues to construct the supporting actor as All-Star relief pitcher, a Mad Hungarian of frothy interjections and ruthless maliciousness. Further fine actors such as Denis O’Hare and Thomas McCarthy make up a notable “Michael Clayton” ensemble.

But “Duplicity” is best when focused on the pulchritudinous pair bonding with a terrific alchemy and it is this relationship which fomented my earlier (perhaps too) curmudgeonly rhetoric. Roberts and Owen simply provide a dwindling presence that makes going to movies so wondrous. Sometimes it’s just exhilarating to sit in a darkened theater watching movie stars.

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Crank: High Voltage

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Nipples

April 24th, 2009

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Three years ago, “Crank” hurtled into theaters as absurdist fun. The taut, lean and gristle-free tale of a poisoned hit man who must keep his heart rate racing used a preposterous premise to concoct a wild, breakneck “D.O.A.” for the devil horns brigade. The sequel, “Crank: High Voltage,” released last weekend, is comparably a corpulent mess. Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who in the “Crank” DVD commentary seemed quite pleased with themselves, gorge like stoned college kids at a pizza buffet. No contrivance appears to have been discarded; one can imagine that every wacky idea was met with high fives and fist bumps. This time, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) has been fixed with an artificial heart and spends the next 96 minutes electrifying himself as he scours Los Angeles for his pilfered organ while the film spends that time searching in vain for the coherence of its predecessor. “Crank: High Voltage” is a potent mix of the good, the bad and the offal.

A cornucopia of extraneous visceral images and self-congratulatory jokes and gestures, “High Voltage“ expresses mood and executes set pieces with less subtlety than the previous film, but what should one expect from a movie helmed by indulgent directors: a high-speed chase is brought to a pause when Chev’s car is blocked by a completely superfluous porn actors’ strike; a strip club shootout ends with a dancer shot in her pneumatic chest, the camera panning repeatedly over her oozing breasts; and a character is afflicted with “Full Body Tourette’s,” which is a gimmick overplayed. In a film in desperate need of felicitous redaction, when a crazed prostitute picks up a dirt bike, she doesn’t thrust it into a baddie’s groin once but over and over until his genitals have been pulverized. “ High Voltage” is littered with racial epithets and vile language as well; there’s a play on words using “Cantonese” that is headshakingly sad in its unfunny pun.

The movie is unrelentingly gratuitous, not morally but aesthetically. The ludicrous and implausible are more than palatable if illustrated with flair but “High Voltage” is so scattershot, so random, with both the camera and story flitting about with such attention deficiency that it begs the question of whether the editing process was completed during an Adderall withdrawal. Cartoonish films ask an audience to suspend disbelief; “Crank“ had you accepting that a dude could leap from a plane, fall from the heavens without a parachute, smack onto the roof of a car, bounce onto the street and survive. Over-the-top, for sure, but the scene was executed with the verve and ingenuity missing from the current incarnation. A sequence used in both films highlights the distinction between the two. In the first film, Chev and his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) engage, for medicinal purposes, in a very public (and funny) sex scene in a bustling Chinatown market. But in “High Voltage” they rut on the finish line of a horse track during a race, in front of thousands of spectators, in a myriad of positions. There’s method acting. Welcome to “meth” directing.

Statham is treated well though by the directing duo as his killer is vivified with more humor and presence than he’s bestowed with in the “Transporter“ series. An Olympic diving hopeful in his youth, Statham, with sandpaper stubble and a South London rasp, has the body of a top-level middleweight, and the face of a slightly less successful one. “High Voltage” is well served by his insistence on doing the vast majority of his own stunts. Amy Smart is plucky in the relatively thankless role of Eve. As El Huron, a vengeful gangster who wishes Chev dead, Clifton Collins Jr., so memorable as the vulnerable Perry Smith in “Capote,“ struts with an outlandish manner that an actor of his pedigree can handle. The likable Efren Ramirez, who played Pedro in “Napoleon Dynamite,” returns as the full-bodied twin brother of his deceased character in the first film. Two other roles are just disconcerting. Geri Halliwell appears in a cameo as Chev’s mother but her part is stuck by Neveldine and Taylor in a completely jarring daytime talk show segue. And David Carradine pops up as an insufferably stereotypical gang warlord.

The film ends with a severely burned Chev receiving a heart transplant from Doc Miles, his dubious delicensed surgeon, played with droll insouciance by Dwight Yoakam. After Miles and Eve leave the converted apartment operating theater believing the surgery was not successful, the camera pans closer to Chev’s bandaged face, only a swath across his eyes visible, and his hand rises and he flips the bird at the camera. Right back at ya.

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Che

Guerilla in the Midst

March 31st, 2009

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If only every movie had the director delivering his DVD commentary once the house lights come up.

The “Che” roadshow arrived in Portland with Steven Soderbergh in attendance. And after 257 minutes split by just a single quarter-hour intermission, an honest and affable Soderbergh, looking sharp in a black leather jacket, black jeans with Chelsea boots and resembling a Joe Jackson inspiration, offered a glimpse into the filmmaking saga of “Che” and the massive obstacles even an Academy Award winning director with an Oscar winning leading man faces in getting a project greenlighted. At ease, sitting on the edge of the Cinema 21 stage, he was engaging and frank as he recounted a “brutal” shoot which was the most difficult of his career.

The genesis of the project goes as far back as “Traffic.“ Eight years from conception to screen, “Che” was first developed with Soderbergh at the helm, then Terrence Malick, who alighted to the New World after several years work, and finally back to Soderbergh, who shot the two halves consecutively in the summer of 2007. He admitted that once they decided to make the film in the Spanish language, there’d be no money from the U.S. So they relied on European sources. He mused that perhaps they should have made “Che” as a multi-episode miniseries for HBO; the cable network would have provided a bigger budget. Cutting edge digital cameras arrived with just days to spare and still needed tweaking as the production commenced.

Besides the logistical obstacles, it must have been a daunting task deciding how to transfer a biography of Ernesto “Che” Guevara to the screen. Plunked on a pedestal of mythology, the divisive Che was a solider and an academic, a revolutionary with the word and a weapon. But he‘s morphed into the Marxist as marketing tool. He’s a T-shirt icon with a Chris Cornell-like Rock God vibe. Upon the release of “The Motorcycle Diaries,“ Larry Rohter penned a May 2004 New York Times article titled “Che Today? More Easy Rider Than Revolutionary,” which examined Che‘s dichotomous cultural legacy. Jon Lee Anderson, the author of the seminal work, “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life,” and a chief consultant on Soderbergh‘s film, described Che as “a figure who can constantly be examined and re-examined. To the younger, post-cold-war generation of Latin Americans, Che stands up as the perennial Icarus, a self-immolating figure who represents the romantic tragedy of youth. Their Che is not just a potent figure of protest but the idealistic, questioning kid who exists in every society and every time.” But Mario O’Donnell, a biographer of Guevara as well, noted in the same article that these types of allusions to Greek mythology could reduce Che to a deified stereotype. “The Cubans have excluded everything about Che that is not heroic, including that which is most deliciously human about him. The personal doubts, the sexual escapades, the moments when he and [his traveling motorcycling companion Alberto] Granado are drunk, none of that fits with the immortal warrior they want to project.”

It is this warrior that Soderbergh focuses on. Part One of “Che” is stellar biographical storytelling. It intercuts expeditiously between Guevara‘s first meetings in 1955 with Fidel Castro in Mexico City to the rebel surge across Cuba in the late 1950’s and his defiant appearance in December 1964 before the United Nations. “Che” moves quickly but precisely, steadied by a filmmaker never dawdling but patiently laying out the intertwining elements. It’s methodical and engrossing. The interspersed storylines crafted by screenwriter Peter Buchman make sense and there‘s a keen understanding of Che‘s revolutionary ethos. The story was ably assisted by a quietly clever device at the beginning of the film. Soderbergh opens with a slowly exposed map of Cuba, with regions and cities clearly illuminated in succession as a respectful way to familiarize the audience with the locale and points of interest.

The second part of “Che” centers exclusively on his 1967 quest to foment revolution in Bolivia. Filmed with harsh white sunlight hue and a purposefully muted color palette, Soderbergh said that this part has a purposeful “jagged” feel. The appearance in Part Two of commendable performances from easily recognizable actors — Lou Diamond Phillips, Franka Potente and Matt Damon — doesn’t mean there’s a Hollywood gloss on this portion of the film. It’s a decidedly grittier film than its predecessor. Utilizing the Red One digital camera — a camera that not only afforded Soderbergh more maneuverability but meant that only six shots in the entire film used artificial light — Soderbergh captures a barren landscape of both geographic and political isolation. Where Che was feted as a liberating hero by village after village in Cuba, in Bolivia, he is met by local indifference (and an American presence). His revolution was vaguely organized, with less money and, most crucially, scant indigenous support. So, in Bolivia, where locals seemed hesitant, Che feels like a Marxist imperialist, exporting revolution to folks who aren’t clamoring for it. He comes across as a bit of a policy wonk as well (and this section also highlights that there’s barely an acknowledgement of a personal life in either film).

While imposing, imperious and full blooded, Benicio del Toro doesn’t overwhelm the films in the title role. He is compelling without becoming overpowering. Yet, his Guevara is indefatigable. This unceasing desire mimics the uncompromising arrogance of a demagogue. In his August 1960 speech, “On Revolutionary Medicine,” Che rallied the Cuban Militia with his oft-repeated theme of the Cuban revolution forging a “new man.”

“Then I realized a fundamental thing: For one to be a revolutionary doctor or to be a revolutionary at all, there must first be a revolution. Isolated individual endeavor, for all its purity of ideals, is of no use, and the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the nobles of ideals serves no purpose if one works along, solitarily, in some corner of America, fighting against adverse governments and social conditions which prevent progress. To create a revolution, one must have what there is in Cuba — the mobilization of a whole people, who learn by the use of arms and exercise of militant unity to understand the value of arms and the value of unity.”

He underscores this belief in the subjugation of the individual impulse with a veiled sense that his means to a revolutionary end are something more menacing than a recommendation — indeed, a threat to civil liberties.

“Individualism, in the form of the individual action of a person alone in a social milieu, must disappear in Cuba. In the future individualism ought to be the efficient utilization of the whole individual for the absolute benefit of a collective. It is not enough that this idea is understood today, that you all comprehend the things I am saying and are ready to think a little about the present and the past and what the future out to be. In order to change a way of thinking, it is necessary to undergo profound internal changes and to witness profound external changes, especially in the performance of our duties and obligations to society.”

The Che of this speech is the Che of this epic film; unflinching, charismatic, and persuasive but peremptory; unfailingly dressed in fatigues, draped in ambivalent heroism. Soderbergh described the making of the films as “kind of like a slow motion car accident.” In Che, he’s got one hell of a back seat driver

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Watchmen & Coraline

All Hands on the Bad One

March 26th, 2009

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I haven’t read a word or leafed a page of “Watchmen.“ This isn’t out of any contrarian strop. I can understand why folks become fervently obsessive with these works; I’m just not into the genre. But I don’t think it matters that I had no background with the books when I chose to see the ubiquitously hyped flick. Regardless of how lauded or important the source, a film exists as a completely separate artistic entity. One can argue that an acquaintance with the original inspiration helps with context but even this position is immaterial because a film must be viewed on its own merits. So I saw “Watchmen” with no preconceived notion and no specific expectation. But what is still surprising about the film based on the reverentially adored DC comic book series is how the transfer to the screen feels so pedestrian.

After a vibrantly choreographed fight sequence which culminates in the death of one of the Watchmen in 1985 and a vivid, slow-motion opening title sequence of flashbulbed World War II era photograph stills, the film settles into standard fare. The gist of the plot centers on a collection of formerly publicly vilified superheroes regrouping to solve the murder of their cohort, The Comedian (played by Robert Downey Jr. look-a-like Jeffrey Dean Morgan). There are themes aplenty; from the Cold War to imperialist capitalism to vigilantism, that a film with a more confident script and assured hand would have feasted on. But too often these critiques seem more like a suggestion than an examination.

The film carries a refreshing R rating, and it is admittedly a welcome change to view a multiplex cartoon blockbuster chockfull of cursing and nudity. But then, director Zack Snyder helmed “300,” a film which resembled an International Male catalogue with Tom of Finland serving as a wardrobe consultant. His 2006 box-office bonanza was asinine twaddle but its unflinching visual style was arresting and hardly spartan. “Watchmen” lacks the cohesive tone and the consistent visual dynamism of his predecessor. Too often, it takes a smoke (and mirrors) break. This is especially evident in a prison scene which is small, ordinary and unconvincing. If one was hoping to be swept into another world, then “Watchmen” disappoints.

One aspect of “Watchmen” that is most perturbing is the trite use of music. It‘s a soundtrack too familiar and too obvious. The decision to score a Vietnam battle scene with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries or play Simon and Garfunkel‘s “Sounds of Silence“ over a funeral falls flat, even if used ironically or plucked from the novel.

The cast delivers performances of variant quality. Patrick Wilson, a burgeoning notable American actor, plays Dan Dreiberg, the most contemplative and openly vulnerable of the superheroes, with a believable poignancy while he exudes a Batman-like swagger as his alter ego, Nite Owl. Rorschach, played earnestly by Jackie Earle Haley as though Danny Bonaduce was a member of Gwar, needs a chill pill or, at the very least, a Ricola.

But a few of the main characterizations are less convincing. As Silk Spectre, Malin Akerman looks like Xena’s little sister, with limbs like an Incredible, but her acting is hardly malleable. Topped by a Spandau Ballet haircut, Matthew Goode, so brooding in “The Lookout,” is a stilted Adrian Veidt, the former superhero Ozymandias who has become the wealthiest man. And Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan is annoyingly omniscient as he delivers every line like a stilted pontification. It doesn‘t help that in his CGI’d getup he regularly plods around with his tadger out so that he looks like a particularly horny Blue Man Groupie.

So, “Watchmen” is not a terrible film but perhaps in its own way this is a worse fate: not kitschy enough to merit midnight madness and not poor enough to be hokum; it’s just ho-hum.

As uninspiring as “Watchmen” is, with a budget that exceeds its grasp of magical moviemaking, it’s a treat to behold the vision of Henry Selick in “Coraline.” The director of stop-motion animation gems such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach,” Selick and his hearty crew have fashioned a meticulous work drawn from the Neil Gaiman novella, which I haven‘t read either.

The tale of Coraline, an intrepid young girl, voiced by Dakota Fanning, who discovers an alternate universe within the walls of her new home, is a precise, precious and ornate 3-D feast. She has moved with her family from Pontiac, Michigan to the remote Northwest so that her author parents can write untroubled by distractions. But even in these secluded surroundings, her mother and father (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) indelicately indicate that their only child, who is simply a kid being an inquisitive kid, is a bit of a bother. Sporting a look that suggests she started listening to Sleater-Kinney at a precociously young age, Coraline discovers a nook in a wall of their Victorian rental which leads to a passageway where her “other” parents, now doting and not distracted, lavish her with fanciful foods and presents. Their buttons for eyes are the first, most visible sign that their devotion may come with a price.

In her new environs, Coraline lives amongst notably surreal characters, especially the neighbors who live in the adjacent apartments of the massive house. Two eccentric actresses, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, bursting out from the top of their corsets and fawning over their pampered Scotties, entertain her with their almost indecipherable bickering, the interplay enhanced by the vocals of comedy duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. In the alternate universe, they are transformed into cheeky mermaids in an uproarious scene perhaps more readily relished by adults. She also encounters Mister Bobinsky, a gymnastics performer of mind-boggling dexterity voiced with gusto by the mellifluously throated Ian McShane. Bobinsky is the ringmaster for a mice circus which performs a rousingly choreographed drill team song for the young girl. Coraline is befriended in both worlds by a wise black cat voiced by the honey dripped tone of Keith David.

The film is a stunning and exceedingly attractive achievement, enhanced by 3-D but not beholden to it. A kooky kaleidoscope of a garden is a shimmering blancmange of reds, oranges and blues. It’s also filled with beautiful, simple touches — the crystalline texture of snow, a shifting rug under Coraline‘s feet or tea leaves swishing in a cup are visual delights made all the more wondrous by the knowledge that these moments were created by the patient, hands-on care of artisans minutely shifting figures. Buoyed by Bruno Coulais’ soundtrack of jaunty harp music, the film is steadfastly clever while alternately and, in many instances, simultaneously creepy and funny. “Coraline” is an enchanting triumph.

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Tricks & Cherry Blossoms

Late Bloomers

February 28th, 2009

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On a family trip in the mid 1980‘s, we took the London to Edinburgh line and met a young Swedish couple. While the woman in her early 20s was attractive, she was routinely so, but in the post Borg age, when Edbergs, Wilanders, and Jarryds made such a racket, it was her companion with his preposterously perfect feathered hair, flawless English and effortless friendliness who my teenaged self and younger sister engaged in casual, convivial conversation as he poured Smarties into our hands.

The pretty pair departed the train before we crossed the border, and my sister recalls that it was in the “middle of nowhere,” so perhaps, we’ve surmised, they got off at York or Darlington to hike the Yorkshire Dales. We’ve always imagined that the intrepid Scandinavians were thrust into a wondrous adventure after they disembarked.

Hinging on a boy’s obsession with the comings and goings of a man he believes to be his estranged father at his local train station, the Polish film “Tricks” is an attractive effort with many commendable elements which is somewhat foiled, one feels, by a vague central theme of parental abandonment. There’s a gnawing sense that, like an interrupted train journey, there is vitally more to the handsomely illustrated story than director and screenwriter Andrzej Jakimowski was willing to tell.

Stefek (Damian Ul) is a young boy of eightish who spends his summer days hanging out at the train station in his country town. He discovers that one of the men who regularly travels to the station in a suit and carrying a briefcase is his father who left the family, started another, and has since chosen to cut off contact with Stefek and his older sister. Stefek watches him from afar, and they interact on the platform with only passing glances. One must deduce that the father (Tomasz Sapryk) left when Stefek was no older than a baby because he doesn’t appear to readily recognize his child, even though he travels through the town ostensibly on business on a daily basis and a boy of his abandoned son’s age is lurking at the station.

Stefek begins to karmically conjure a reunion with his father. He uses borrowed carrier pigeons and strategically placed toy soldiers and sticks for his quest in scenes that are some of “Tricks” most delightfully delivered. His eighteen-year-old sister Elsa, played by the photogenic Ewelina Walendziak, is the film’s most well-developed character and while she doesn’t dissuade her younger brother from his desire, she’s not terribly interested herself in retracing a relationship with her father. Stefek’s mother is a benevolently peripheral character who spends most of the film off camera running a modest corner shop.

On one particularly sun-dappled summer day Stefek shadows the suited businessman as he strolls through the town after missing a train, buying street fruit, wading in a bucolic stream, visiting with old chums and running into former acquaintances. During the walk, the father appears to spot in a window a photo of the three he left behind in their Sunday finery. As the sun begins to set, Stefek and Elsa watch from a recessed doorway as their father purchases a modest bunch of flowers, walks to the door of their mother’s humble shop, pauses, then turns away. In the film’s final scene when Stefek finally strikes up a conversation at the end of the day with this man at the station, the film concludes a crucial moment as his the dad utters, “I’m sitting on the platform but not waiting for a train.” And then the credits begin to crawl, the film abruptly ending at a departure, one which could be the crux of a movie.

Jakimowski has a knack for shooting fetching scenes. The film moves effortlessly through charming, winding narrow old-world streets shrouded by modern concrete apartment blocks. Vignettes of swooping carrier pigeons captured in the breaks between buildings and Stefek walking the train tracks around the town leaving toy soldiers on the railroad ties are filmed expressively by cinematographer Adam Bajerski. If the film had simply wished to unfold as a verdant narrative of a summer in a young boy’s life, it contains scenes like these in abundance, with further simple, sweet moments such as a picnic in the woods, walks across a looming bridge and a carefree motorcycle ride through the town.

Stefek perpetually carries a fretful countenance, habitually chewing the inside of his lip, but as a child observer, he isn’t provided with a view into the insights necessary to illuminate the audience to a greater understanding of the father‘s reasoning. Elsa’s escapades illustrates a story which doesn’t need to be enhanced by the father’s choices, or even his presence. She struggles in a plucky way with a hectic schedule filled with a mundane dishwashing job, studying Italian lessons as she attempts to secure a job with an Italian company, and just trying to enjoy the last summer of her youth with her likable, mechanic boyfriend, all the while serving as a surrogate mother to Stefek. Most puzzling for a film apparently so immersed in a theme of family bonds is the decision to make Stefek and Elsa’s mother (Iwona Fornalczyk) such a perplexingly undeveloped character.

If the attractive “Tricks“ suffers from a paucity that suggests it’s a prologue, then “Cherry Blossoms,” the latest film from German director Doris Dorrie, is essentially two excellent, fully-formed shorter films which coalesce into a satisfying whole.

Trudi (Hannelore Elsner) learns that her husband, Rudi (Elmar Wepper), a nearing-retirement-age, unassuming bureaucrat she dotes upon, is terminally ill. They depart upon her insistence for a number of trips while she believes Rudi can still travel. They visit the mountains, journey to Berlin to see two of their children, and embark to the Baltic for a beach holiday. They are a kindly but not saccharine couple who their children barely tolerate and their grandchildren consider a distraction and it’s a deft touch by Dorrie that the person who shows the couple the most simple kindness in Berlin is their daughter’s girlfriend (Nadja Uhl), who accompanies Trudi to a Butoh performance which is so clearly important to her. After these European travels, she has the intention of taking Rudi to Japan, a country which has always fascinated, enamored and moved her. But on a still morning in their Baltic hotel, Trudi has passed away and we have at her death the conclusion of the first half of the film which, upon reflection, is a completely contained, emotionally poignant 45 minutes.

Slowly in the second portion, Rudi, an instinctually unadventurous man, begins to understand that perhaps he was too accommodating to Trudi’s role as an at-home supplicant in their relationship and even though she gained great heart from her decades of nurturing he recognizes that as the person receiving this devotion, he should have been more aware of her sacrifice and that he should have been insistent that Trudi not subsume her desires and dreams for his contentment. As he rummages through her belongings, Rudi finds postcards of Mount Fuji and long ago photos of a face-painted Trudi in Butoh poses and realizes he was both overly influential and silently complicit in her self denial. So he decides to make a pilgrimage to Japan, to take her trip of a lifetime. The journey is complicated because their third child works in finance in Tokyo, and like his siblings in Berlin, he, sadly, finds his father‘s presence an imposition and uses the rigors of his work schedule as a convenient excuse for his absences and distant manner. As Rudi begins to investigate Tokyo on his own, he befriends Yu (Aya Irizuki), an 18-year-old Butoh street dancer. They develop a friendship and a connection which will help both of them confront and then embrace grief and loss.

Dorrie, who also wrote the script, has crafted a film laden with achingly emotional scenes but at 127 minutes “Cherry Blossoms” takes the time to develop the legitimacy of these tear-jerking wallops, especially with the characterizations of Trudi and Rudi, so that the weepy moments are not manipulative. The film ends with the married couple magically intertwined with Mount Fuji looming in the background, the journey of these two people and the two mini films both meaningfully and movingly merged.

(“Tricks” and “Cherry Blossoms” screened at the Portland International Film Festival earlier this month. “Cherry Blossoms” will be released to theaters in the United States by Strand Releasing.)

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Burn After Reading

A Hot Read

December 30th, 2008

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“Burn After Reading” is a rollicking romp. After the morose, lauded “No Country for Old Men,” the Coen brothers have returned quite quickly with a slapstick gem which zips along on the crest of a zany story, hilarious script and a bounty of beautifully fulfilled comic performances.

The hoot of a film revolves serpentinely around deceitful endeavors with the key chicanery centering on the retrieval of a stolen CD filled with sensitive information. But the intertwined plot takes a secondary place to the performances because, ultimately, “Burn After Reading” is an acting delight. Throughout their career, Joel and Ethan Coen have allowed actors to thrive in original characterizations and immerse themselves in distinctly memorable creations. From Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter to Jeff Bridges, Javier Bardem and John Turturro, a succession of movie stars and thespians have unleashed seminal characters in their films. So it’s no great surprise that with a film laden with comic hijinks and satirical underpinnings, the brothers encouraged an A-list ensemble of superb actors to cavort brazenly.

John Malkovich, who is physically morphing steadily into Pablo Picasso, plays Osbourne Cox, a perturbed, retired CIA analyst, with ground-teeth exasperation and menace. His delicate, perhaps even nationally sensitive memoirs are discovered by a bumbling duo of health club fitness trainers. Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt revel in their roles as the quirky Hardbodies employees. Pitt appears to love sending up his hunk status with bouts of outrageous physical humor replete with gyrations, flicks, and facial gymnastics. His Chad Feldheimer is a lovable goofball, complete with a “Johnny Suede” pompadour. Wide-eyed and bob cut, McDormand exudes a delightful air of feisty cluelessness as the ringleader, Linda Litzke.

George Clooney delivers a wickedly clever interpretation of suburban unrest as the philandering Harry Pfarrer, a married Treasury Department Marshal who becomes romantically linked with several of the main protagonists. Like Pitt, he not only isn’t afraid to tweak his “sexiest man alive” image he seems to relish the opportunity. As one of his suitors and Osbourne’s wife, Tilda Swinton channels her “Michael Clayton” shrewishness by apparently, once again, scrunching all her body fat and human compassion in her hands, wringing them, and discarding the contents as superfluous, lending Katie Cox all the cuddliness of an isosceles triangle.

Even the more tangential supporting roles buffer the film with quality and guile, including Richard Jenkins as the gym manager whose furtive longing is as excruciating as an emotional pull-up. The repartee is swift and absurd between J.K. Simmons as the perplexed “CIA Superior” and David Rasche — best known for the title role in “Sledge Hammer” — as the baffled “CIA Officer.”

“Burn After Reading” is a smart, fast-paced screwball comedy which includes a staggeringly funny visual gag as one of Pfarrer’s visits to Home Depot ultimately delivers a fresh meaning to “DIY.”

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The Duchess

Keira, eléison

September 28th, 2008

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Four years ago, director Saul Dibb debuted with the present-day tale of a young, black Londoner emerging from a stint in jail with the dilemma of whether to assimilate into a familiar and destructive gun culture.  “Bullet Boy” was an intriguing topic undertaken, sadly, with a phlegmatic execution.  This year, Dibb returns with “The Duchess,” which, despite stark distinctions in race and class and an 18th century setting, addresses again the vexing theme of the ramifications of a skewed sense of duty.  But unlike its modern counterpart, “The Duchess” is robust, assured and, most usefully, buttressed by a performance from Keira Knightley in the title role which showcases that she is emerging as both a potentially substantive actress and a burgeoning movie star.

Gamine, limpid, and, at times, preternaturally thin on screen, Knightley has the air of an Avedon Harper‘s Bazaar portrait.  She is a mere slip of a girl, when she is wearing a slip. In the six years since her breakout role in “Bend It Like Beckham,“ Knightley has perfected the pretty-in-a-petticoat persona to such a degree that it can appear that she’s hemmed in contractually to a bodice.

So, as the 23-year-old Knightley evolves into adult roles, she could be well served by studying the example of Kate Winslet, whose early career trajectory has an eerie similarity to Knightley’s, but who quickly broke free from the costume-drama constraints.  Knightley appeared in “Pride and Prejudice” at the age of 20; Winslet starred in her own Austen venture, “Sense and Sensibility,” at the same age.  They both were swept up by blockbusters. Winslet, however, was able to follow her titanic success with decisive choices for roles and films outside of the comfort zone of the multiplexes. She seemed determined as an actress to seek out exceedingly intriguing characters in movies which, if not wholly satisfying, felt substantial. With demonstrative roles in the late 90s in “Hideous Kinky” and “Holy Smoke “ and more recently in, for example, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Little Children,“ Winslet has forged such a powerful resume that she must be considered, along with Cate Blanchett, amongst the elite on any list of the most respected actresses in the world.  Sadly, for Knightley, her massive hit became a franchise and the carnival ride appears to have no end in sight with a fourth version on the horizon, and while she has indicated that she‘s through swanning about, the paychecks on offer could sway even the most resolute thespian.

The role of Georgiana Spencer — a captivating celebrity of  late 18th century Georgian England who became the notorious Duchess of Devonshire, famed for her trendsetting fashion as well as her ardent Whig politics — could serve as a crossroads role for Knightley. It’s a costume drama but with a part presenting her with an opportunity to exude maturity and gravity.  She’s afforded in Spencer a character of a certain determined resistance toward the double standard of the age, where a male gentry’s amorous affairs were tolerated, while a woman’s were verboten.  Knightley emotes, but with a steely restraint, and she inflicts upon the character a genuine emotional tussle.  She’s delicate yet fills her part with flickers of gestures which underscore her torment.  She flashes an assortment of smiles — shy, knowing, beaming — but when she unfurls her Chiclets with conviction she can still deliver a wallop.

All of the recognizable roles of the powdered-wig brigade are in evidence in “The Duchess.”  Ralph Fiennes does yeoman’s work within the rigid boundaries of the familiar role of the cold, disinterested Duke.  He is effectively charmless but it’s a bit deflating that this gormless character doesn’t resort to “In Bruges” pyrotechnics.  Charlotte Rampling delivers an efficient turn as Georgiana’s mother, a doyen of propriety and her place.  It’s almost odd to hear Rampling speaking in English on film.  In her beguiling role as Bess Foster, Georgiana’s best friend, and, later, the object of a very peculiar arrangement, Hayley Atwell unveils a confident portrayal which suggests she will become a favorite of casting directors.  Taking on the “Colin Firth” role of Georgiana‘s dashing paramour — and what other word can one use in a film of this kind for the strapping love interest other than “dashing“ — Dominic Cooper plays Charles Grey with the proper amount of innocent longing and chest-expanding hubris.  The pithy Charles Fox, the prominent Whig politician with whom Georgiana verbally jousts, is performed with suitable panache by Simon McBurney.

Dibb should be commended for a handsome production filmed briskly, and for providing Knightley with the attention and room to luxuriate in her role. He seems like, and it’s not a bad thing, a 1930s director fawning over his leading lady; Knightley repays his adoration by clearly reveling in the role.

But she has reached a turning point, where her talent is evident but doubt remains as to whether she‘ll succumb to typecasting.  She needs an edgy part, an earthy role, and a character like Jane Fonda’s in “Klute” would help prevent the prototype Knightley has had a tendency to resort to from becoming an unimaginative trend. However, if she chooses the safer path, a route where her talent is usurped by box office aspirations or, simply, lackadaisical choices, it may have a domino effect, and one day, not too distantly but regrettably, she could be seen hawking a best-selling, half-hour workout infomercial, “Pilates of the Caribbean.”

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Encounters At the End of the World

Sink into Bliss

September 8th, 2008

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In the violently cold winter of November 1974, a thirty-two-year-old Werner Herzog, hearing of a close friend’s grievously serious illness in Paris, walked, with little more than a duffel bag, the 560 miles from Munich to The City of Lights, believing she would not succumb while he was on foot. Nineteen days into his journey, with 100 miles to go, he met a momentary twinge of doubt, as he recalled in “Of Walking in Ice,” the published diary of his trek. 

“All at once driving snow, lightning, thunder and storm, everything at once, directly overhead, so suddenly that I was unable to find refuge again and tried instead to let the mess pass over me, leaning against the wall of a house, half-way protected from the wind.  Immediately to my right at the corner of the house, a fanatical wolfhound stuck his head through the garden fence, baring his teeth at me. Within minutes a layer of water and snow was lying hand-deep on the street, and a truck splashed me with everything that was lying there.  Shortly afterwards, the sun came out for a few seconds, then a torrential rainfall.  I grappled forward from cover to cover.  At the village school in Savieres, I debated whether I should drive to Paris, seeing some sense in that.  But getting so far on foot and then driving?  Better to live out this senselessness, if that’s what this is, to the very end.”

Throughout his filmmaking career, there‘s been more than a smidge of the final sentence’s ethos in his work.  While almost every other director on the planet would take a more prudent approach, Herzog has sought out in many instances the most difficult, challenging, intrepid, and, one could argue, dangerously foolhardy ways to film his productions.  So staggering are the stories of what seems like senseless risk in the making of films such as “Aguirre, Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo” that the tales have become legend, to such a degree that they almost overwhelm the finished product.  More recently, his highly lauded documentary, “Grizzly Man,” considered the very meaning of senselessness.
 
With “Encounters at the End of The World” Herzog travels to Antarctica, the most isolated spot on the planet, upon the invitation of the United States’ National Science Foundation, to explore life at the “very end.”  From the moment Herzog disembarks from the US Air Force cargo plane at McMurdo Station in the midst of the austral summer, he meets a wonderful collection of “professional dreamers.”  These contentedly itinerant — both professional scientists and those simply with advanced degrees or aspirations to work as cooks, drivers, and mechanics in a land where the compass is irrelevant — are bursting with stories, anecdotes stamped in their passports.

Among them is the driver of “Ivan the Terra Bus” — the hulking transport vehicle which ferries folks from the runway to McMurdo — who is a former banker from Colorado who joined the Peace Corps only to narrowly evade death by machete in Guatemala.  Douglas MacAyeal, a glaciologist who studies B-15, a glacier larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, describes with bedeviled awe the prospective journey of the glacier as it begins to break up, melt and move inexorably north.  There is the linguist tending to the greenhouse, William Jirsa, who has come to a continent with no indigenous human language.  While Herzog directs gentle ribbing in the linguist’s direction, he clearly has an affinity for these undoubtedly eccentric nomads as they speak of lives in Antarctica which seem to subscribe to the anonymous inscription etched into a wooden railing: “I Sink into Bliss.”  

Even as the film centers on these individual’s stories, Herzog does not overlook capturing the beauty of the barren and expansive landscape. It is a remarkable technical achievement, especially given that it was made with a mere crew of two; Herzog supervised the sound while cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger captured the pictures. “Encounters” is filled with panoramic helicopter shots of the towering glaciers, ethereal underwater scenes as divers float beneath a ceiling of ice and intimate images of Mt. Erebus, the continent’s most active volcano.  A particularly powerful sequence combines underwater photography with the “Underwater Recordings of Seal Calls,” a trippy musical sound from the cuddly pinnipeds which suggests the type of sonic experimentation that would have gotten Brian Eno kicked out of Roxy Music.  The film’s own soundtrack is dominated by appropriately atmospheric chorale music.

While the natural world obviously dominates as a visual backdrop, it is the part-time residents of McMurdo, whose wonder of Antarctica is immense, that interests Herzog as a filmmaker because, in part, you surmise, he has found a kindred mindset in their obsessive compulsiveness.  This obsession of Herzog the director with the extremes of human existence can be seen as merely the act of taking earnest devotion to the edge. So the utterly fascinating characters, who share Herzog’s enthusiasm for the outer limits, and seem perfectly suited to a Herzog tale, fictional or otherwise, continue to abound. A friend of Herzog’s, Samuel Bowser, is a biologist contemplating his last dive beneath the ice while later celebrating the discovery of three new species with a roof-top guitar jam.  Karen Joyce, a writer, recounts a three-day journey through South America riding on the back of a lorry, inside a sewer pipe, with only a porthole shaped view for the entire trip.  Clive Oppenheimer, a curly haired volcanologist draped in scarves who sports an uncanny resemblance to Tom Baker, enthuses with good-natured brio as he stands on the precipice of a highly active volcano.  University of Hawaii physicist Peter Gorham talks breathlessly about ANITA — the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna — which is the project he launches into space to study neutrinos, elementary particles so indescribably minuscule that trillions pass through the human body every second.

But amongst these hearty explorers of the wondrous margins of existence, Herzog demonstrates that he is a thoughtful soul as he exhibits genuine restraint while interviewing Libor Zicha, a soft-spoken mechanic with passive eyes, who has suffered unspoken tragedies.  When Zicha pauses before discussing his past in the Soviet Bloc, Herzog interrupts him and instead asks if he will remove the items from the meticulously packed 20-kilo bag that he always keeps at the ready.  The efficiency of his packing underscores a man in need of control amongst his wandering impulse, who seeks solace in an untethered life.

Yet despite the tremendous attention spent with these dreamers, it is almost disconcerting that the film’s most potent moment centers on the continent’s iconic residents.  From atop a bluff, the camera captures a phalanx of a dozen or so penguins scooching across a vast swath of land as they make their way to a body of water.  A few turn back and return to the colony; the others continue forward. But a lone penguin breaks from the pack, stops for a moment of contemplation, and then begins to move in the direction of the interior of the continent and certain death.  Later in the journey, scientists do not interfere with this lone penguin waddling into the abyss. So, he ambles along the ice, shuffling senselessly, to the very end.

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Baghead

The Big Chiller

July 31st, 2008

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Two years ago, a mere sliver of a movie slipped into theaters. And while “The Puffy Chair” snared a scant $194,000 at the box office, in Portland, it camped out for months on end as the genuine, modest tale of a gently undulating road trip to deliver a birthday present La-Z-Boy persistently charmed with its unpretentious and heartfelt relationships.

The film became attached to the burgeoning Mumblecore movement yet, contrary to that name, it possessed clearly enunciated characters and had a wealth to say about familial interaction. The Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark, have returned this summer with “Baghead.” And while they’ve made a film distinctly different in plot as they have replaced a road trip movie with a slasher film satire, the meagerly budgeted “Baghead”  still contains real, relatable characters who hold our interest as they fumble through a mélange of predicaments.  Most of these dilemmas are distinctly small and human, while as the film unfolds they become ones faced universally by folks stranded in the woods at the whim of a homicidal spectre. “Baghead” could have been subtitled  “Nightmare on Emo Street.”

Four struggling actors venture to the woods with the hope that the getaway will inspire them to write a script for their own film.  Matt (Ross Partridge) and Catherine (Elise Muller) are an on-again, off-again late 30s couple trying to figure out if there’s something more to their “friends with benefits” arrangement.  Chad (Steve Zissis) is the portly, funny guy who pines for Michelle (Greta Gerwig), who appears to be channeling Chloë Sevigny as a sorority girl.

As the creative process blends into card games and bullshit sessions, they chat in realistic broken sentences, speaking over each other in a natural, conversational way.  There is a normality to the way they express their self-esteem doubts and qualms of self confidence.  The riffs are amusing and the humor emanates effortlessly.  Zissis is particularly notable for ensuring that his character isn’t a tired cliché. It’s no shtick and he illustrates terrific range.

When the film ventures into the slasher film elements, “Baghead” retains its shape.  Clearly, there’s less talk, more running.  But the video camerawork doesn’t become jarring. It’s active without being wonky. And if you suspend belief, the movie generates palpable suspense and legitimate thrills at the same time that it distracts from a deeper examination of the foursome’s rapport.

There’s little doubt that for some “Baghead” will feel quite slight.  Plainly, they won’t be able to get past the frayed-around-the-edges quality. There’s a pronounced buzz in the sound, the lighting can appear dim and the set design is essentially non-existent. And a snarky wit could say that not only is the film set over one long weekend, but “Baghead” appears to have been shot over that same one weekend. 

But in a movie-making world where a portly disaster such as “Evan Almighty” gorges on a $175 million budget, it is both heartening and dispiriting to remember that valuable films such as the $150,000 budgeted “Once,“ the equally modestly financed “Chop Shop,“ and the even more impecunious “Baghead“ are made for such infinitesimal amounts.  To put a dollar figure on art, with that Almighty total you could make at least 1,750 “Bagheads.”  Folks may agree to disagree on their overall quality, but small-budget films such as the enjoyable “Baghead,“ despite any imperfections, lend a crucial and clear voice to the screen.

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The Dark Knight

Super Freaky

July 24th, 2008

the-dark-knight-joker
As summer blockbusters churn out a succession of candy floss confectionary seemingly best viewed through 3-D glasses, “The Dark Knight” is storytelling so obsidian theaters should hand out night vision goggles. 

Complex and enthralling, “Dark Knight” is a conundrum as it’s an action film which is most successful in its murkier, contemplative, quieter moments.   Blessed with an intelligent script from director Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan, the film delivers a challenging, engrossing story with a multitude of conflicted, complex characters.  “The Dark Knight” also feels more violent than it actually is because Nolan expertly generates the tension of anticipated violence. He masterly fills an audience with palpable expectation.

While the film is infused with an emotional potency, the action scenes are less than rousing.  Car chases are discombobulated and prone to excessive use of CGI.  The fight sequences are chaotic and hard to follow. Compared to the superlative choreography of the “Bourne” films, the hand-to-hand combat in “The Dark Knight” is clunky, frenzied yet underwhelming.

The casting is spot on and while the ensemble as a whole is commendable, any discussion of the cast begins with Heath Ledger’s titanic performance as The Joker.  While the buzz regarding his performance smelled like a promotional media blitz, the actuality is that Heath Ledger is damn good. He’s truly intimidating with both nuance and subtlety in abundance, especially in a sensational interrogation scene. He even makes the rudimentary phone call request both comic and desperate. It’s a staggering performance that is transfixing and further demonstrates that Jack Nicholson has been coasting for almost a quarter century.

The rest of the main cast is strong as well.  Christian Bale is a pillar as the titular character.  Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman lend gravitas to parts which they could have performed on cruise control. Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel, the sought-after love interest, provides ample evidence that Katie Holmes was a crucial misstep in “Batman Begins.“ Aaron Eckhart’s transformation from district attorney to villain is believable and strong.  It’s not only his jaw line which denotes leading man status.  And while you expect Gary Oldman to prick up his ears and go buck wild, he’s restrained and genuine instead of distracting and flowery.  The appearances of Eric Roberts, Anthony Michael Hall and Tiny Lister are fun, in a trivia-night sort of way.

Nolan has collected an impressive body of work during the past decade.  You sense he has the ability to develop the type of versatility of a director such as Ang Lee.  Perhaps Nolan could tackle a comedy, but given his penchant for darker tones it wouldn‘t be surprising if it was titled “Pineapple Depress.”

“The Dark Knight” is not rollicking fun like “Iron Man,” which could be coined, “Kitsch, Kitsch, Bam, Bam.”  But if one enjoys their comic-book noir etched with a graphite pen, then this “Batman” is an intelligent, moody blockbuster not readily available at the multiplex.

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