AUGUST 8 – SEPTEMBER 11, 2008
THE FRENCH CRIME WAVE – FILM NOIR & THRILLERS, 1937-2000
FILM FORUM
Film Review
August 15, 2008 by JAN ALBERT
ALAIN DELON in PURPLE NOON, 1969, Rene Clement
ROMY SCHNEIDER and ALAIN DELON in LA PISCINE, 1969, Rene Clement
TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI, 1954, Jacques Becker
CLASSE TOUS RISQUES, 1960, Claude Sautet
COUP DE TORCHON, 1981, Bertrand Tavernier
JEANNE MOREAU in ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, 1957, Louis Malle
PLUNGE INTO AN UNDERWORLD OF FLICS AND FLAMBEURS at FILM FORUM’S FRENCH CRIME WAVE SERIES
What with the dollar floating in the gutter, this wasn’t the ete to jete to gay Parie, but you will feel like you’ve been there and back if you pass the dog days of summer at The Film Forum. A series of double features to die for, THE FRENCH CRIME WAVE, will entertain you without stop from now until September 11th.
If you’ve never seen heist classics like Touchez Pas Au Grisbi or Bob Le Flambeur (a tour of card games and casinos with a Parisian high roller), pronounced by Jim Hoberman as “the birth of cinematic cool”, you can enjoy them as a ‘two for 1 price treat’ – this very weekend.
I, myself, am psyched to finally catch up with films whose very titles have thrilled me for years; Pepe le Moko, Goupi Mains Rouges, Quai de Orfevres, The Sicilian Clan, and Georges Franju’s horror/thriller, Eyes Without a Face, as well as taking in little gems I’ve never heard of: the violent end of bad, bad sex kitten, (Brigitte Bardot), in La Veritie, Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Doulous (The Squealer) with Jean Paul Belmondo, Un Flic avec Catherine Denueve, and Jeanne Moreau in Elevator to the Gallows, 24-year-old director Louis Malle’s debut with a Miles Davis score!
These films will introduce you to a memorable bunch of pickpockets, burglars, mob molls, low lifes, and other lawbreakers, played by iconic French stars like Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, former wrestler turned movie star, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau, Louis Jouvet, and Sami Frey. Directors like Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville and Rene Clement may have found their inspiration in the work of American or British crime writers like Jim Thompson and Ruth Rendell, but this series of French films takes their dark little tales to heart and delivers the goods with a ‘what the hell’ style and cynicism that American movies rarely capture. The Grifters (w/ Annette Bening, Angelica Huston, and John Cusack), directed by Stephen Frears, is a rare exception that got it right, but U.S. remakes of flicks like Mississippi Mermaid, Breathless, or Diabolique (all the originals are included in this festival) completely miss the boat. Humphrey Bogart is about the only American film star I can think of who approximates the fatalistic attitude the French embody so convincingly.
Take 1949’s rarely screened Riptide (Un si jolie petite plage), showing Monday, August 19th. The film follows a seriously sensitive murderer, played by Gerard Philipe (they had faces then!), back to the scene of his sad childhood, an atmospheric beachside bar that lets rooms to lonely travelers.
The almost constant rain that falls from the first frame is a backdrop to the heavy duty symbolism of shutters banging in the swinging light of a single bulb and a group of little girls (led by a nun!), saying the rosary as they pass our hero on the street. The closely observed routine of the bar, the appearance of a sinister stranger, the furtive weekly coupling of a teenage orphan and the aging wife of a regular customer, which reminds the doomed visitor of the famous actress who led him astray as a youth, all combine with the world weary dialogue; you can’t change anything, to touch the heart of this filmgoer, on the way to the inescapable conclusion that life is ‘really a mess’.
Riptide ends with an incongruous scrawl before the credits reminding us gullible viewers that this is just a story and that in real life most orphans and wards of the state go on to lead fine lives and contribute to French culture in an exemplary manner!
There are other don’t miss masterpieces like Wages of Fear, Casque D’or (with the stunning Simone Signoret), and Class Tous Risques, where tough guy, Lino Ventura, shows superb screen chemistry with a very young Jean Paul Belmondo (in only his 2nd film role).
Speaking of Jean Paul and Jean Luc: you can see two Goddard films for the price of one admission – Pierrot le Fou (no fewer than two of my former flames counted this as their all time favorite film) and Mississippi Mermaid on August 22-23rd, and Breathless is paired with Band of Outsiders, on August 31 and Sept 1st.
Other treasures include the late great Bertrand Tavernier’s moody film noir adaptations, Coup de Torchon (August 25th), and The Clockmaker, with the always marvelously rumpled Philippe Noiret (August 26th).
Even the misfires are amusing, (Gangster Lino Ventura in Les Tontons Flingeurs does not adapt to comedy quite as readily as Robert DeNiro did in Analyse This.) Essentially, if you like your crime with a French accent, you cannot go wrong.
There is a great website for THE FRENCH CRIME WAVE, filled with in-depth background articles on the films and their stars, film trailers to watch online, and entertaining curiosities like a podcast from fashion maven, Agnes B, on her film education via Breathless, all at:
FILM FORUM/THE FRENCH CRIME WAVE
~The French Crime Wave/FILM FORUM |
Posted in Movie Reviews | By Jan Albert | August 15th, 2008, 6:11am
Guest of Cindy Sherman
Directed by Paul H-O and Tom Donahue
Film Review
April 25, 2008 by JAN ALBERT
This extremely entertaining film packs a damn good story into its swift paced 88 minutes. The behind-the-scenes art scene gossip will be like catnip for the artlovers aficionado, but it also frames a genuinely compelling modern love affair that will appeal even to those who are only mildly curious about who’s hot and who’s not in the art world.
When we first meet our hero, a shaggy, genial charmer named Paul H-O
(Hasegawa-Overacker), he is about to be divorced and has just fallen in love with his first video camera. The film follows his real life rise and fall as host (along with Walter Robinson of Artnet) of GALLERYBEAT, an irreverent public access TV show that covered Soho back in the day; interviewing new and occasionally famous faces at the gallery and museum openings. Most definitely, a spiritual ancestor of artloversnewyork.com, in the days before the wide world web, GALLERYBEAT provided a slapstick, but telling look at a multi-million dollar crap game that generally takes itself way too seriously.
H-O and his co-director, Tom Donahue, establish his character by drawing on absolutely great archival footage from the GALLERYBEAT era and we see him interacting with a virtual Who’s Who of the art world, from stars like Brice Marden and Julian Schnabel (who throws an enjoyable snit on camera about the stupidity of the GALLERYBEAT hosts) and a slew of up and comers who have since gone on to fame and fortune, like Tracey Emin and Spencer Tunick. Then, he meets Cindy Sherman.
I would warrant that even if you are not into art world doings, you have heard the name, Cindy Sherman. An artist with a singular vision, she is her own muse. Over the years, she has submerged her own persona and made herself anew hundreds of times, photographing herself heavily made up and costumed as iconic movie stars like Marilyn, suburban housewives, trailer trash, post punk waifs, clowns, even male characters. Her body of work is widely collected and individual prints have sold for millions.
We watch Paul H-O and Cindy meet cute at the opening of one of her shows in the early 90’s. The sweetest part of the picture is watching sparks between them ignite as the notoriously private artist allows him to visit her studio and he woos her over a series of interviews. Eventually, they move in together and for a while they have a groovy thing going. He teaches her how to surf; she gives him entry to the epicenter of the art world. Soon, they meet each other’s families and are flying off to London and L.A. for Cindy’s openings, with Paul H-O compulsively videotaping every step of the way.
In addition to this intimate footage, Paul H-O charts the course of their affair through interviews with an incredible parade of witnesses and friends of the couple, like actresses Molly Ringwald, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Carol Kane, and art world comrades such as Robert Longo, Eli Broad, Roberta Smith, Ingrid Sischy and Eric Fischl, to name just a few.
Cindy gets ever richer and more famous. Paul gets in a fight with his landlord and goes bankrupt. GALLERYBEAT comes to an end and he can’t get a new project off the ground. His full time job becomes escorting Cindy around the world and he starts to feel pretty sorry for himself. The breaking point for him comes when they attend a glitzy function and he is placed rooms away from his significant other at a table with a place card reading, “GUEST OF CINDY SHERMAN”.
To her credit, Sherman comes off as about the most supportive mate in the world. She even encourages him to make a film exploring his confusion, but eventually she has had enough and Paul is history.
To his credit, despite acting tiresome and pathetic for a while, Paul H-O regains his sense of humor and uses this film to try to search for the meaning of it all. In one wonderful sequence, he calls into his favorite radio talk show and earnestly discusses his failed relationship with the two female hosts. In the eyes of some, he hit the big time, “caught the biggest wave of his life”, as one observer puts it, but blew it.
And this to me is what really resonates about GUEST OF CINDY SHERMAN.
Beyond the phalanx of famous and near famous faces, beyond my unease about the exploitation of a person who has gone out of her way to conceal her identity, then let herself go to fall in love with a guy who lives on camera, beyond the ironic take on the reality show our lives have become, is it’s naked examination of that delicate balance of power between male and female.
I have a number of friends who are in couples where the woman is the main breadwinner. Many of them claim to feel just fine about – “it’s no problem”. And it should be fine, but judging by the comments in this fascinating film from the lesser-known halves of power couples like Elton John and David Furnish, and Molly Ringwald and Panio Gianopoulos, and from the tale of Paul H-O, himself, I’d say, we’ve come a long way, Baby, but we still have a long way to go.
check out: ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’/official website
For show times – Sunday, April 27th – Saturday, May 7th 2008,
see:
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
~Guest of Cindy Sherman |
Posted in Movie Reviews | By Jan Albert | April 25th, 2008, 1:08pm
Film Review
April 11, 2008 by JAN ALBERT
Sometimes two films come your way at the same time, totally unrelated and yet drawn together by synchronicity, they inform and amplify each other in some way. Such is the case with FROZEN RIVER, which I saw as part of the NEW DIRECTORS, NEW FILMS series, and THE VISITOR.
Both stories revolve around the desperate plight of illegal immigrants in America, but there’s nothing didactic about either one. Both take place in New York, one – way upstate, the other – right here in the Big Apple. Both star character actors who have always stood out from the crowd, but have never gotten the chance to shine center stage. Melissa Leo and Richard Jenkins grab their moment with both hands and deliver exceptionally memorable performances.
FROZEN RIVER, written and directed by first time feature director Courtney Hunt won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year. It is a tense slice of life from the tough day-to-day existence of trailer mom, Ray Eddy. Hunt often puts her confidence in a picture to tell the story, since the people in this world are not big gabbers. She starts in the stark bitter cold morning, panning slowly from Ray’s tattooed toe up to her ravaged face. The combination of her clothing, her hopeless expression and the resigned tears she wipes away, tell you a lot right off. Entering the dumpy trailer nearby and seeing her interact with her sweet little boy, then straining to communicate with the smart teenage son (a fine performance by Charley McDermott) from whom she can no longer hide how deeply messed up things are, you’ve got the whole picture. Ray is a mother she-wolf trapped in a hole of abject poverty in one of the richest nations in the world.
When her husband, a compulsive gambler, takes their nest egg and splits for Atlantic City just before Christmas, Ray is left broke. She has a shit job that pays just enough to feed her sons Tang and popcorn around the clock and she is reduced to scrounging up quarters to buy gas. Some of the best moments are tiny ones: Ray with a bunch of coins in her hand requesting $2.74 in gas, then finding a $5 bill at the bottom of her purse and triumphantly announcing, “Make that $7.74!”.
It’s while searching for her husband at the Bingo game the Mohawk Indian tribe runs on the nearby rez, that she meets up with Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham’s impassive eyes and beautiful face make for some very compelling close ups), a young Native American who is trying to steal her car.
Hunt uses equally economical brushstrokes to establish that Lila is estranged from her own people and views the white citizens who share the town as an alien tribe. Turns out Lila is making money by smuggling illegal immigrants over the frozen St. Lawrence River from Canada to N.Y. Ray wants in on the money and these two desperados team up to carry even more desperate people to the U.S. in the trunk of Ray’s car, delivering them to a motel where they will perhaps work as slave labor.
Ray and Lila, who previously wouldn’t have given each other the time of day, begin to learn the details of each other’s lives while crossing again and again with Chinese and Pakistani refugees squeezed in the trunk. If they don’t get caught and jailed by the border police and the icy river doesn’t crack and swallow them up, this could be their ticket to financial freedom. After coming through one near disaster of epic proportions, they begin to trust each other. Then comes another moment of reckoning.
Courtney Hunt makes you care about the place and the people who inhabit it – both the citizens marginalized by their own country and the foreigners taking such desperate measures to start their lives over here. This small story, so specific and yet completely universal, has the power to move film lovers around the globe. It opens nation wide in August – keep your eyes peeled for it.
see: FROZEN RIVER/OFFICIAL WEBSITE
Haaz Sleiman in Overture Films’ THE VISITOR (2008)
Richard Jenkins and Haaz Sleiman in Overture Films’ THE VISITOR (2008)
THE VISITOR, which opens this Friday, takes place right here in NYC but presents a parallel world that most of us barely notice. It’s the world of people from the four corners of the earth here illegally, living and raising families, selling handmade goods on the street, playing music, driving gypsy cabs, and making New York City their home.
Our window into this world comes from a depressive professor, attending a conference at NYU and planning to use the Manhattan apartment he has barely visited since his wife died a few years ago.
Walter Vale arrives to find flowers in a vase on the piano and a beautiful African woman in the bathtub. Her Syrian boyfriend flies through the door seconds later and begins to pound on Walter who he thinks is an intruder. After everyone takes a deep breath, it emerges that they have been rented the apartment by a swindler. They prepare to clear out when the professor (played by perennial supporting actor, Richard Jenkins, who you will recognize as the deceased dad in Six Feet Under and from dozens of movie roles ) takes a leap of faith and declares there is room enough for all of them to stay. Jenkins is perfect as a sad sack doing his best to disappear into the shadows until this chance encounter cracks open his world.
This is the 2nd film from Tom McCarthy, whose debut, The Station Agent, made a splash a few years ago. That film was filled with quirky little asides from the main story and so is this one – a charming scene where Walter collects his mail and meets a gay neighbor who was once the little boy who took piano lessons from his wife exists as a showy moment for Richard Kind, but also points up Walter’s extreme isolation and lack of engagement with other people. Another aside features Zainab, the African woman, selling her jewelry in Soho to a well meaning but clueless woman (Deborah Rush) who starts gabbing about her trip to South Africa (even though Zainab is from Senegal, hundreds of miles away) and reducing all Africans to vacation fodder.
Tarek, the charming young Syrian musician (played by Lebanese actor, Haaz Sleiman in a star-making performance), who along with Zainab has been residing in Walter’s apartment, plays the drum professionally. Through a series of wonderfully understated scenes, Walter responds first to Tarek’s music, then to his ebullient personality. Tarek insists on thanking Walter for his kindness by teaching him how to drum, then invites him to see him perform at a small club in the village. The three roommates fall into a regular pattern of shared meals and conversation, which culminates with Tarek giving Walter his own drum and introducing him to the spontaneous drum circle that gathers in Central Park.
McCarthy very cleverly plays on the mistrust and paranoia that exist as a fact of life these days. I kept expecting lovely Tarek to reveal himself as an international sleeper cell agent, but that’s not where this movie is going. In a stroke of rotten luck, Tarek is picked up in a random subway sweep by undercover cops and disappears into a hell hole of bureaucracy. He is indefinitely detained and held for deportation.
Walter launches himself into the mission of saving his new friend with a passion he didn’t know he had. He helps keep Zanaib (who cannot visit Tarek, or she too will be picked up by immigration authorities) together, gets Tarek an immigration lawyer, and meets Tarek’s beautiful mother, a widow he develops a circumspect crush on.
It’s a muted happy end when a sad guy whose just been marking the days starts looking forward to waking up again, while two vibrant young New Yorkers have their joy temporarily extinguished. In between, they have made an unlikely, but one would hope not impossible, connection with someone they might pass on the subway but under most circumstances never talk to.
see: THE VISITOR/trailer
Both THE VISITOR and FROZEN RIVER nudge us to consider the whole world of human beings out there that aren’t so very different than us and remind us to open our eyes to the people right under our noses.
FROZEN RIVER opens nation wide August 1 – put it on your calendar.
THE VISITOR opens Friday – enjoy.
~Frozen River/The Visitor |
Posted in Movie Reviews | By Jan Albert | April 11th, 2008, 8:00am
CHICAGO 10 (Playing at the SUNSHINE THEATER)
Film Review
March 16, 2008 by JAN ALBERT
It’s hard to distance myself from personal memories of the late 1960’s and early 70’s and judge the new film, CHICAGO 10, entirely on it’s own merits. The film revisits the demonstrations in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic Party Presidential Convention in 1968. Dubbed a “Festival of Life” by Yippee Party leader, Abbie Hoffman, one of the main organizers of the event, the gathering was meant to expose the self-congratulatory, politics-as-usual “Festival of Death” being held inside the Convention Hall and protest the expansion of the Vietnam War. The protest turned into a violent confrontation with Chicago’s police force as the world watched on TV. In the aftermath, Hoffman and seven other counterculture leaders were put on trial for conspiring to cross state lines and incite a riot.
I have mixed feelings about the film itself, but before I get to that, here’s a brief disclaimer: I used to babysit for Abbie and Anita Hoffman’s baby son, America. I thought they were both bright spirits and admired Abbie’s great sense of humor; thumb your nose at ‘the system’ attitude and theatrical approach to political consciousness-raising in the USA. It was a very sad day when Abbie went underground and changed his name after a well-orchestrated cocaine bust by the feds and an even sadder one when he was found dead of a prescription drug overdose in 1989 at the age of 52.
Back in 1969 and 70, I was also working at WBAI, New York City’s underground radio station and I remember Abbie calling in virtually every night and updating Bob Fass and his listeners about what had happened that day in court at the Chicago Conspiracy trial. (Bob Fass happily is still broadcasting his legendary show, Radio Unnameable, on WBAI [99.5FM] Thursday nights at midnight.) One call I remember like yesterday was when Abbie told Bob that he had received a letter that day addressed simply: Abbie Hoffman: Chicago, Illinois. Bob said, “Well, you’re famous now Abbie”.
He was a real star.
Anyway, it’s great to see Abbie and Bob back together again, this time on the big screen, thanks to Brett Morgen, who sprinkles their phone conversations throughout CHICAGO 10. Like the terrific THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE, (about the life and times of film producer, Robert Evans) Morgen’s first film, this movie takes a different approach to telling a true story. It intersperses standard documentary footage of the 5-day protest with a cartoon version of the surreal trial that followed. (Morgen counts the two defense attorneys, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, who were cited for contempt of court, in with the eight defendants to make the CHICAGO 10). Since cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom, Morgen got great actors (like Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright, and the late Roy Scheider who plays Judge Julius Hoffman) to give voice to actual sections of the trial transcript. It’s a pretty ingenious solution that brings a lot of energy to the proceedings. I found the rotoscoped animation jarring and ugly, but then again, the actual event wasn’t exactly a pretty picture.
The best part of the film experience for me was watching it with young activists and college students brought together by the Generation Engage, Campus Progress and takepart.com. The audience was clearly engaged by the sheer number of Yippees and hippies and lefties – old people and young – who traveled to Chicago to stand up against the status quo. They were alternately amused and horrified by the outrageous travesty of justice at the trial, which truly plays like a piece of theater of the absurd, with Abbie and Jerry Rubin wearing their own judicial robes, blowing kisses to the jury, while Judge Julius Hoffman regularly forgets the defendant’s names and generally acts like a crazy old coot.
Seeing how attentive the audience genuinely was shook me out of the slough of complacency I have sunk into during the Bush League. Gradually I settled in and found myself also admiring the spirit and insolence of the merry pranksters, at first having fun ‘fighting the establishment’ with their presence, then courageously holding their ground as they were confronted with tanks and tear gas and Billy clubs.
Hearing activists say things to television cameras like, “we are not all going to be good niggers”, “young people are not going to stay uninvolved”, made me proud of my generation. I remember Walter Cronkite (truly the great white father of TV News anchors) remarking in disgust that the Democratic Convention was taking place in what could only be described as a “police state.” Forty years later, it is still a very powerful moment.
There are also many genuinely funny moments in this horror show – a youth worker answering the defense headquarters phone with a blithe – “Conspiracy!” Abbie Hoffman responding to a question from a reporter about what he thinks of the trial with, “well, I’ve got a good seat”. Watching Defense Attorney William Kunstler patiently explaining to Judge Hoffman that witness Allen Ginsberg is trying to calm the courtroom by chanting “Ohm”, then hearing a local news reporter analyze the day’s events by describing how the poet, Ginsberg, kept humming, “Ummmmm”, is priceless. Morgen effectively connects the moment to present day concerns by playing songs by Eminem and The Beastie Boys over the demonstrators, rather than wallpapering the vintage footage with period music.
The film’s momentum grows in fits and starts until no one is laughing anymore by the time the sole black defendant, Bobby Seale, (who was reportedly in Chicago during the convention for only 2 hours!) is actually bound and gagged in court to prevent him from speaking in his own defense. Morgen ends the film with Bobby Seale addressing a post trial demo by saying to the crowd, “You don’t need a leader telling you what to do – you know what to do. Power to the People.”
This is the kind of history lesson high school kids don’t get and I believe they are the ones for whom Morgen (born in 1968) made this film. Judging by the response from my 21-year-old daughter – (“Why didn’t they let the demonstrators sleep in the park?” and “I knew the Vietnam War was a bad thing and that people were against it but I never realized it was anything like that1”), I’d say CHICAGO 10 succeeds. It underlines that moment 40 years ago to illuminate the situation we find ourselves in today and may inspire the current generation to come together and make their move.
A CODA to the review:
After the lights came on, Kevin Powell who is planning to run for Congress, interviewed Morgen. The first question came from a young man who said he loved the film but wondered, “Where were all the women leaders?” He was so used to the presence of female comrades, it took a moment for him to comprehend that 1968 was pre-feminist revolution and women were still deep background.
Maybe progress is incremental but things do change, occasionally for the better. That was the most hopeful sign I saw all night.
view: the TRAILER
see: the official website
~Chicago 10 |
Posted in Movie Reviews | By Jan Albert | March 16th, 2008, 2:03pm
Film Review
February 18, 2008 by JAN ALBERT
JAN ALBERT’S 10 BEST LIST FOR 2007
Last year was a tough time to escape from the real world at the movies. It seemed like everyone was holding their breath to see what additional harm the Bush Administration would do to our country and around the world, how many more human lives would be destroyed by the war in Iraq, how low the dollar would fall, how fast the climate would change, and many of those feelings of fear and dread – and our increasing estrangement from each other – seeped right onto celluloid.
Take NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the hit film by Joel and Ethan Coen, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Set in the iconic desert that has graced so many American films, there are no heroes to be found in this postmodern western. It’s just one vast wasteland of evil where life or death is determined by a coin toss. There’s no reasoning with the villain played by Jarvier Bardem – he’s just a killing machine that can’t be stopped. The sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) packs it in and quits because no one observes the traditional boundaries anymore. It’s every fucker for him (or her) self, chasing a suitcase of drug money, and he can’t make heads or tails of what he can do to hold the line.
Now, I recognize that there were some admirable elements in this cinematic story – including an anti-hero (a terrific breakthrough performance by Josh Brolin) we care to root for, brilliant cinematography, and a handful of incredibly suspenseful scenes (the dog chase, the coin toss in the convenience store, hiding the suitcase in the motel vent!).
It’s undeniably skillful, but pretty bleak stuff. I don’t know what I can take away from a film like this, that I don’t already know – and, don’t want to be reminded of. It may well be a work of art for our times but it didn’t rock my world, so it ain’t on the list!
HERE’S WHAT IS:
1/ INTO THE WILD, another film about a guy on the run, was my favorite film of the year and it didn’t even get nominated for an Academy Award. At least Hal Holbrook’s performance was recognized. You’d have to be pretty hard-hearted not to be moved by his isolated old man trying to persuade a young one to reconsider his decision to cut himself off from the rest of the world. This is at once a rousing on-the-road adventure, which shows off some of America’s greatest scenery, and a compelling coming of age story. Chris McCandless’s true-life journey of discovery becomes unforgettable because it’s cut so heartbreakingly short. Sean Penn wrote, directed, and also pulls great performances from Catherine Keener, Marsha Gay Harden, Bill Hurt, and especially Emile Hirsch as the hard-headed seeker who finds out what makes life worth living.
check out: INTO THE WILD – the official website – it’s excellent !!
2/ THE DIVING BELL and THE BUTTERFLY is an astonishing experience. Julian Schnabel is an inspired filmmaker. I don’t know why he wanted to get into the head of Jean-Dominique Bauby, (a 43 year-old French magazine editor who had the unlucky fate to awaken from a stroke fully cognizant of the world around him, but unable to move any part of his body except for one eyelid) but that’s what he does. Working from the book Bauby wrote, blinking out one letter at a time, Schnabel creates a visual tour de force – flashes of the world Bauby experiences moored to his hospital bed, scenes from the life he remembers, and flights into his imagination, where he continues to enjoy making love, driving fast cars, tossing his children into the air, and eating oysters. A toast to grabbing life by any means necessary – and the human desire to leave one’s mark in the sands of time.
check out: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY – the official website
LUST, CAUTION IMAGE/COURTESY: rottentomatoes.com
LUST, CAUTION IMAGE/COURTESY: rottentomatoes.com
LUST, CAUTION IMAGE/COURTESY: rottentomatoes.com
3/ LUST, CAUTION – a dark erotic spy thriller set in Shanghai during WWII, sucked me into a fascinating world I’d have no excuse to spy on otherwise. It was too long (like There Will Be Blood and most other films these days), but my eyes ate up the sumptuous costumes and period decor. As the idealistic college student turned undercover agent, Tang Wei seems to bare her very soul to Ang Lee’s camera and to her suspicious prey. Ditto: Tony Leung, playing a Chinese collaborator during the Japanese occupation. Now, here is a villain (unlike Jarvier Bardem’s cartoon baddie in No Country) who is uncomfortably believable as a human being. The lengthy cat and mouse game between these two is unbelievably tense as duplicitous seduction turns to passionate sex, and then becomes a painful love story. The sex scenes are uncompromisingly bold and hot (I think I learned a couple of new positions from this film), but did not feel exploitative of the female star to me. This might have been how SUSPICION would have looked like if Alfred Hitchcock had made it in 2007.
see: LUST, CAUTION – the trailer !!
4/ JUNO: A wonderful script meets the perfect actress (Ellen Page) and is nimbly shepherded to the screen by Jason Reitman (whose THANK YOU FOR SMOKING made my list in 2006). Diablo Cody’s dialogue is so fresh; a combination of email and cellphone slang turned into verbal jazz riffs. Ellen Page delivers it so confidently and embraces her character so completely, you really can’t imagine anyone else as the feisty teenager who gets pregnant her first time at bat. The adult actors surrounding Juno are all perfectly cast and Reitman is judicious in giving each one their moments to shine. It was such a rush to hear people talk smart to each other in this slip of a film, which emulates the very best romantic comedies of the past but perfectly embodies this moment in time.
see: the JUNO trailer
see: the JUNO – official website
5/ THE DARJEELING LIMITED// I’M NOT THERE:
I place these two films together smack in the middle of the list because while neither one succeeds completely, I really admire the strong vision of Wes Anderson and Todd Haynes. Much of what they got up on the screen is inspired and uncompromising, full of life, and unlike anything else out there. They deserve a shout out!
Wes Anderson has been continually criticized being too precious for his own good – Mr. Style over Substance.
Now, it’s true, a tight story is not his strongest point, but this saga of three estranged brothers trying to re-bond on a train trip through India works pretty well. It’s a road movie with style to spare (the Louis Vuitton suitcases the brothers haul across the globe even get a special credit!) but the film is about something more than production design. I came away thinking about the importance of trying to make peace and maintain family connections, for better or worse. There’s a divine short film (Hotel Chevalier) about one of the brothers and his difficult romance that precedes the big show but stands on its own as a marvelous divertissement.
Anderson’s stock company of players, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Angelica Huston, are all on board; joined this time by Adrien Brody and Bill Murray, who, in a great recurring bit, fails to make the train! There’s a tourist’s sense of wonder at the visual treats they discover, and a sense of humor that tips it’s hat to Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and the Beatles, as the brothers bicker their way across India. But then, there’s a moment when they set aside slapstick to stand together and support a small town through a tragedy that sticks with you in an entirely different way.
see: THE DARJEELING – official website & trailer
HEATH LEDGER as BOB DYLAN-PHOTO/COURTESY:ctvdigital.com
Todd Haynes has always been accused of being an inscrutable genius. This film meditation on the role Bob Dylan has played in public and in private is inscrutable but nothing short of epic. You get kind of lost in it but then tune back in. I do think his gimmick of having six different actors play Dylan is brilliant. You can tell Haynes has studied all of Dylan’s biographies, press conferences and concert films dozens of times searching for clues to the muse. All the touchstone moments are imagined in this film; Bob being booed for going electric, his refusal to be anointed as a prophet, mocking the press at work trying to discern “the meaning of it all”, Dylan in his ‘Lay Lady Lay’ Woodstock days, and, as the man who finds his Lord.
Heath Ledger plays Dylan as a failed husband in some searing scenes from a marriage with the wonderful Charlotte Gainsbourg. The deep sense of sadness he communicates couldn’t be more affecting. In retrospect, one can’t help but wonder how Dylan was able to save his soul in the constant spotlight that burned out this beautiful young star way too soon.
check out the: I’M NOT THERE website !! – 2 trailers !!
6/ GONE BABY GONE: MICHAEL CLAYTON got all the attention, but I loved this melancholy little modern noir and the moral dilemma it dumps in the lap of the most believable private detective to grace film in ages. Casey Affleck holds the screen in the central role up against some real scenery chewers, like Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman. Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard did a very good job of adapting Dennis Lehane’s sordid case of a missing child. A real feeling for South Boston and the characters who live there (the people who started out in the cracks and then fell through) permeates the film. It’s a fine directorial debut for Ben Affleck; and Amy Ryan deserves to win the Oscar as the little girl’s druggie, careless mom. She’s a force of nature as a woman the audience disapproves of, but just cannot hate despite it all.
see: GONE BABY GONE official website with trailers !!
7/ THERE WILL BE BLOOD: Some of the best sections of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film about the rise of a ruthless oil baron in early 20th century California are without dialogue altogether. Since there’s no chit chat, it forces you to slow down and examine the work at hand in a whole different way and the film pulls you in with the same kind of power that some of the greatest silent films (like Napoleon and Sunrise) exhibit. Watching the sheer determination it takes to violate the earth with manual tools, to drop deep down into a mine and set explosives, to risk the high probability of injury and the long odds of actually making a strike, tells us a lot about Daniel Day Lewis’ character before he ever speaks. Later, watching the expression on his face as he swims blissfully in the ocean, then gradually begins to glance at his trusted partner with the growing suspicion that he is being played for a fool, is a towering moment of acting that took my breath away.
Although Anderson pays direct homage to Citizen Kane in the cataclysmic final scenes, I think There Will be Blood is a work of art that will stand the test of time on it’s own merits. If you need any reminder of where the foundation of greed that supports our society sprang from, just watch as Daniel Plainview’s ambitious pioneer spirit twists into an avaricious grab for land that betrays the innocent and emasculates any competitor trying to succeed on the same playing field. Why, I guess he’s as much of a destroyer as Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men (just one that I can access slightly better). Man, it’s downright poetic when Plainview’s little son, the one person on earth he shows his soft side to and wants to share it all with, is deafened in a oil rig explosion and they can no longer communicate. Your heart almost goes out to this monster.
see: THERE WILL BE BLOOD – website & trailers !!
VIGGO MORTENSEN in DAVID CRONENBERG’S EASTERN PROMISES/A FOCUS FEATURES RELEASE/PHOTO: PETER MOUNTAIN/COURTESY: STARPULSE
8/ EASTERN PROMISES– was an immensely satisfying movie-going experience for me. Even though the divide between the good guys and bad guys is blurred, righteousness ultimately wins out after some heart-stopping action sequences. Now, this is the kind escape from reality I’m looking for! David Cronenberg’s body of work is way too bloody for many, but his films always make provocative points about our culture and he always gets great performances from his actors. This time is no exception. The uncommonly excellent script is about a doctor (a persuasive Naomi Watts) who tries and fails to save the life of a young Russian woman who gives birth in the E.R. The dead patient’s diary opens up a sordid world of illegal immigrants promised good jobs, then enslaved as sex workers in a foreign country where they can’t even speak the language. The great Armin Mueller Stahl is truly terrifying as the Russian mob boss masquerading as a ‘kindly’ restaurant owner who offers Watts borsht while plotting her murder. Vincent Cassel is just terrific as his screwloose son, and then there’s Viggo Mortensen as the mysterious mob driver who marches to his own drummer. SIGH! From the hippie guy who gives Diane Lane a summer to remember in A Walk on the Moon to Aragon, the mythic hero in The Lord of The Rings, to the guy in A History of Violence, trying to rub out the past, Viggo just gets better and better. For me, the character he creates in Eastern Promises is the single greatest performance of the year. And the greatest thing about it is that you can’t even catch him acting. He is riveting as a smooth Russian criminal who isn’t fazed by cutting off a dead enemy’s fingertips and fights like a naked animal when he’s cornered with switchblades in a steam bath. He will be working again with Cronenberg in the screen adaptation of The Road and playing Edgar Allen Poe soon. I can’t wait.
check out: the EASTERN PROMISES official website with trailer
FROM LEFT: KAL PENN, IRRFAN KHAN, SAHIRA NAIR and TABU in THE NAMESAKE.
PHOTO CREDIT: MIRA NAIR/COURTESY:FOX SEARCHLIGHT
FROM LEFT: TABU, KAL PENN and JACINDA BARRETT in THE NAMESAKE.
PHOTO CREDIT:ABBOT GENSER/COURTESY: FOX SEARCHLIGHT
9/ THE NAMESAKE: Long novels that follow a family’s fortunes are the stock and trade of great literature. Movies: not so much. There are countless examples of Hollywood buying a beloved book (The Kite Runner comes to mind) and trying to condense and capture it’s magic in the most well-meaning manner.
Director Mira Nair’s elliptical film adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s bestseller stands out because it succeeds so gracefully where so many have missed the boat. The film follows a young man who marries a girl his parents have chosen for him in Calcutta and brings her to Queens, New York. A son and a daughter are born to the Gangulis and grow up living the American dream in the suburbs. They become adults who disappoint their parents and reject their values by taking up with white lovers, getting divorced, etc. Grandparents, then parents die, and before you know it, 40 years have passed. The acting is as subtle as the storytelling (and the cinematography by the masterful Frederick Elmes). I felt almost privileged to look on as a slow regard and enduring love builds between Ashima (Tabu) and Ashoke (Irrfan Khan). Kal Penn (1/2 of the Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle team) does nice work as the ‘namesake’ who doesn’t find out until almost the end why his father called him Gogol.
see: the trailer on the THE NAMESAKE website
JEAN-LOUIS COULLOC’H as OLIVER PARKIN in LADY CHATTERLEY/COURTESY: KINO
MARINA HANDS as LADY CHATTERLEY/COURTESY: KINO
JEAN-LOUIS COULLOC’H and MARINA HANDS in LADY CHATTERLEY/COURTESY: KINO
10/ LADY CHATTERLEY: It’s their love of nature that brings two lonely people from different classes together. Pascale Ferran’s adaptation of the second and lesser-known version of D.H. Lawrence’s once scandalous tale of sexual awakening is beautiful. An aristocratic lady whose husband has been paralyzed in the war seeks what stimulation and release she can find by taking long walks and collecting flowers. Passing through the gate that separates their estate from the forest beyond leads her to Parkin, the rough, almost monosyllabic gameskeeper, who becomes her soul mate. Almost three hours long (with subtitles!), you will either fall asleep or surrender to the experience! Marina Hands and Jean-Louis Coullooc’h give such brave performances. As the seasons change, flowers bloom, snow blankets the ground, and they reveal themselves in the kind of relationship most men and women just dream about.
check out: the LADY CHATTERLEY website with trailer
THE BEST OF THE REST:
11/ The Bourne Ultimatum: Who doesn’t love a great chase scene? And, it’s quite an achievement to make the 3rd installment in a series as action-packed as the first two. Matt Damon is a seriously underrated actor who brings great intensity and a wounded humanity to this guy who doesn’t know who or what exactly he is.
12/ 3:10 to Yuma: an absolutely swell throwback to the classic western where the good guy triumphs after having his ass kicked. The whole cast looks like they are having a blast. It’s pure joy seeing two of the best, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, square off. Ben Foster was robbed of a best supporting actor nomination. That dude was one scary sidekick!
13/ Talk about cutting to the chase! Consider: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. This sad little robbery gone wrong proceeds at warp speed under the able direction of Sidney Lumet. The script by Kelly Masterson is a puzzle, which obscures the big picture by starting and stopping the action to consider each piece from a different character’s POV. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the most valuable player of 2007. He is brilliant here, in Charlie Wilson’s War, and The Savages. What a showoff!
14/ Two Days in Paris: She acts, she writes music and scripts, she directs: I for one, didn’t find the critical comparisons of Julie Delphy to early Woody Allen grandiose. I laughed and laughed at this weird little comedy about a woman who drags her boyfriend (played by the hysterically caustic Adam Goldberg, Delphy’s real life former B.F.) home to meet the parents in Paris, where they run into her numerous previous lovers wherever they go.
15. Persepolis: Another feisty female coming of age story – this one set in Iran after the Shah’s overthrow. Marjane Satrapi (with Vincent Paronnaud) turns her comic book memoir into a beautifully animated film journey. Do yourself a favor and don’t miss it.
16/ Atonement: I am a complete sucker for historic British love stories set in sweeping cinemascope landscapes with impeccable production design. I loved the first section – Keira Knightley and James McAvoy are very well matched and that is one divalicious green gown. Found the second section very frustrating despite the brilliant ‘cuts’ made as the camera move across the battlefront. I just didn’t like the woman that bad little girl became, and the lovers are separated for soooooo long. Admired the short and sweet 3rd part with Vanessa Redgrave.
17/ Away From Her: Impressive directorial debut and literary adaptation by actress Sarah Polley. Loved the visual metaphor of the cross-country ski tracks in the snow. Thought Gordon Pinsent was every bit as good as Julie Christie in the less showy role of a husband whose loved one is losing her mind but seems to remember all of his missteps perfectly! Olympia Dukakis was also superb as a woman who wants her share of the action before it’s too late.
18/ Blade Runner 25th Anniversary re-release: I know it seems like this 1982 cult film is re-released or recut by director Ridley Scott every two years, but this year’s model, seen on the big screen at the Ziegfield, was simply amazing. Every time you see it (and my husband has required me to see it about 11 times) you notice or understand something else about this terse, dense evocation of the near future. Shots have been fixed, wires digitally removed, and what has always been a film of uncommon beauty has been lovingly enhanced. To think this visual masterpiece was made before all these CG tricks existed is fantastic. The DVD package contains every version of the film ever made and features an incredible documentary, which contains deleted scenes, screen tests by the actors who got the roles, as well as those who didn’t, interviews with all the major players, the screenwriters, production designers, et al.
One detail I found fascinating was that the writer’s strike that was going on back then delayed the start of shooting and gave Scott and his team of visual futurists a few extra months to bring their iconic vision to life.
They didn’t know it at the time, but looking back it becomes obvious that everyone connected with Blade Runner was giving their very best. Their vision of what lies ahead has never been surpassed by the dozens and dozens of films it influenced and all the special effects that have come since.
But what also makes it such a timeless gem is the score by Vangelis (one of the all-time greatest), a perfect cast (yes, even Sean Young), and THE STORY, STUPID! What does it mean to be human? Hampton Fancher and David Peoples turned Philip K. Dick’s book, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ into a screenplay that still pricks the conscience and touches the heart.
19/ Tekonkinkreet: Like Blade Runner, Michael Arias’s absolutely mesmerizing animated feature (a stunning blend of computer graphics and hand drawn character and background work) imagines the immediate future. It’s about two Japanese street kids surviving harsh changes in their world with guts and imagination. It came and went in America without notice. Catch up with it soon.
20/ Forever: Heddy Honingmann’s documentary film set in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is about how the dead continue to inspire the living. It’s an inspiration.
~BEST of 2007 |
Posted in Movie Reviews | By Jan Albert | February 18th, 2008, 12:53pm
