I'm refraining from writing a full out movie review because frankly I'm tired and my head is swimming because I did see several movies in the past couple of days. Some were better than others and I'm still formulating my thoughts about some of them.
So instead, I'll just take the time to wish you a Happy New Year! I do hope that in 2010 we can move closer to a world that is peaceful and hopeful. We do need to treasure the days we have -- sometimes we -- well I -- forget that.
Take care all. Party responsibly and please DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
December 30: Middletown
This one was supposed to be published on December 28 but somehow got lost in the shuffle -- so better late than never.
As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, one of the frustrations of some of the film festivals I used to cover was that there might be several movies screening at the same time that I wanted to see. Middletown was featured at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and while I kept seeing intriguing postcard advertisements for the film, I could never make any of the screenings. So when I saw that it was available from Blockbuster, I added it to my queue. Well, I recently got the film and watched it and all I can say is that maybe the spirits were trying to tell me something when I missed the film the first time around.
Middletown is an Irish film written by newcomer Daragh Carville and director by novice filmmaker Brian Kirk making his feature film debut. The director went on to helm episodes of the Showtime series The Tudors, Brotherhood, and Dexter and he enjoyed a bit of praise for the Daniel Radcliff vehicle My Boy Jack which aired over PBS stations.
The movie's plot owes a bit to the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son. In this case, Gabriel Hunter (Matthew Macfadyen) returns to his hometown situated somewhere near the border in Northern Ireland. Gabriel was the chosen one who went off to study for the ministry and who has returned determined to clean up the town and right what he feels were the mistakes of the priest he is replacing.
That he returns to a place where his father Bill (Gerald McSorley) and his younger brother Jim (Daniel Mays) live is more than a coincidence. Of course, Gabriel doesn't seem to appreciate the sacrifices that these men have made that have allowed him to study and not work a day in his life. (In the opening scene, we seen a teenage Gabriel being told that he has been chosen by God to do God's work -- which should automatically set off warning bells.)
There's conflict between the brothers as well. Jim has always been seen as something of a muck-up and now that he's saddled with a pregnant wife Caroline (Eva Birthistle) who happens to be the daughter of the owner of the local saloon, he still can't seem to make things right. He and the wife live in a caravan on land next to a house that is being built -- but never seems to get anywhere near to completion thanks to Jim's inability to manage money. He'd rather gamble away the few dollars he has than pay the laborers to build a house for his wife and child.
Gabriel blazes into town like an avenging angel and sets about to "fix" things -- denouncing from the pulpit anyone who dares to cross him. First it's Caroline, then it's Jim. Unfortunately Gabriel only sees things in black and white and it soon becomes predictable what will occur. Well, I concocted a few possible scenarios and one of them was exactly how the movie unfolded.
I have to say that I understood what the screenwriter and the director were trying to get at -- the idea that fundamentalism -- or the embrace of any religion a bit too tightly -- can lead to a misreading and misinterpretation of the ideas that a religion espouses. Clearly, there's a very strong germ of an idea there. But in execution, Middletown falls fairly short. The setting is more or less modern day but there seems to be no police presence in the town -- not even a volunteer to enforce law and order. Instead, it is left up to the minister -- in this case Gabriel -- to serve as judge and jury -- and the fact that everyone in the town except Caroline and later Jim embrace his beliefs didn't ring true. I get that the filmmakers were trying for an analogous situation and all, but it just didn't work.
The performers do what they can with their roles, with Birthistle emerging as the most memorable perhaps because she's the only one to really show any gumption. Mays doesn't exactly handle the transition from whipping boy to man with spine very well -- but I think a lot of that is flawed writing. Macfadyen is even more lost, left trying to play an idea. Part of the problem is that the audience never gets a sense of who he was before he left the town or of what happened to him while he was away. He just returns and assumes this stance of vengeance. Since we know so little of him, we hardly care, despite the actor's best efforts.
Middletown ends in a conflagration that alters the lives of several of the key players -- but the audience is left wondering why we bothered. If it hadn't already been used by a much better writer, the title for this could have been Much Ado About Nothing.
Rating: D
As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, one of the frustrations of some of the film festivals I used to cover was that there might be several movies screening at the same time that I wanted to see. Middletown was featured at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and while I kept seeing intriguing postcard advertisements for the film, I could never make any of the screenings. So when I saw that it was available from Blockbuster, I added it to my queue. Well, I recently got the film and watched it and all I can say is that maybe the spirits were trying to tell me something when I missed the film the first time around.
Middletown is an Irish film written by newcomer Daragh Carville and director by novice filmmaker Brian Kirk making his feature film debut. The director went on to helm episodes of the Showtime series The Tudors, Brotherhood, and Dexter and he enjoyed a bit of praise for the Daniel Radcliff vehicle My Boy Jack which aired over PBS stations.
The movie's plot owes a bit to the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son. In this case, Gabriel Hunter (Matthew Macfadyen) returns to his hometown situated somewhere near the border in Northern Ireland. Gabriel was the chosen one who went off to study for the ministry and who has returned determined to clean up the town and right what he feels were the mistakes of the priest he is replacing.
That he returns to a place where his father Bill (Gerald McSorley) and his younger brother Jim (Daniel Mays) live is more than a coincidence. Of course, Gabriel doesn't seem to appreciate the sacrifices that these men have made that have allowed him to study and not work a day in his life. (In the opening scene, we seen a teenage Gabriel being told that he has been chosen by God to do God's work -- which should automatically set off warning bells.)
There's conflict between the brothers as well. Jim has always been seen as something of a muck-up and now that he's saddled with a pregnant wife Caroline (Eva Birthistle) who happens to be the daughter of the owner of the local saloon, he still can't seem to make things right. He and the wife live in a caravan on land next to a house that is being built -- but never seems to get anywhere near to completion thanks to Jim's inability to manage money. He'd rather gamble away the few dollars he has than pay the laborers to build a house for his wife and child.
Gabriel blazes into town like an avenging angel and sets about to "fix" things -- denouncing from the pulpit anyone who dares to cross him. First it's Caroline, then it's Jim. Unfortunately Gabriel only sees things in black and white and it soon becomes predictable what will occur. Well, I concocted a few possible scenarios and one of them was exactly how the movie unfolded.
I have to say that I understood what the screenwriter and the director were trying to get at -- the idea that fundamentalism -- or the embrace of any religion a bit too tightly -- can lead to a misreading and misinterpretation of the ideas that a religion espouses. Clearly, there's a very strong germ of an idea there. But in execution, Middletown falls fairly short. The setting is more or less modern day but there seems to be no police presence in the town -- not even a volunteer to enforce law and order. Instead, it is left up to the minister -- in this case Gabriel -- to serve as judge and jury -- and the fact that everyone in the town except Caroline and later Jim embrace his beliefs didn't ring true. I get that the filmmakers were trying for an analogous situation and all, but it just didn't work.
The performers do what they can with their roles, with Birthistle emerging as the most memorable perhaps because she's the only one to really show any gumption. Mays doesn't exactly handle the transition from whipping boy to man with spine very well -- but I think a lot of that is flawed writing. Macfadyen is even more lost, left trying to play an idea. Part of the problem is that the audience never gets a sense of who he was before he left the town or of what happened to him while he was away. He just returns and assumes this stance of vengeance. Since we know so little of him, we hardly care, despite the actor's best efforts.
Middletown ends in a conflagration that alters the lives of several of the key players -- but the audience is left wondering why we bothered. If it hadn't already been used by a much better writer, the title for this could have been Much Ado About Nothing.
Rating: D
December 30: Julie & Julia
Anyway, the film received a lot of attention because Meryl Streep was playing Julia Child. Now Ms. Streep is arguably one of American cinema's greatest actresses but I do have the feeling that sometimes she gets a pass when she shouldn't. I mean Music from the Heart was an okay movie but hardly Oscar worthy and yet she picked up one of her innumerable nominations for that picture. Undoubtedly she's headed to add yet another one for this movie but throughout I had the distinct feeling I was watching her do an impersonation as opposed to giving a performance. It didn't help that Ephron included Dan Ackroyd's famous sketch from Saturday Night Live. There was something a bit off about that moment and for me it marred Streep's work.
(Yes I know she's getting awards for this but I cannot fathom it -- the performance isn't one of her best. At this point I think she gets a prize as long as she shows up and tries out a new accent.)
Ephron seems to have more of a flair for Child's life with her husband Paul (a fine Stanley Tucci). Those scenes have more life to them (which I think is where the critics go blind thinking that it is all Meryl Streep and not noticing that she's supported strongly by Linda Emond, Joan Juliet Buck, Tucci, Jane Lynch, and Helen Carey).
I was a bit disappointed by this movie, especially since this was supposed to be about food. Ephron would have done well to examine Tucci's movie Big Night for pointers. I left that one craving Italian food. After watching Julie & Julia, I wasn't in the least hungry.
Rating: C
December 29: Ragtime
I had hoped to get to New York City in January to see the revival of the stage musical Ragtime. Back in 1998 when the show first opened at the new Ford Center for the Performing Arts on 42nd Street (the Hilton Theater since 2005), I sat transfixed watching the opening number. Frankly, it brought tears to my eyes and gave me goosebumps. It's probably one of the most perfect opening numbers for a musical I've ever seen in my long years of theatergoing. (The Tony Award telecast that features an abbreviated but no less thrilling version of the number can be viewed here -- and for fans of Glee, see if you can spot Lea Michele in an early stage role.). The rest of the show left me with mixed feelings -- I felt the direction was somewhat lacking -- more of a staging of a pageant or an opera rather than a musical. The performances were mostly topnotch and several were memorable -- Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, Judy Kaye, etc.
So when I read about this new production that started at the Kennedy Center I was intrigued and then when I heard it was transferring to Broadway -- I really had hoped to catch it. My work schedule for the fall, though did not allow me the luxury of travel time and now that the show is closing on January 3rd, well .... I guess I'll have to wait and see if someone somewhere produces another version of the show before I kick the bucket. Or I'll just have to be content with my memories of the show.
As the next best thing, I rented the DVD of the 1981 Milos Forman-directed film from Blockbuster as a sort of consolation prize. This was Forman's follow up to Hair and he reteamed with screenwriter Michael Weller on the project. Having read E.L. Doctorow's novel, I was a bit surprised that someone decided to condense the project into a 2-1/2 movie instead of turning it into a prestigious television miniseries. The book was so dense and contained so many historical figures who interact with the fictional characters that Doctorow had created it cried out for a longform treatment. Nevertheless, Forman and Weller perservered and crafted a flawed but engrossing movie. What makes it so much fun to watch now in hindsight is to spot several actors whose careers were in their nascent stages -- blink and you might miss Fran Drescher (The Nanny) or John Ratzinberger (Cheers) or Frankie Faison or Jeff Daniels or Samuel L. Jackson or Michael Jeter. There's supporting work from Robert Joy (as Harry K. Thaw) and Moses Gunn (as Booker T. Washington) and in a DVD extra Mariclare Costello as Emma Goldman (although it's easy to see why that scene was cut).
The main family doesn't even have conventional names; they are known simply as Mother (Mary Steenburgen fresh off her Oscar win for Melvin and Howard), Father (James Olson) and Younger Brother (Brad Dourif). They are an upper middle-class family who has settled in the wilds of New Rochelle in the early 1900s. At the time, mixing with immigrants and African Americans just wasn't done. So when a black baby turns up on their property and Mother pushes to take in the child and its mother Sarah (Debbie Allen strinking a wrong note by channeling Butterfly McQueen), the times are a-changin'. Younger Brother develops a crush on Evelyn Nesbit (a fetching Elizabeth McGovern), the chorus girl at the center of a scandal due to her relationship with Stanford White (Norman Mailer sounding a great deal like Tommy Lee Jones) and her husband Harry K. Thaw (the aforementioned Robert Joy). The pragmatic and mercenary Evelyn sort of romances and then drops Younger Brother -- partly leading him to channel his anger and throw his lot in with Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Howard Rollins, Jr.).
Coalhouse is an educated African American -- what some of the prejudiced characters term "uppity" -- who makes his living as a piano player. He's also the father of Sarah's baby -- the one she left on the grounds of the family's home. He drives to New Rochelle in his new Model T to woo her and eventually she agrees to marry him. On his way home from one of his weekly visits, he gets stopped by racist firemen led by Willie Conklin (Kenneth McMillan) who can't comprehend a black man being able to own a car like that. They foul it up and he complains to the police (Jeff Daniels) which leads to Walker's arrest and his quest for justice.
All he wants is restitution for the damage done to his car. Sarah intervenes and pays a terrible price for it which only spurs Coalhouse's determination and fuels his righteous anger.
There's also a subplot about a Jewish immigrant called Tateh (Mandy Patinkin), a man with a young daughter to flees the Lower East Side to reinvent himself as a movie director known as the Baron Ashkenazy. While he later directs Evelyn in a movie, he is strangely drawn to Mother who begins to return the favors.
Also in the mix is the police commissioner (James Cagney in his last screen role) who oversees the last third of the film when Coalhouse and his band take over the Morgan Library. Here is where the movie becomes a bit of a curiosity and may be why the audience for the musical was a bit reluctant to see the show. One might argue that Coalhouse Walker embraces what became known as the Black Power movement in the 1960s. He certainly doesn't embrace Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent approach. Walker is pushed to the limits and the refusal by those in power in the Caucasian circle (he seeks the proper channels to file a complaint only to be given the bureaucratic runaround) as well as a rejection by his own people -- a black lawyer (Ted Ross) refuses to take his case and Booker T. Washington denounces him. When Walker resorts to violence, it is an outlet for the frustrations he has experienced -- and in Doctorow's novel it seems inevitable. In both the movie and the stage play, it becomes something of a choice. Judging him by today's standards -- he might be considered a home-grown terrorist -- and that may be something audiences don't want to see. The world has changed so much since 1981 when the film was released and 1998 when the musical opened.
The film's production values are suberb as one come to expect from Forman and his collaborators. (Special mention goes to Randy Newman's exquisite musical score.) In the general cannon of Forman movies, Ragtime falls between his two Oscar winners. It aspires to greatness but sadly falls a bit short. Weller's script tries to condense too much and some of the storylines are dropped or not followed through enough. I'm sure someone could write a thesis on the way Weller approached adapting the novel and contrasts that with Terrence McNally's approach for the book of the musical. McNally's version streamlines in a different manner and builds up aspects that Weller doesn't. (For instance, the relationship between Tateh and Mother in the musical becomes more organic -- and the intersection of the three stories is so beautifully laid out in the choreography of the opening number.) The stage show sends Father off on travels whereas the movie focuses on him (and James Olson does yeoman work -- I think he was terribly underrated when the movie first opened).
Anyway -- they are definitely two different animals. Arguably both only partially succeed (although I love the stage score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens).
Rating of the film: B+
So when I read about this new production that started at the Kennedy Center I was intrigued and then when I heard it was transferring to Broadway -- I really had hoped to catch it. My work schedule for the fall, though did not allow me the luxury of travel time and now that the show is closing on January 3rd, well .... I guess I'll have to wait and see if someone somewhere produces another version of the show before I kick the bucket. Or I'll just have to be content with my memories of the show.
As the next best thing, I rented the DVD of the 1981 Milos Forman-directed film from Blockbuster as a sort of consolation prize. This was Forman's follow up to Hair and he reteamed with screenwriter Michael Weller on the project. Having read E.L. Doctorow's novel, I was a bit surprised that someone decided to condense the project into a 2-1/2 movie instead of turning it into a prestigious television miniseries. The book was so dense and contained so many historical figures who interact with the fictional characters that Doctorow had created it cried out for a longform treatment. Nevertheless, Forman and Weller perservered and crafted a flawed but engrossing movie. What makes it so much fun to watch now in hindsight is to spot several actors whose careers were in their nascent stages -- blink and you might miss Fran Drescher (The Nanny) or John Ratzinberger (Cheers) or Frankie Faison or Jeff Daniels or Samuel L. Jackson or Michael Jeter. There's supporting work from Robert Joy (as Harry K. Thaw) and Moses Gunn (as Booker T. Washington) and in a DVD extra Mariclare Costello as Emma Goldman (although it's easy to see why that scene was cut).
The main family doesn't even have conventional names; they are known simply as Mother (Mary Steenburgen fresh off her Oscar win for Melvin and Howard), Father (James Olson) and Younger Brother (Brad Dourif). They are an upper middle-class family who has settled in the wilds of New Rochelle in the early 1900s. At the time, mixing with immigrants and African Americans just wasn't done. So when a black baby turns up on their property and Mother pushes to take in the child and its mother Sarah (Debbie Allen strinking a wrong note by channeling Butterfly McQueen), the times are a-changin'. Younger Brother develops a crush on Evelyn Nesbit (a fetching Elizabeth McGovern), the chorus girl at the center of a scandal due to her relationship with Stanford White (Norman Mailer sounding a great deal like Tommy Lee Jones) and her husband Harry K. Thaw (the aforementioned Robert Joy). The pragmatic and mercenary Evelyn sort of romances and then drops Younger Brother -- partly leading him to channel his anger and throw his lot in with Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Howard Rollins, Jr.).
Coalhouse is an educated African American -- what some of the prejudiced characters term "uppity" -- who makes his living as a piano player. He's also the father of Sarah's baby -- the one she left on the grounds of the family's home. He drives to New Rochelle in his new Model T to woo her and eventually she agrees to marry him. On his way home from one of his weekly visits, he gets stopped by racist firemen led by Willie Conklin (Kenneth McMillan) who can't comprehend a black man being able to own a car like that. They foul it up and he complains to the police (Jeff Daniels) which leads to Walker's arrest and his quest for justice.
All he wants is restitution for the damage done to his car. Sarah intervenes and pays a terrible price for it which only spurs Coalhouse's determination and fuels his righteous anger.
There's also a subplot about a Jewish immigrant called Tateh (Mandy Patinkin), a man with a young daughter to flees the Lower East Side to reinvent himself as a movie director known as the Baron Ashkenazy. While he later directs Evelyn in a movie, he is strangely drawn to Mother who begins to return the favors.
Also in the mix is the police commissioner (James Cagney in his last screen role) who oversees the last third of the film when Coalhouse and his band take over the Morgan Library. Here is where the movie becomes a bit of a curiosity and may be why the audience for the musical was a bit reluctant to see the show. One might argue that Coalhouse Walker embraces what became known as the Black Power movement in the 1960s. He certainly doesn't embrace Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent approach. Walker is pushed to the limits and the refusal by those in power in the Caucasian circle (he seeks the proper channels to file a complaint only to be given the bureaucratic runaround) as well as a rejection by his own people -- a black lawyer (Ted Ross) refuses to take his case and Booker T. Washington denounces him. When Walker resorts to violence, it is an outlet for the frustrations he has experienced -- and in Doctorow's novel it seems inevitable. In both the movie and the stage play, it becomes something of a choice. Judging him by today's standards -- he might be considered a home-grown terrorist -- and that may be something audiences don't want to see. The world has changed so much since 1981 when the film was released and 1998 when the musical opened.
The film's production values are suberb as one come to expect from Forman and his collaborators. (Special mention goes to Randy Newman's exquisite musical score.) In the general cannon of Forman movies, Ragtime falls between his two Oscar winners. It aspires to greatness but sadly falls a bit short. Weller's script tries to condense too much and some of the storylines are dropped or not followed through enough. I'm sure someone could write a thesis on the way Weller approached adapting the novel and contrasts that with Terrence McNally's approach for the book of the musical. McNally's version streamlines in a different manner and builds up aspects that Weller doesn't. (For instance, the relationship between Tateh and Mother in the musical becomes more organic -- and the intersection of the three stories is so beautifully laid out in the choreography of the opening number.) The stage show sends Father off on travels whereas the movie focuses on him (and James Olson does yeoman work -- I think he was terribly underrated when the movie first opened).
Anyway -- they are definitely two different animals. Arguably both only partially succeed (although I love the stage score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens).
Rating of the film: B+
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
December 27: Body of Lies
In the film, Crowe is cast as Ed Hoffman, a slippery CIA type who seemingly has a permanent telephone connection. I mean, he's helping his young son go to the bathroom and he's directing an overseas operation. Same with watching his daughter's soccer match. It's almost humorous -- but somehow I get the impression we're not meant to think that. Instead, we're supposed to look at him and go - wow, this guy will stop at nothing to get what he wants. What exactly that is, however, well, it's anyone's guess.
DiCaprio is Roger Ferris, an operative with a speciality in Middle Eastern affairs. Of course, throughout the movie he's constantly referred to by his surname which only made me think of Matthew Broderick and Ferris Bueller. I know. I guess I'm either seeing too many movies or something.
So the plot has Crowe directing this operation in the Middle East that has DiCaprio making contact with a Jordanian official (Mark Strong in one of the best performances in the movie) and trying to get a bead on a terrorist (Israeli-born actor Alon Abutbul) meant to remind the audience of Osama bin-Laden and his ilk.
Of course there's also the requisite love interest -- for DiCaprio-- Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani. (Actually her backstory is more dramatic than this film's plot -- which is pretty chockablock with action and dramatics. Farahani was not allowed to leave Iran for many months after shooting this film, despite offers for other film roles. She and her family were eventually allowed to leave and she now resides in France.)
Ridley Scott certainly knows how to stage an action sequence but as written by William Monahan, who adapted from a novel by David Ignatius, has a tightly plotted if somewhat convoluted structure. It becomes a bit difficult to figure out who is doing what to whom. But I suppose that may have been the theme of the piece. It's a bit of a mishmash -- sort of like American involvement in Middle Eastern affairs.
I wasn't blown away by the movie, but I wasn't bored either. It was an okay way to pass a couple of hours.
Rating: B-
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