Posts Tagged ‘Movie Reviews’

I’ve Loved You So Long & Rachel Getting Married

Sister Act

January 14th, 2009

il-y-a-longtemps-que-je-t-aime “I’ve Loved You So Long” unfolds patiently but not sluggishly as the textured tale of Juliette Fontaine (Kristin Scott Thomas), an intensely private and haunted woman reuniting with the world after her release from a fifteen year prison sentence for killing her own son.

Juliette moves in with the family of her younger sister, Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), who desperately wishes to reconnect with her phlegmatic sibling. As she enters the home Lea shares in Nancy, France with her husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius), two adopted young children and a mute father-in-law, only Lea and Luc are privy in their circle to not only the fact that Juliette was incarcerated but that the crime was infanticide. The film by Philippe Claudel is parceled out intelligently and gracefully; inside the home it’s expressed through the sisters’ hesitant reunion, their emerging yet tentative relationship after 15 years adrift, the contradictorily understandable and irrational reservations of Lea’s husband, Luc, and the natural curiosity of an inquisitive 8-year-old niece. Outside the home, it’s reflected by Juliette’s hampered job prospects, the melancholy of a plaintively loquacious parole officer, a tipsy crepes-in-the-country dinner party, a visit to their mother suffering from Alzheimer’s and a burgeoning, tentative romance with a professorial colleague of Lea‘s. Bit by bit, these moments gradually reveal not only a sense of the secretive Juliette but the well-developed supporting characters as well until the film explodes in the sincere, honest and tragic revelation shared between the sisters.

With lines rigidly creased between her brows, a pinched smoker’s mouth, and an ashen translucence to her pallor, Scott Thomas physically inhabits Juliette. But it’s a performance more laudable for what lies beneath the mask as this is an assured, unaffected rendering permeated by expert emotional nuance. Her talent is prodigiously bilingual; she’s getting so many good, strong roles in the French language, I’m not sure we’ll hear her in English anytime soon. As the devoted younger sister, Zylberstein gives a performance of terrific striations, straining between her desire to repair wounds with her sister by providing a salve to her psyche while balancing the concerns of her husband and the welfare of her children.

Life is terminal, like a slowly encroaching sunset shadow with a sickle, and can be so cruel that we wonder whether the wonderful moments make up for the tragic, and with this foreboding sense Juliette is hounded by a guilt more incarcerating than any penal system, more strident than any rule of law, and more permanent than any criminal record. Still, despite the onus of despair, the sisters share a moment of self atonement in the film‘s final life-affirming moments, and in this culmination “I’ve Loved You So Long” is a movie that pierces the essence of filial dynamics.

As much as “I’ve Loved You So Long” is a delicate, patient exploration of family relationships, “Rachel Getting Married,” a story which also hinges on the return of a damaged sister, this one arriving from rehab on the cusp of her sister‘s wedding weekend, is an overwrought, Mewl Age copper kitchen-sink drama.

Anne Hathaway plays Kym, the sister as welcome to the bride as a raccoon corpse in the crawl space, in a performance engineered for the Academy. She chain smokes, wears a goth fringe, circles her eyes with dark eyeliner, and tosses quips with sassy abandon, so that almost every bon mot reeks with sarcasm. Director Jonathan Demme seems to have encouraged her; a jovial rehearsal dinner of unrehearsed, naturalistically nervy speeches is punctuated by an all-too-obvious soliloquy which hollers “This is Anne Hathaway’s Oscar Moment,” where a sober Kym is the last to speak and delivers a rambling, spiteful and awkward diatribe. I half expected Kym to turn to the camera and purr “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Demme.”

The festivities are held in Kym and Rachel’s father’s rambling home of innumerable rooms; the square footage seems to have confined the film to big statements instead of small discoveries. The groom, Sidney, is a musician, and to underscore this point, Demme posts musicians in every nook. With so many mandolins and violins being strummed and plucked, the grounds resemble a Bluegrass Festival.

Rachel, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is a hipster soccer mom type with a psychology degree and a hackneyed script, which makes her a tad unbearable, at times. Bill Irwin, a mime by trade, plays the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” soppy father. Debra Winger pops by as Kym and Rachel’s distant, divorced mother, and executes a massively emotive scene with Hathaway, one where a great deal happens but which culminates in no ramifications. There‘s a whole bunch of teeth gnashing and raised voices as feelings are expressed in this film but very little insight. Yet “Rachel Getting Married” is so earnest it was probably made on recycled film stock.

It’s supposed to feel like an ensemble piece as the frenetic energy of the jarring cinematography from an unsteady cam darts around the home, but several of the more interesting and promising roles are woefully underdeveloped. Sidney, played by Tunde Adebimpe, the lead singer of TV on the Radio, is a likable, amiable bloke given too little to say. He generally reacts to the sisters’ pantomime. Mather Zickel, in the role of the groomsman, Kieran, provides a deft display and, unlike Kym, shows that addicts clearly can be people with wrenching dependency issues who can still connect to those close to them or, at the very least, can be civil. Other members of Sidney’s family and entourage are shown in cursory glimpses when more expanded, more rewarding roles were deserving. There’s another, superior movie here: Sidney Getting Married.

Posted in I've Loved You So Long, Rachel Getting Married, Reviews, Reviews F-J, Reviews P-T | Tagged Anne Hathaway, Bill Irwin, Debra Winger, Elsa Zylberstein, Film, Film Reviews, I've Loved You So Long, Jonathan Demme, Kristin Scott Thomas, Mather Zickel, Movie Reviews, Movies, Philippe Claudel, Rachel Getting Married, Rosemarie DeWitt, Serge Hazanavicius, Tunde Adebimpe | Comments (0)

Slumdog Millionaire

My Life as a Slumdog

December 31st, 2008

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“Slumdog Millionaire,” the new film from Danny Boyle, is captivating but much like his last work, the commendable sci-fi mystery thriller “Sunshine,” it’s a movie compromised by a conventional, tonally unbalanced final reel.

In a baker’s dozen worth of years, Danny Boyle has emerged as one of the most terrific storytellers in world cinema. The brilliance of “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting” were followed by wayward efforts at the cusp of the millennium in “A Life Less Ordinary” and “The Beach,” before he righted himself with a string of four, and counting, superior productions. “28 Days Later” is an apocalyptic zombie flick of the highest order, while the magical “Millions” is a sincere and heartfelt children’s story which never resorts to soppiness. It’s the catalogue of an admirable, conscientious filmmaker. Despite his varying success, the mercurial Boyle is an unignorable talent.

In “Slumdog Millionaire,” Boyle tells the tale of Jamal (Dev Patel), a lower class young man in Mumbai toiling as a call center dogsbody who is unexpectedly on the verge of life-altering success on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Told predominantly in flashback, the film begins with a present-day police station interrogation of Jamal where he begins to ruminate on his life, starting with his earliest memories of surviving a stark childhood with his older brother Salim, and Latika, a young girl from the neighborhood who would become his heart’s lifelong muse.

The lives of the self-described “Three Musketeers” are shown in three distinct stages, and the first segment surges with the most energy. In their youngest incarnation, when they are no more than three and five, Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) and Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) are mischievous, nomadic orphans who survive on pluck and guile. They befriend fellow orphan Latika (Rubiana Ali), but she loses touch with the boys when they embark on a daring escape from a nefarious orphanage.

Especially in this first section, “Slumdog Millionaire” is filmed majestically by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle but not beatifically, so that Mantle, Boyle and co-director Loveleen Tandan remove the reverential tone, never succumbing to falling back on stereotype, which would have been fashioned by patronizing slow pans across rivers of wading supplicants. Instead, the first solid hour of “Slumdog” reverberates as vibrant, luminous, human and genuine. A scene in which the precocious toddler Jamal meets an Indian film legend who swoops by helicopter into a crowd in his impoverished community is visceral, mucky, and redolent. At the conclusion of the first segment, Boyle constructs a scintillating set piece as the lads perch on top of a moving train, Jamal dangling over the car’s side by his feet in the grip of his brother, his tiny hands pawing through a window for steaming bread laying enticingly on a tray. They are discovered, a tussle ensues and they fall from the train, emerging from the grass as pre-teens. It’s a wonderfully accomplished transition.

This second segment shows them as prepubescents living as financial foragers, Jamal (Tanay Chheda) happy to dupe tourists at the Taj Mahal, while Salim (Asutosh Lobo Gatiwala), perhaps drowning his vulnerability, submerges into himself into vice and crime. When the now estranged boys reach adulthood and the film becomes a quest for requited love, it becomes less thrilling.

Dev Patel is nicely cast as the adult Jamal. Most well known for his role as the goofy Anwar on the television series “Skins,” Patel brings believable earnestness to his ardor for Latika and likable humility to his “Millionaire” scenes, especially in comparison to the oily charm of the show’s host, Prem Kumar, played with obvious relish by Anil Kapoor. Underscoring his diversity as an actor, Patel possesses viable presence and lends gravity to his interrogation and torture scenes.

Latika, though, is a very surface role in adulthood, with no depth or context, and very little to say. She is lovely, but the beauty of actress Freida Pinto cannot arrest the idea that her Latika, as a grown woman, is simply a character in new clothes. A scene later in the film where Jamal rediscovers Latika, then tricks his way into her mobster boyfriend’s compound to plead for her to leave the lair feels forced and is shot unconvincingly. The magical has become the mundane.

The same dilemma bewitched Boyle’s “Sunshine” which was enveloped in trippy spookiness until it resorted to slasher mode in the final moments. There’s a disconnect in the mood between the body of the films and the resolution in both movies. Yet Boyle is undoubtedly an important filmmaker; viewers should continue to be infatuated with his search for the transcendent.

Posted in Reviews, Reviews P-T, Slumdog Millionaire | Tagged 28 Days Later, A Life Less Ordinary, Anil Kapoor, Anthony Dod Mantle, Asutosh Lobo Gajiwala, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Danny Boyle, Dev Patel, Film, Film Reviews, Loveleen Tandan, Millions, Movie Reviews, Movies, Rubiana Ali, Shallow Grave, Sunshine, Tanay Chheda, The Beach, Trainspotting | Comments (0)

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.”

Posted in Burn After Reading, Reviews, Reviews A-E | Tagged Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading, David Rasche, Ethan Coen, Film, Film Reviews, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, J.K. Simmons, Joel Coen, John Malkovich, Movie Reviews, Movies, No Country for Old Men, Richard Jenkins, Tilda Swinton | Comments (0)

Milk

It Does A Body Politic Good

December 19th, 2008

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For a film clearly cradled in the sad, poignant context of Harvey Milk’s fate, beginning with grainy file footage of police persecution and the actual moment of Dianne Feinstein announcing an assassination, “Milk” is a joyous remembrance. Far removed from the vibe of his recent obtuse efforts, Gus Van Sant has made a distinctly human work which by the closing credits is a potpourri of the inspiring, moving, tender, riotously funny and genuinely heartwarming.

The downfall of the biopic is that so often the hero is placed on a pedestal or damned by a fatal flaw, or commonly both. But Harvey Milk just seemed to be a galvanizing dude who liked dudes and who wanted to envelope the political and social worlds with fundamental human rights. He may have been the self-anointed “Mayor of Castro Street” but he was no rock star. A small business owner of a modest camera shop, Milk bonded with people in a quotidian way, banding together the people of his San Francisco community – the elderly, union laborers, business owners and even the hustlers, amongst others — into a coalition of the distinct, unifying their separate vulnerability into a progressive collective. Politically ardent but not interested in political machinations, he was motivating on a common level, with an eye-to-eye connection, as he became a perpetual candidate in local campaigns.

Sean Penn is a marvel in the title role as he constructs a characterization which isn’t mimicry or pantomime but the wonderful embodiment of a gifted and genuine man who was a bit of a square, the kind of guy who had Sylvester perform at his birthday party but didn’t actually dance. Penn creases his face regularly with a wide, infectious grin as he plays Harvey as the consummate people person. There’s not a dab of the method actor in his performance. He portrays Milk as heartfelt, bullhorn in hand, awkwardly thrusting his fist to the sky, exhorting crowds but not prone to soliloquies; instead his calls for action were impassioned yet swift. A scene with his huddled campaign cohorts where Milk advocates everyone coming out and living as openly gay folks doesn’t seem as much like an earnest clarion call as it does a matter-of-fact belief. It’s simply the thing to do. Later, after his election as a city supervisor, when Harvey debates an arch conservative in a contentious venue, the succinct simplicity of his arguments and the unveiling of his opponent’s contradictions are demonstrated in a clever but understated manner. The story and script by Dustin Lance Black highlight this quality of the empowering everyman. Whereas films centered on politics can be, if not careful, ponderous or self important, Van Sant makes sure to show that joining up on a Milk campaign was exhilarating and fun. All work and no flirt would have made Harvey and his buddies very dull boys.

The film incorporates an astute storytelling device which discards the voiceover or contemporaries’ recollections by having Milk speak into a microphone at his kitchen table in his modest, unadorned apartment. As he sits in his nondescript chair, tape recording autobiographical events, Penn’s delivery helps emphasize his sincere, authentic, and vulnerable qualities.

The supporting cast is instilled with stellar performances. They infuse the campaign rooms with camaraderie. But a few roles are worthy of particular praise. An almost unrecognizable Emile Hirsch plays the plucky Cleve Jones, a quick-study political neophyte. James Franco, who is graced with leading man looks but a character actor’s quirk, is warm and engaging as Scott Smith, the most important love of Harvey’s life. Diego Luna enters the story with a flourish in the later reels as Milk’s final paramour, Jack Lira. He also secures himself first dibs from casting directors in The Father Guido Sarducci Story.

Van Sant has created a film which is more than evocative of the 1970s. There’s a seamless quality to the interspersing between the archival film and the fictional account utilized throughout the movie. Cinematographer Harris Savides adopts a terrific muted retro look which is a similar visual style to the one he used so successfully in “Zodiac.” The art direction from Charley Beal and set decoration by Barbara Munch are sterling, costume designer Danny Glicker expertly drapes the cast in authentic garb, and the hair and makeup departments of Steven E. Anderson and Michael White have done exemplary work.

So 1978 seems like 2008 and, even, like tomorrow. As we snigger, almost aghast, at the shameless bigotry of the actual Anita Bryant from footage supporting a California proposition to fire gay and lesbian teachers, we realize that in the intervening thirty years society isn’t yet that far removed from her beliefs as votes denying consenting gays and lesbians the right to enter into civil marriage sadly abound. But “Milk” isn’t concentrated on the sour orange juice shills. The legacy of Harvey Milk is that a regular guy ardently speaking sensible, meaningful truths is pertinent, heartening, and rousing. This is one righteous and upbeat elegy which could be fittingly titled “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”

Posted in Milk, Reviews, Reviews K-O | Tagged Barbara Munch, Charley Beal, Danny Glicker, Diego Luna, Emile Hirsch, Film, Film Reviews, Gus Van Sant, Harris Savides, Harvey Milk, James Franco, Michael White, Milk, Movie Reviews, Movies, Sean Penn, Steven E. Anderson | Comments (0)

Transporter 3

We Like the Cars That Go Boom

December 17th, 2008

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If the producers of “Transporter 3″ had wished to add a bit more zest to their franchise and enliven the series with oodles of oomph, they should have hired the “Top Gear” gang as creative consultants. That way, while whirling around the continent, Frank Martin, the titular Marseilles-based driver, could have outgunned jet-packed kayaks on Icelandic fjords, or transformed his sports car into a stretch limousine, or ditched his rather mundane, pedestrian looking Audi for something a bit mad, such as the ferociously fast Koenigsegg, or even evaded swarms of priapic hot rods in an entirely inappropriate set of wheels: we’ve had Mini and Bug chase scenes. Why not a Smart car?

Disappointingly, especially for a movie helmed by the born-to-be-an-action-flick director Olivier Megaton, the film, particularly the car stunts, too often feels dumbed down, lackadaisical and uninspired. But this isn’t entirely surprising when a film chooses a central plot device which forces the occupants of his auto, by pain of death, to remain ensconced in the car. ”Sommes nous la’ encore?” While Martin’s behind the wheel, the movie feels staunchly hemmed in, strangely claustrophobic, and akin to a derivative scavenger hunt. The moments in the car with Frank carting his quarry-in-arms, a diplomat’s party-hardy daughter by the name of Valentina, across Europe are notably strained and clunky. Freckles and sparkles framing raccooned, club-bleary eyes, Valentina is played by Natalya Rudakova as a spoiled, unlikable minx. This is Rudakova’s first film; she already feels typecast.

The irony is that outside the confines of the car, the hand-to-hand combat scenes crackle. As Martin, Jason Statham, owner of an Easter Island mug and an 8-pack verging on 10, unleashes brackish, bare knuckle fury on the dozens of pipe, chain and knife wielders sent to the slaughter, seemingly, by the EU’s Ministry of Scowls. These martial arts sequences, overseen by noted stunt coordinator Corey Yuen, provide the film’s humor and panache: a running joke appears to suggest that Statham is so encumbered by his immaculate sartorial sense that he must disrobe during these exhaustive onslaughts, utilizing his jacket, shirt and silk ties as weapons. A bike scene scampering along cobbled streets and through shop windows is similarly well executed and clever.

While he embodied the cool, cheeky chappy in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” and bulked up to a certain rugged, leading man quality in “The Bank Job” earlier this year, Statham, who sounds like he perpetually needs a lozenge, has never been asked to deliver much dialogue in the “Transporter” films. He undoubtedly possesses a brooding presence which is compelling. So perhaps the producers should have dropped the pretense of a relationship and simply allowed him to tear across Europe with abandon, fleeing from foes, skirting the law, this time in a caravan.

Posted in Reviews, Reviews P-T, Transporter 3 | Tagged Corey Yuen, Film, Film Reviews, Jason Statham, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Movie Reviews, Movies, Natalya Rudakova, Olivier Megaton, The Bank Job, Top Gear, Transporter 3 | Comments (0)

Synecdoche, New York

Charles in Charge

November 29th, 2008

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“Synecdoche, New York” always promised to require resolute viewing.

The first film directed by Charlie Kaufman — the screenwriter of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Adaptation,” and “Being John Malkovich” — “Synecdoche” returns to his favored themes examining identity, fantasticism and circumvented concepts of time.

The tale of Caden Cotard, a hypochondriac, depressive director at a modest theater company unfolds absorbingly in the beginning, ably buffered by a wonderful performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose hangdog expression and neurotic befuddlement enhance the anxiety he feels for his impending, experimental production of “Death of a Salesman” and withering marriage to a world-famous artist, Adele Lack (Catherine Keener).

The film, though, veers toward tedium as Caden is increasingly more bewildered and more desperate to find meaning and self awareness in his unsettled existence. It becomes redundant once Caden wins a MacArthur Fellowship. The grant funds his obsessive, quixotic quest to make a play about his own life. The division between his actual life and the staged production is removed as he purchases a cavernous theater, builds sets duplicating his homes, and imposes on an ever-increasing cast as the rehearsals pass from weeks to months to years. A shade over two hours, “Synecdoche,” like those rehearsals, becomes wearing. Caden’s self-indulgence begins to feel like Kaufman‘s, or is it vice versa? The film could have been culled by a judicious thirty to forty minutes and would not have rid itself of the vital conundrums.

While the story spirals into tedious narcissism, the cast is phenomenal throughout. Kaufman has gathered a stunning ensemble of actresses who serve as Caden’s inspirations, foils and loves, much like the feminine ensemble surrounding Marcello Mastroianni’s director in Fellini‘s “8 ½.” Samantha Morton brings a warm, sassy confidence to Hazel, the box office ticket lady who becomes his muse. Hope Davis is bespectacled, hair-in-a-bun fun as Caden‘s self-help psychiatrist. Genuine and fetching, Michelle Williams provides a natural emotional quality as his second wife, actress Claire Keen, which suggest that she‘s on the verge of becoming one of America’s most important actors. One looks forward to seeing her in the soon-to-be-released, tiny budgeted “Wendy and Lucy.” Not for the first time this year, Keener seems too well-suited to play the disinterested, sarcastic wife and Jennifer Jason Leigh prowls the screen as her best friend. As actors in Caden’s cast, both Dianne Wiest and Emily Watson are enjoyable presences who could have been augmented with slightly more developed characters. The performances are a welcome superlative in a promising film which becomes a bit of a slog.

Posted in Reviews, Reviews P-T, Synecdoche New York | Tagged 8 1/2, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Catherine Keener, Charlie Kaufman, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Dianne Wiest, Emily Watson, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Federico Fellini, Film, Film Reviews, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Marcello Mastroianni, Michelle Williams, Movie Reviews, Movies, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Wendy and Lucy | Comments (0)

JCVD

A Van Damme Good Movie

November 25th, 2008

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In the mid 1990s, I enjoyed a film-going guilty pleasure by the name of Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Perhaps a tad burnt out by art-house pretensions like “La Belle noiseuse” and “Prospero’s Books,” I would plunk down on opening day with a decidedly Testosterone-fueled crowd — a motley crew of sleeveless Megadeth concert-Ts and “two dudes who always put a seat between themselves because they aren’t that way” dudes — to catch the latest Van Damme flick, indulging in a heaping serving of better-get-your-popcorn pulp. The training wheels of his early “Bloodsport” and “Kickboxer” vehicles had been discarded as Hollywood attempted to make a movie star out of a martial arts tactician. “Hard Target” was John Woo’s first American film and he and Van Damme provided considerable thrills on a modest budget. “Timecop” was implausible fun with a sly Ron Silver performance while the dependably suspenseful “Sudden Death” made an NHL game relevant. They were entertaining, if imperfectly so, but Van Damme‘s athleticism and proficient direction by Woo and Peter Hyams made them pleasing diversions. Blessed with boyish charm, hunky good looks and an appealing Belgian French accent, Van Damme even earned a prominent role on a post-Super Bowl “Friends.”

But just as suddenly as he’d kick started a respectable box-office niche, his career quickly evaporated into straight-to-DVD fare and the ignominy of sharing the screen with Dennis Rodman. He faded into punch line status as he became more famous for boasting he could crack walnuts with his buttocks.

So, it‘s no joke, “JCVD” is a revelation. Always fictional but steeped in the autobiographical, it’s a movie about Jean-Claude Van Damme, but this is no caricature nor overt parody but instead a contemplation. It’s heartfelt, clever, and at times, even mesmerizing. The Versailles-born French director Mabrouk El Mechri has made one hell of a movie. El Mechri and his cinematographer, Pierre-Yves Bastard, which sounds like the name of a disappointing Van Damme character, have draped the film in a sepia-toned documentary style with washed out, muted colors and a grainy patina. The strong visual is matched by a smart, predominantly French script from El Mechri and his co-writers, Frederic Benudis and Christophe Turpin, which utilizes the legend of Van Damme without condescension.

“JCVD” is buoyed by a crafty opening in which Van Damme charges punching, gouging and kicking with considerable brio through a scene in one of his typical, uninspired projects, until, at cut, he engages in a darkly comical exchange with a young, disinterested director clearly disdainful of the film as anything other than a springboard, the sequence climaxing with the set crashing to the ground behind the weary Van Damme. The fourth wall is removed; and while the film is not told in first person, it is intimate and direct.

Embroiled in a child custody tussle and frustrated with the pathetic routine of his acting choices, Van Damme returns to his hometown of Brussels for a respite. Instantly recognized and adored by shop clerks and taxi drivers, he pays a fateful visit to a post office in the Schaerbeek community which devolves into a bank robbery with hostages. Given his publicized court troubles and a sighting at a window, the police believe Van Damme is the crook. And the three thieves are pleased to use Jean-Claude as their foil.

But as engrossing as the film is, a powerful scene showcasing Van Damme is an epiphany. Van Damme is sitting in a non-descript chair in a back room of the post office. Slowly the chair rises with the camera shot, until there is all black behind him, framing his haggard face and broad shoulders. Van Damme speaks squarely to the camera, about his tenuous career, his unsettled life, an insatiable desire for love, his adoration for women, and the torment of drugs. It is a confessional without a request for mercy, or pity. He accepts that he yearned for the fame which supplied him with what he desires and what bedevils him. He speaks for minutes on end, captivatingly, soulfully, and with clarity and raw emotion. The chair floats back to the post office floor. And you try to catch your breath. It is the single strongest concentrated piece of acting I’ve seen this year. Clearly Van Damme’s finest moment on screen, it would buttress the resume of any noted film actor working today.

We always thought the dexterity was in his hips as he swiveled his foot into a standing man’s chin, but, perhaps, nurtured by a sincere director such as the emerging El Mechri and proffered a role like Jean Reno’s in “The Professional” or Toshiro Mifune’s in “Yojimbo,” he can resurrect his career with characters which meld the physicality of the action star with an informed depth.

When placing his trust in a young director whose only other feature-length film was 2005’s little seen “Virgil,” Van Damme must have been fearful that a misstep in El Mechri’s approach could lead to a patronizing tone or, worse, a cartoonish, lampooned portrayal. But El Mechri has respectfully repaid the faith that Jean-Claude entrusted in him by creating the most unexpected instant cult classic of 2008.

Posted in JCVD, Reviews, Reviews F-J | Tagged Christophe Turpin, Film, Film Reviews, Frederic Benudis, Hard Target, JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mabrouk El Mechri, Movie Reviews, Movies, Pierre-Yves Bastard, Sudden Death, Timecop | Comments (0)

Quantum of Solace

Skanking, Not Stirred

November 21st, 2008

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In 1965, saxophonist Rolando Alphonso, late of The Skatalites, rounded up several of his former bandmates in the recording den of Studio One in Kingston as The Soul Brothers to record their version of the “James Bond Theme.” Braced by Bryan Atkinson’s filthy bass, Lloyd Knibb’s whiplash drums and Lynn Taitt’s slinky guitar and accentuated with the steady piano beat of Jackie Mittoo and the infectious vocal percussion of ‘King Sporty,’ the song explodes with the brash, urgent, almost abrasive, horn section of Alphonso, ‘Dizzy’ Moore and Rupert Dillon. The Soul Brothers pay homage to the brilliant, original tune while taking it from the quicksand of the bandstand to the sound systems of street level in the baddest cover of the tune to date.

Two years ago, a reverential Daniel Craig revived a turgid series as the retro Bond, and while he didn’t usurp the irreproducible Sean Connery, he brought back a wanton muskiness to the role that in comparison made Roger Moore harbor all the threat of Fred Grandy. “Quantum of Solace” finds Craig even more menacing, chiseled and strapped. It’s James Bond as Rude Boy.

Director Marc Forster matches Craig’s intensity with an earthy, gritty film which, befitting the shortest Bond film in history, spans three continents in a whirl of visceral action sequences interrupted with a modicum of extraneous dialogue and ludicrous gadgets. Opening with a thrilling car chase through a central Italian quarry which leads into a thumpy little dirge of a theme song, and reemerging after the credits in a rapid-fire roof-top pursuit nicely juxtaposed with the Palio di Siena, “Quantum of Solace” from the offset mocks its title with an energetic, globe-trotting pace that is anything but soporific.

Quickly switching locales to Port-au-Prince, “Quantum” unleashes fisticuffs evocative of the Bourne series, but that doesn’t make the sequences derivative, less thrilling or less astutely executed. And the taint of Q couldn’t be further removed as instead of a yacht with a physics-defying propulsion system, Bond improvises on the Gulf of Gonave, jarringly maneuvering from power boated danger on a glorified, motorized dug out.

But the film doesn’t forsake the grand moments. A superb set piece is fashioned during a modern adaptation of Tosca on the Seebuhne, the massive floating stage on Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria. Forster constructs a terrific juxtaposition between the escalating drama of the opera and the unfolding fortuitous discovery Bond makes in the 7,000 seat concert hall. There is very little acute action in the scene, but through concise editing and clever sound technique, the tension is explicit. It’s exhilarating pomp amongst the happenstance.

Mathieu Amalric, whose expressive eyes were so integral to the compelling “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” plays villainous government puppeteer Dominic Greene, with understated menace, almost bemusement, in a performance reminiscent of Klaus Maria Brandauer’s in “Never Say Never Again.”

Judy Dench, a spunky, vital 73-years-old, has molded “M” into a formidable presence and has formed a complicated relationship with Bond which was lacking during the many years Bernard Lee claimed the role. While Dench is offered a part of ample opportunity, Jeffrey Wright, frustratingly one of America’s most underutilized acting talents, returns, slighted, as Felix Leiter, and while the character has always been an ancillary one in the series, the creative team should have expanded the role for his talent.

Forster (“Monster’s Ball,” “Finding Neverland,” “Stranger than Fiction“) doesn‘t possess a resume which suggests a propensity to helm a venerable spy series, but he‘s an emboldened choice. He ably meshes the action with a story of vengeance while adding an underpinning of pathos. In a nod to the Bond legacy, he even throws in a dark reference to “Goldfinger.“

Like Christopher Nolan earlier this year with “The Dark Knight,” Forster’s film works quite well in the quieter moments and more intimate battles but a few of the larger action sequences feel jumbled and disjointed. An air battle is overlong and slightly cumbersome. And the camera work by Roberto Schaefer — who has not only shot all of Forster’s films but is a frequent collaborator of Christopher Guest’s — is at times too tightly pressed up on the frenzy, and perhaps could have been improved by retreating from the action for a wider view.

But in an episode which highlights their success at capturing reflective moments, Forster and Schaefer present one of the more evocative sequences in the Bond canon. As Bond and his comrade-in-harm, Camille (Olga Kurylenko), stride defiantly in the desolate Bolivian desert, the scene cuts to the townspeople of an impoverished village, who are clearly not professional actors, walking to wells run dry by Greene’s scheme, and then, for just a moment, the scene goes back to the grim pair in the desert before returning to the villagers staring at a spigot with just a single, mocking, lamentable drop falling into a bucket, the mesmerizing visuals bristling with the atmosphere of a party political broadcast from Evo Morales.

As the film concludes in Russia with a contemplation of the consequences of revenge, “Quantum of Solace” is a film with no baccarat, nor Bacharach, nor excruciating banter, but instead is a testament to a franchise invigorated and a Bond with an attitude.

Posted in Quantum of Solace, Reviews, Reviews P-T | Tagged Casino Royale, Daniel Craig, Film, Film Reviews, Goldfinger, James Bond, Jeffrey Wright, Judy Dench, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Marc Forster, Mathieu Amalric, Movie Reviews, Movies, Olga Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace, Roberto Schaefer, Roger Moore, Rolando Alphonso, Rude Boy, Sean Connery, The Dark Knight, The Skatalites | Comment (1)

Happy-Go-Lucky

Life is Sweet

November 11th, 2008

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Admittedly, I went to see “Happy-Go-Lucky” as a diversion on the early evening of the most anticipated election night.

As the film begins, Pauline ‘Poppy’ Cross (Sally Hawkins), the embodiment of the title, is shown riding her bicycle, helmetless, along London streets from Granby Place to Finsbury Park with a sweetly goofy smile creasing her face, and it quickly became easier to forget politics.

The present-day story is quite straight-forward and carries a familiar tone for a Mike Leigh film; It’s not a tumultuous time in Poppy’s life — we follow the 30-year-old as she bops along to work, cavorts at a flamenco dance class, learns to drive and latterly embarks on a relationship — but the film captures wonderfully how Poppy embraces the prosaic earnestly and fully. She is a primary school teacher of a multicultural class of 7 and 8-year-olds who seems to relish cutting, painting and clucking around in a chicken mask as much, if not more so, as the children do. For the best part of a decade, Poppy, who dresses in outfits pinched from Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” video, has lived with her acerbic flat mate and fellow teacher, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman). Together they enjoy nights out at the disco with the girls but they’re not a frivolous duo and while they’re both seeking substantial relationships, there’s no self pitying in their bemoaning the lack of prospects.

As befitting a Mike Leigh film, the movie isn’t skewed to the sweet side completely. With her bike stolen, which she accepts with a good natured shrug, Poppy decides to learn to drive and engages the services of an instructor. Initially Scott (Eddie Marsan) appears to be a stern tutor but as the weekly lessons continue, he becomes increasingly vitriolic, especially when he bemoans a nation he perceives as under threat from the melting pot; he doesn’t see it as half-empty or half-full but overflowing. But Poppy is no dupe. She mocks him with snarky asides, her sense of humor hardly disguising her growing unease with his small-minded nastiness. Yet, she does want to understand where his frothing anger comes from, why his Britain is not her Britain, how he despises the beauty she sees so clearly in her classroom, and the final lesson between the two is kinetic without being overwrought.

In films such as “Life is Sweet” and “Secrets & Lies,“ Leigh has tamped the quotidian lives of ordinary people to unearth splendid insights into the human condition. Leigh orchestrates one of these moments in “Happy-Go-Lucky” when Zoe, Poppy and her incorrigible youngest sister (Kate O’Flynn) visit their married middle sister, Helen, smugly ensconced in suburbia, with her overmatched husband, Jamie (Oliver Maltman). Pregnant and insecure, Helen (Caroline Martin) goads and chides Poppy about family, children and mortgages, remonstrating that her older sister can‘t be as cheerful as she purports to be. Poppy delivers a heartfelt and assured defense. The tension is heightened above a simmer but doesn’t explode, so that like so many family moments, Helen slinks off to bed in a sulk, the remaining unease as uncomfortable as a pull-out sofa sleeper.

With an actress of less acumen and poise, Poppy may have devolved quickly into an insipid caricature. Luckily, Hawkins plays the part with ample integrity and intellect. She dispatches naiveté as Poppy’s cheeky, fun-loving persona is grounded in a conscientious and sensible ethic. Vitally, “Happy-Go-Lucky” is centered around this performance of exquisite bravura.

A curmudgeon could balk at Poppy’s sunny disposition, her indefatigable spirit could be dismissed as twee, and her irresistible optimism could be condemned as unrealistic and childish, but when the film was over, and I stepped outside the theater, and the world had won, and it seemed like every face was plastered with a sweetly goofy smile, it was as though a planetful of Poppy’s had sprung up, each giddy with a good natured last laugh for the cynics.

Posted in Happy-Go-Lucky, Reviews, Reviews F-J | Tagged Alexis Zegerman, Caroline Martin, Eddie Marsan, Film, Film Reviews, Happy-Go-Lucky, Kate O'Flynn, Life is Sweet, Mike Leigh, Movie Reviews, Movies, Oliver Maltman, Sally Hawkins, Secrets & Lies | Comments (0)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

American Paella

October 31st, 2008

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“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” could be a two-hour tonic for a weary American or a tourism brochure for a Gaudí city or the catalyst for an expatriate odyssey. But even for those without wanderlust, the film luxuriates in an adult, intelligent, and airy manner, gently titillating, seriously flirting.

Javier Bardem is a “Brings It” dude, as in “He Brings It.” Like current contemporaries of this insatiable machismo, Clive Owen and Daniel Craig, he exudes rugged confidence with a rumpled insouciance. In “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” even his Adam’s apple is tumescent.

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Fittingly, he burst onto the scene in Bigas Luna’s lusty 1992 “Jamón, jamón” as “El chorizo.”

At an age where men, especially, have a startling tendency to turn inwards, mistaking obstinance for self assuredness, the 72-year-old Woody Allen is able to create as a screenwriter a multitude of distinct characters who are independent entities, viable and vibrant, who are seeking and searching for that which fulfills them. Consequences aren’t damned but honesty and openness are virtues.

You can detect the recalcitrant Allen persona in Rebecca Hall’s Vicky, squirming with an internal struggle between a Wall Street fiancé with polo shirts tucked into chinos and Bardem in shirts which seem buttoned with a lick of the lips. It’s navel gazing of an entirely different sort.

Scarlett Johansson is an enigma. Possessing art-house cache with turns in “Ghostworld” and “Lost in Translation,” one has suspected that her talent is more (pants) suited for a shitting on the dock of a Michael Bay blockbuster. But she embodies Cristina effortlessly. In the moment at a late supper, where she and Vicky first meet Bardem’s artist Juan Antonio, she sums up her character‘s sense of adventurous and autonomous sexuality. While Vicky is loathe to reward his advances as a first impression, Cristina respects Juan Antonio’s chat up lines as refreshing, bullshit-free effusions. It is a hallmark of Allen’s dexterous script that he provides both women with believable, reasoned and witty insight.

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For a country where lad mags have to remind couples that they could have sex at times other than bedtime, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a paean to spontaneity, an example to statesiders to not only live in the moment, but to live in your moment.

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Penelope Cruz is a powerhouse. Reminiscent of Anna Magnani in “The Rose Tattoo,” Cruz prowls the screen as Maria Elena, Juan Antonio’s ex-wife, but hardly his ex. A few years ago, Cruz faced a tenuous time in her career as she made a strange transatlantic crossing in projects like “Woman on Top,” “Vanilla Sky,” and “Sahara.” But, this year, with a role of this magnitude along with a brave performance in “Elegy,” it appears her days as Steve Zahn’s sidekick may become a trivial memory.

Graced with a gossamer disposition but buoyed as an actress with acute strength, Patricia Clarkson shines in a memorable cameo as the dignified but disquieted Judy Nash, who provides Vicky and Cristina with a villa for the summer, and perspective. Ensnared in a marriage to a mashed potatoes financier, Judy finds herself in a desiccating relationship bereft of turmoil but lacking in passion, made more desperate by her husband’s obliviousness to her unease.

The soundtrack is a flamenco-infused delight of many moods. From the opening credits of the jaunty, toe-tapping “Barcelona” by Guilia y Los Tellarini to the dramatic, sensual guitar work of Juan Serrano on “Gorrion,” the music is riveting, essential and a character all its own.

Posted in Reviews, Reviews U-Z, Vicky Cristina Barcelona | Tagged Anna Magnani, Bigas Luna, Clive Owen, Daniel Craig, Film, Film Reviews, Ghostworld, Guilia y Los Tellarini, Jamon Jamon, Javier Bardem, Juan Serrano, Lost in Translation, Movie Reviews, Movies, Patricia Clarkson, Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Sahara, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Zahn, The Rose Tattoo, Vanilla Sky, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woman on Top, Woody Allen | Comments (0)

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