Culture Clash, Romantic Comedy, Sports

Guys have body issues, too: A Matter of Size ***1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 16, 2010)

You know-us dogs aren’t really so much of the dogs that we think we are.

-from the 1955 film Marty

When you think “star athlete”, it invariably conjures up an image of a man or a woman with zero body fat and abs of steel. It certainly bears no resemblance to the doughy disappointment peering back at us from our full-length mirror (well…speaking for myself). Granted, there is the odd exception-Babe Ruth, CC Sabathia, David Wells, George Foreman, John Daly and Charles Barkley come to mind (and give some of us hope). Not that I ever considered pro sports as a career-but at some point in our lives, those of us who are “persons of size” must make peace with the cards we have been dealt.

Herzl (Itzak Cohen), the unlikely sports hero of a delightful audience-pleaser from Israel called A Matter of Size has been dealing with his “cards” for some thirty-odd years, and has yet to come up with a winning hand. Sweet-natured, puppy-eyed and tipping the scales at 340 pounds, he lives with his overbearing mother, Mona (Levana Finkelstein) and works at a restaurant, commandeering a salad bar.

Mona loves her son, but has odd ways of expressing it (chiefly due to her lack of a social filter). “You’re getting too fat!” she scolds, belaboring the obvious; in the next breath she’s encouraging him to finish up some leftovers in the fridge (eating and complaining…two things my People excel at).

Just when you think the situation couldn’t get more demoralizing for the hapless Herzl, he gets fired from his job, essentially for being visually unaesthetic to the workplace (read: Management objects to having a morbidly obese employee tending the salad bar).

But then, two things happen to Herzl that could potentially turn his present state of gloom around: he experiences a mutual spark of attraction with a lovely woman in his weight watchers group (Irit Kaplan) and finds a new job at a Japanese restaurant, managed by an ex-pro sumo coach (Togo Igawa). Guess what happens? (Hint: As you probably know, sumo is a sport that celebrates and reveres big fellers, elevating them to rock star status).

It would have been easy for directors Sharon Maymon and Erez Tadmor to wring cheap laughs from such a predominately corpulent cast, but much to their credit (and Danny Cohen-Solal, who co-scripted with Maymon) the characters (and actors who play them) ultimately emerge from their trials and tribulations with dignity and humanity fully intact.

Even the sight of four supersized Israeli gentlemen bounding through a grassy field, garbed in naught but their lipstick-red mawashis makes you want to stand up and cheer (as opposed to pointing and snickering). Ditto for an endearing, sensitively directed seduction scene between Herzl and his girlfriend, and a subplot concerning one of Herzl’s buddies who, empowered via the sumo training, begins his journey of coming out as a gay man. Needless to say, the film is ultimately about self-acceptance, in all of its guises.

And that’s a good thing.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Writers

Staring at a blank page: Paper Man **1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 8, 2010)

Did you ever encounter a married couple who left you pondering: “How in the hell did those two ever get together? Did somebody lose a bet?” I would lay odds that this thought has crossed the minds of husband and wife Kieran and Michele Mulroney, because in their first effort as co-writer/directors, Paper Man, they have created a fictional married couple who leave you pondering: “How in the hell did those two ever get together?”

“Those two” are Claire (Lisa Kudrow) and Richard (Jeff Daniels) Dunn. She is a successful and renowned vascular surgeon who works at a New York City hospital. He is a not-so-successful writer, whose last book went in the dumper. Needless to say, Claire is the breadwinner of the family; she’s the “responsible” one, and a bit of a control freak. Richard is a man-child; taciturn and socially awkward, with a tendency to daydream (typical writer). There is a third member of the family-but I’m jumping ahead of myself.

Richard is struggling with a new book, and Claire has decided that setting him up in a rented cottage in the Long Island boonies will help him focus on his work. As we watch the couple getting settled in, it becomes apparent that Claire is more of a caregiver/guardian than a wife; she is not unlike a doctor clinically observing her patient.

Her exasperation over her husband’s chronic underachievement is palpable beneath her forced cheerfulness as she prattles on about her busy work schedule for the upcoming week, and then casually asks Richard what he has planned for his first week alone at the cottage. “I’ll start from the very beginning,” he says nebulously, adding  “…which is a very good place to start.” Before she leaves for work the next morning, she asks him, with an air of foreboding, “You didn’t bring ‘him’ with you, did you?”

‘He’ is Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds). He is a figment of Richard’s imagination, his imaginary pal, ‘super-hero’, muse, conscience-that “little voice” in our heads (what…you don’t hear the voices?). Although he has assured his wife that ‘he’ didn’t come along, he “appears”, the second Claire pulls out of the driveway. “I sense danger,” he warns Richard.

This “danger” comes in many forms. Richard tends fixate on things (the couch in the cottage, for instance, really, really bothers him). Thinking too hard about his “half-dead marriage”, as the Captain refers to it. And of course, every writer’s nightmare: staring at an empty page for days on end, with no inspiration in sight.

The Captain’s early warning system goes into overdrive when Richard ventures into town on a Spyder bike and espies a young woman named Abby (Emma Stone) nonchalantly setting fire to a trash can. For some reason, this intrigues him. He follows her, and when she confronts him, Richard blurts out that he is new in town and needs a babysitter. For some reason, this intrigues her, and she says yes.

Imagine her surprise when she shows up and Richard tells her that there is no baby. He just wants her to hang out at his house while he goes out for a spell. In spite of the red flags, she says OK. In accordance with the rules and regulations of indie film, this marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So-is this yet another quirky, navel-gazing dramedy, a la Lost in Translation or Me and You and Everyone We Know, offering up a wistful and pithy examination of lonely, desperately unhappy people yearning to connect amidst the vast desolation of a cold and unfeeling universe, set to a requisite soundtrack of lo-fi pop and angsty emo tunes? And was I a tad gob smacked that Ellen Page or Zooey Deschanel were nowhere in sight? Yes, and yes, pretty much.

That being said, I still didn’t mind spending two hours with these characters, thanks to the sensitive direction and excellent performances, particularly by Daniels and Stone. Lisa Kudrow is always fun to watch, and I was surprised by Kieran Culkin’s touching turn in a small supporting role.

The Mulroneys seemed unsure  how to best end the film, but I’m willing to grade them on a curve since this is their first collaborative writing-directing effort (Kieran Mulroney is the younger brother of actor Dermot, if you care). Perhaps they are staring at a blank page, cooking up their next project. I hope Captain Excellent is looking over their shoulder.

Biopic, Historical drama, On Politics, Religion

Monkey gone to heaven: Creation ***1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 27, 2010)

The story so far:

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

-Douglas Adams

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.

-Charles Darwin

I cannot persuade myself that it has been 50 years since anyone has bothered to make a film in which naturalist Charles Darwin’s seminal treatise on the theory of evolution, On the Origin of the Species, plays a significant role; but five long decades have elapsed between Stanley Kramer’s intelligently designed (no pun intended) 1960 courtroom drama, Inherit the Wind (based on the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial”) and the new Darwin biopic, Creation. Perhaps this indicates that Hollywood itself has not evolved much, nu?

Perhaps I judge too harshly. After all, “Hollywood” has little to do with this particular film, as it was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council. The problem stems from U.S. distributors, none of whom initially appeared willing to touch the movie with a 10-foot pole following its debut at the Toronto International Festival last year. Maybe it had something (everything?) to do with that peculiarly ‘murcan mindset that trucks with reviews like one recently posted on Movieguide.org., which states (among other things):

Manure, nicely wrapped with a bow, is still manure. A lie that there is no God and that somehow we have randomly shown up here on Earth as an accident is still a lie, even if it’s well written and acted.

Minds like steel traps. Okay, I do realize they are a staunchly Christian-oriented website, and are certainly entitled to their own opinions. At any rate…thank Ardi that someone eventually picked it up, because the film has now found limited release here in the states.

Although Jon Amiel’s film (written by John Colee and Randal Keynes) leans more toward drawing-room costume melodrama, focusing on Darwin’s family life-as opposed to, say, an adventure of discovery recounting the five-year mission of the HMS Beagle to boldly go where no God-fearing Christian had gone before in the interest of advancing earth and animal science, those who appreciate (to paraphrase my  brethren over at Movieguide.org) thoughtful writing and fine acting…should not be disappointed.

Real-life married couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly play husband Charles and wife Emma Darwin. The story covers Darwin’s mid-life; from several years after his voyage on the Beagle and culminating on the eve of the publication of his most famous book.

Darwin is not in a healthy state when we are introduced to him; he suffers from a variety of stress-related maladies. Aside from the pressure he is under from peers like botanist/explorer Joseph Hooker (Benedict Cumberbatch) to organize 20 years worth of scientific notes and journals into his soon to be legendary tome (especially after Alfred Russell Wallace beats him to the punch with his brief 1858 essay on natural selection), he is literally sick with grief over the death of his beloved daughter Anna, who died at age 10 from illness.

He is tortured with guilt over her death; he suspects Anna’s weak immune system to be the result of inbreeding (his wife was also his first cousin). Indeed, this was a tragic and ironic epiphany for the man whose name would become synonymous with groundbreaking theories on evolution and natural selection.

Darwin also wrestles with a two-pronged crisis of faith. On the one hand, his inconsolable grief over the cosmic cruelty of a ten year old dying of complications from what should only have been a simple summer chill has distanced him even further from the idea of a benevolent creator (a confirmation in his heart of what the cool logic of his scientific mind has already been telling him).

Then, there is the matter of the philosophical chasm between his science-based understanding of all creatures great and small, and the religious views held by his wife (whom he loves dearly). He continues his work, but hovers on the verge of a nervous breakdown, which distances him further from Emma and his surviving children (the Darwins eventually had ten, although only five are depicted in the film).

He rejects counseling from long time family minister and friend Reverend Innes (Jeremy Northam), alienating him as well. Darwin’s subsequent journey to recovering his well-being and finding the balance between commitment to his scientific life’s work and loving devotion to his wife and children is very movingly told.

Bettany had a “warm-up” for this role in 2003, when he played ship surgeon and naturalist Dr. Stephen Maturin, in Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He delivers a strong performance, and if you look at the Daguerreotype portraits of Darwin, even bears a striking physical resemblance.

Connelly is in essence reprising her character in A Beautiful Mindl; intelligent, strong-willed, compassionate, and sensitive. Toby Jones is memorable as Thomas Huxley (who once famously exalted “You’ve killed God, sir!” to Darwin in reaction to his breakthrough paper). Young Martha West steals all her scenes as Anna (her dad is actor Dominic West). There are nice directorial flourishes; as in a  “bug-cam” cruise through the wondrous microcosmic universe in the Darwin’s back yard.

Despite what knee-jerk reactions from the wingnut blogosphere might infer about what I’m sure they consider as godless blasphemy permeating every frame of the movie, I thought the film makers were even-handed on the Science vs. Dogma angle. This is ultimately a portrait of Darwin the human being, not Darwin the bible-burning God-killer (or however the “intelligent” designers prefer to view him). Genius that he was, he is shown to be just as flawed and full of contradictions as any of us. After all, we bipedal mammals with opposable thumbs are an ongoing “design in progress”, aren’t we?

Adventure, Historical drama

First there is a mountain: North Face ***1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 20, 2010)

The hills are alive:  Lukas and Furmann in North Face

The language of cinema may be universal, but certain genres seem to be nation-centric. The American western, the Japanese samurai film and the French farce come to mind. Germany’s claim to fame (arguably running neck-in-neck with Expressionism) are the Alpine “mountain films” of the 1920s and 1930s, ruggedly adventurous tales pitting man (and occasionally, the ruggedly adventurous Leni Riefenstahl) against nature.

The narratives generally applaud moral fiber and strength of character (bet you’re glad I didn’t say “triumph of the will”), as well as variations on the theme of “What doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger.” Many of these mountain films hold up well, mostly due to the genuinely exciting on-location climbing sequences, which obviously had to be filmed without benefit of enhancements like CGI. Okay, there were some camera tricks and such, but the actors and crew were often working in relatively perilous situations.

This brings us to Philipp Stozl’s remarkably authentic mountaineering tale, North Face (released in Germany in 2008 as Nordwand, and currently making its theatrical debut in the U.S.). I will tell you one thing. Despite what I know in my heart of hearts about the “magic” of movie making, days later I’m still pondering how the hell they produced this film without any cast or crew members going “Whoopsie!” and plunging to their doom.

The film is based on the true story of four climbers (a pair of two-man teams, one German and the other Austrian) who tackled the previously unconquered north face of Switzerland’s legendary Eiger in 1936. This particular route to the summit of the formidable 13,000 foot peak was considered suicidal at best; due to its dauntingly sheer ascent, dicey traversals, unforgiving exposure to mercurial weather conditions and relative scarcity of safe bivouacking options. Based on my research about the actual events, Stolzl and co-writers Cristoph Silber, Rupert Henning and Johannes Naber have taken artistic license in their dramatization, but have still delivered a riveting adventure.

The German climbing team of lifelong friends Toni Kurz (Benno Furmann) and Andreas Hinterstoisser (Florian Lukas) are professional rivals of their Austrian counterparts, Edi Rainer (Georg Friedrich) and Willy Angerer (Simon Schwarz). Toni and Andreas have been persuaded by the government to represent Germany (and for Nazi propaganda purposes, the “superior” Aryan ideal) in a multi-nation  competition to scale the Eiger.

The two are much more enthusiastic about the potential to become the first to successfully navigate the north face than they are about scoring political points for the Fatherland. In fact, neither are party members. Although they are in the army, they are ambivalent about their military careers. They cheekily respond to the standard greeting of “Heil Hitler!” with either a cheery “Guten tag!” or a jaunty “Berg heil!”

A childhood friend of the pair named Luise (Johanna Wokelek), now an aspiring photojournalist, is assigned to accompany her editor (Ulrich Tukur) to cover the competition (for those who fret about historical accuracy, she’s a complete invention). It is intimated that Luise and Toni share a romantic history.

For one reason or another, the Germans and the Austrians are the only two teams who end up making the climb; initially as competitors but eventually merging as one team due to unexpected circumstances. The ascent subsequently is aborted and becomes a harrowing survival tale that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Despite a narrative invention or two, Stolzl has delivered a believable film; immersive, exhilarating, heartbreaking. The mountaineering sequences are astounding, instilling a sense of admiration for what these men were able to achieve, outfitted in their relatively primitive 1930s climbing gear (no Gore-Tex or GPS tracking devices in those days).

The Nazi politics are downplayed, but there is a pointed juxtaposition made between the porcine “spectators” and journalists reveling in warm and cozy opulence at the nearby four-star hotel, and the tortuous, sub-zero life-and-death struggles unfolding just a few miles away on the Eiger. Whether this was intended as political allegory is up for debate.

I detected an echo of Billy Wilder’s cynical noir classic Ace in the Hole in one scene. When news reaches the journalists that the climbers have aborted the attempt and begun a premature descent, Luise asks her editor why he has made an abrupt decision to abandon the story as well and immediately leave the hotel. He snorts, “You either need a glorious triumph…or a horrible tragedy. An unspectacular retreat is nothing more than a few lines on page 3.” Plus ca change…

Horror, Mystery

Wolves, lower: The Wolfman **1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 13, 2010)

Inga: Werewolf!

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:  (startled) Werewolf?!

Igor:  There.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:  What?

Igor:  (pointing) There…wolf. There…castle.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:  Why are you talking that way?

Igor:  I thought you wanted to.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:  No, I don’t want to.

Igor:  (shrugs) Suit yourself. I’m easy.

 -from Young Frankenstein.

 Why are people so fascinated with the concept of vampires and werewolves? I suppose it’s something to do with those primal impulses that we all (well, most of us-thank the Goddess) keep safely locked in our  lizard brain. Both of these “monsters” are  predatory in nature, but with some significant differences.

With vampires, it’s the psycho-sexual subtext; always on the hunt for someone to penetrate with those (Canines? Molars? I’m not a dentist). There is a certain amount of seduction (or foreplay, if you will) involved as well. But once consummated, it’s off to  the next victim (no rest for the anemic). In criminologist terms, vampires are serial date rapists…so why  do people find that sexy?.

Werewolves, on the other hand, are much less complex. They are spree killers, pure and simple (“He always seemed like such a sweet, quiet guy. Until the full moon.”) With them it’s all about the ripping, and the slicing and the dicing.

Vampires are quite self-aware of their “issues”…but they can’t stop doing what they do. They have highly addictive personalities-which is an element a lot of people can identify with on some level (with me, it’s chocolate…and yes, you may call me Count Chocula).

Werewolves, on the other hand, generally have no cognizance of their actions, until perhaps after the fact. They have true schizophrenic personalities, which I think makes them the scarier creatures. I suppose that even those of us who are not homicidal maniacs can relate on some level (“I did what last night? Jesus, I’ll never get that drunk again!”). Werewolves scare us because they remind us of the duality that exists within all human beings; after all, Hitler and Gandhi walked the planet at the same point in history.

My favorite “monster movies” don’t necessarily involve characters literally shape shifting into wild beasts. One example is Jean Renoir’s 1938 thriller La Bete Humaine (reworked by Fritz Lang as the 1954 film noir Human Desire) with the great Jean Gabin as a train engineer plagued by blackouts, during which he commits horrendous crimes, usually precipitated by sexual stirrings. And who can forget Elvis’ immortal line from Jailhouse Rock, after an uninvited advance: “Ah… sorry, honah. It’s just the beast in me.”

You know what “they” say-it always comes in threes; especially in Hollywood, where the studios have recently been on a Victorian kick. As of this weekend, we have Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman snapping away in theaters, on the heels of Sherlock Holmes and The Young Victoria. Basing their film on the eponymous Lon Chaney Jr. classic, director Johnston and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, who adapted from Curt Siodmak’s 1941 script, have re-imagined a few elements, but are fairly faithful to the original.

The film opens with a vintage Hammer Studios vibe. It’s England, 1891. There’s a full moon, an old dark manor, and (wait for it) a fog on the moor. A terrified man is fleeing from an unseen bestial horror, as fast as his Wellingtons can carry him. Not fast enough.

Local myth attributes a recent spate of these brutal killings to an elusive  creature of unknown origins. The villagers are a superstitious lot, believing they have been cursed; naturally, the nearest group of Gypsies is suspected. This is the milieu that an American actor named Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) finds himself in when his brother’s mysterious disappearance precipitates a return to his boyhood home and a wary reunion with his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins).

Lawrence has not returned at his father’s request, but rather at the urging of his missing brother’s fiancée (Emily Blunt). The elder Talbot’s misanthropic demeanor has not exactly endeared him to his neighbors either, and when an inspector from Scotland Yard (Hugo Weaving) arrives to investigate, they happily cast their suspicions in the direction of the Talbots. Through fate and circumstance, Lawrence becomes suspect #1, and a dark family history unfurls.

Was this a necessary remake? 69 years seems a respectful moratorium. Johnston’s film does evoke the mood and atmosphere of the original; it’s fitting homage to Universal’s classic horror era (which also includes wonderful creature-less chillers like The Scarlet Claw, my personal favorite of their Holmes series). The transformation scenes are genuinely creepy, and creature effects master Rick Baker’s prosthetic work is aces. Danny Elfman’s gothic score fits in nicely.

On the down side, despite the impressive cast, no performance stands out; even hammy Hopkins seems oddly detached. While I can appreciate that Del Toro was trying to “internalize” the inherent tragedy of his character, he never gets to develop it fully-which could be due to the rushed narrative in the second act. There are some interesting peripheral characters introduced (like a Gypsy seer, played by Geraldine Chaplin, who we don’t get to see enough of these days) but again, they are ultimately given short shrift.

Fans of old school Gothic horror will fare best. While the film has graphic violence, it stops  this side of gratuitous (unlike the odious “torture porn” genre, which has given horror movies a bad name). With a sharper script and more plot development, they could have had a minor cult item. But for the time being, Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr. and Boris Karloff can continue to rest easy.

Cop on the Edge, Drama, Drug Culture

CSI Vaslui: Police, Adjective ***

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 30, 2010)

“What do you think; would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”

 -Fyodor Dostoevsky

 Most people would agree that Bullitt and The French Connection qualify as seminal examples of the modern “cop thriller”. While both are primarily revered for their iconic action sequences, what makes them most fascinating to me is the attention to character minutia.

In Bullitt, it’s a scene where Steve McQueen’s character slouches home after a shift. He walks into a corner grocery and perfunctorily scoops up an armload of TV dinners, then retires to his modest apartment to decompress. It’s a leisurely sequence that may seem superfluous, but speaks volumes about the character.

A similar scene in The French Connection has detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) shivering outside in the cold for hours, wolfing fast food and drinking bad coffee out of a Styrofoam cup as he stakes out his quarry, an international drug kingpin who is enjoying a gourmet meal in an upscale restaurant. Both films demonstrate how non-glamorous and mundane police work actually is, an aspect most genre entries tend to gloss over.

“Non-glamorous and mundane” could be a good descriptive for Police, Adjective, the latest film from Romanian writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu. In fact, this is the type of film that requires any viewer weaned on typical Hollywood grist to first unlearn what they have previously learned about crime dramas.

There are no foot chases, car chases, shootouts, take downs or perp walks. There are no fast cuts or pulse-pounding musical cues. In short, the viewer is forced to pay attention, to observe and study…to “stake out” the characters and events, if you will. The devil is in the details (like real detective work.) And your reward? Well, you may not solve a major crime, but you could reach a certain state of enlightenment via a 15-minute denouement involving a Dostoevskian discourse on the dialectics of law, morality and conscience (Nothing blows up?!).

We observe a plainclothes cop named Cristi (Dragos Bucur) as he keeps tabs a teenage suspect who may or may not be a low-level pot dealer…pretty much in real time for the first half of the film.

As if we haven’t received an adequate taste of Cristi’s job-related tedium, Porumboiu appends each sequence with a static, several-minute long close-up of the officer’s handwritten report, annotating every detail of what we have just seen. It’s almost as if we’re reading the shooting script; I wonder if the director is conveying an allusion to the relative tedium of the film making process itself (clever-clever!).

Based on my description so far, you may be saying to yourself “This movie sounds like a waste of time.” Funny thing is, that is exactly what Cristi is thinking about his stakeout. He is becoming increasingly chagrined that his boss (Vlad Ivonov) insists that he keeps digging until he finds cause to set up a sting, because he intuits that it’s merely a case of kids just “being kids”…hanging out and getting high together, as opposed to a major drug operation.

Besides, Cristi feels in his heart of hearts that his country is on the verge of joining other European nations in lightening up the penalties for personal pot use (yes-the innate stupidity of most pot laws appears to be universal, and requires no translation).

Cristi’s boss, however, sees this subjective attitude toward his assignment as an opportunity to teach the young officer an object lesson about the meaning of “duty”; literally starting with the etymology of the word “police” (hence the film’s unusual title).

I know that sounds as dull as dish water, and it’s difficult to convey what makes this film work so well. It may sound like the makings of a sober, introspective drama, but there is actually a great deal of wry comedy throughout. One scene in particular, in which Cristi and his school teacher wife (Irina Saulescu) spiritedly banter about the literal vs. metaphorical context of a pop song’s lyrics is a gem.

The film is also a fascinating glimpse at a post-E.U. Romania, and the unenviable task of redefining “policing” in a formerly oppressive police state still gingerly feeling its way as a democracy. Besides-when is the last time you saw a cop thriller wherein the most formidable weapon brandished was…a Romanian dictionary?

Fantasy

Karn Evil 9: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ***

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 23,  2010)

Step inside, step inside…

Terry Gilliam must be a very persuasive man. How he convinced Heath Ledger to work with him again after that ill-advised train wreck The Brothers Grimm, is beyond my ken. Then again, Ledger could not have predicted that he would die prior to the completion of principal shooting for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which will now be cemented (for better or for worse) as the late actor’s swan song.

“For better or for worse” could be the mantra of the unflappable Gilliam fan, considering the iconoclastic writer-director’s spotty and underwhelming output since 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which represents the last detectable vestige of “classic” Gilliam. And as entertaining as that film was, it still doesn’t hold a candle to his Holy Trinity- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (co-directed with Terry Jones), Time Bandits and Brazil. So-does his new film redeem his reputation and convey respect to Heath Ledger’s legacy?

Well, kind of. If you have seen the excellent 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha (a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Gilliam’s ill-fated project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote) or the illuminating “making of” feature in Criterion’s edition of Brazil, you know that Gilliam is one of those directors who thrives in the face of adversity. Considering the tragic circumstances, Gilliam has done an admirable job of salvaging, from both a narrative standpoint and in preserving one last wonderful turn from Ledger.

An odd mash-up of The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Stuntman, and Angel Heart, the film is a “through the looking glass” tale about an anachronistic travelling circus touring present-day England. The small troupe, led by the wizened, mysterious and frequently plastered Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer, reeling through the proceedings like King Lear on a bender) ply their trade via horse-drawn wagon, setting up anywhere they might be able to scare up some coin.

The star attraction is the “Imaginarium”, entered (of course) through a looking glass. Once inside, depending on what kind of psychic baggage they bring with them, the patron becomes immersed in either a) their most treasured fantasy, or b) most dreaded nightmare (in full Sensurround). So-how, when and where did he learn this neat trick? Long story, but I won’t bore you with details (that’s the director’s job). Suffice it to say that it has something to do with immortality, and a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits).

Every Faustian bargain carries a caveat; for Dr. Parnassus, it’s a heart breaker that has  driven him to drink, and the time is now fast approaching to give the Devil his due. He also has his hands full with his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), who is on the cusp of her 16th birthday. Valentina loves her father, but has grown weary of the troupe’s hand-to-mouth existence, and dreams of escaping the family business to enjoy a “normal” life (which makes for an amusingly ironic twist on the cliché about the kid who yearns to run away and join the circus).

Meantime, the doctor’s young apprentice Anton (Andrew Garfield) secretly pines for her. The dynamics become more interesting when the troupe picks up a new barker (Heath Ledger), an amnesiac with a possibly dubious past, who they initially discover (literally) under a bridge (hanging, actually…don’t ask).

Without giving too much away, I will say that Ledger’s central (if unfinished) performance has been made miraculously whole through Gilliam’s resourcefulness and assistance from three talented guest stars-Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, all seamlessly incorporated into the narrative as several Imaginarium-enhanced “versions” of Ledger’s character. The cast is uniformly good; Waits is an inspired choice as ol’ Scratch (known here as “Mr. Nick”) and Verne Troyer is on hand as the doctor’s longtime counsel/business partner (it wouldn’t really be a Terry Gilliam film without at least one little person in the cast, would it?).

As I implied earlier, this film may not rank among Gilliam’s best, but on a sliding scale, it comes close in execution and spirit to his “classic” period (a choreographed number with dancing bobbies is an unexpected delight, invoking the spirit of the original Python ethos for one brief and shining moment). The director hasn’t lost his visual flair; he certainly knows how to fill every available bit of space in the frame with eye-popping imagery (and probably brought it in at a cost somewhere in the neighborhood of the catering bill for Avatar). Gilliam proves that sometimes, the cheap rides can be more fun.

Behind the Music, Culture Clash, Dramedy, Family Issues

Mopey white guy with guitar, pt. 2: Wonderful World ***

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 16, 2010)

Wait a minute…didn’t I review this film last week?

Well, sort of…

Can blue men sing the whites?

Or are they hypocrites for singing woo, woo, whoo?

Oh Lord, somebody help me!

-The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

There was a famous children’s radio show that ran on WOR in New York from the late 1920s through the late 1940s that became infamous when it was rumored that the host, Uncle Don Carney, had once signed off with his signature cheery goodbye to the kiddies, then (not realizing that his microphone was still “hot”) immediately wisecracked, “There! That oughta hold the little bastards!”

I remember listening to it back in the 70s on an LP of legendary broadcasting bloopers compiled by Kermit Schaefer. I was disappointed to learn in later years that the gaffe was actually faked for the album (although most of the other cuts were genuine). Still, the enduring popularity of the urban legend says something about the  appeal of the subversive cynic hiding behind the clown face.

This concept has spawned a  sub-genre of films that can  be traced back to the 1957 Elia Kazan entry, A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith stars as a backwoods conman-turned media superstar whose vitriolic disdain for his public belies his image as a benignly goofy, “family-friendly” entertainer. Tony Richardson’s 1960 film adaptation of John Osborne’s cynical and scathing portrait of a fading vaudevillian (Laurence Olivier), The Entertainer also deserves a mention. More recent films like Bad Santa, Shakes the Clown and Death to Smoochy have toyed with the same theme. Wonderful World, the directorial debut from Joshua Goldin, fits right in.

“The only crime left in the fucking world is negative thinking,” laments Ben Singer (Matthew Broderick) who holds the view that everything is fixed, yuppies are the root of all evil, and we’re all doomed anyway…so why bother. A failed children’s singer (his sole album long relegated to the dusty cutout bins of history), the divorced Ben now works a dead-end job as a proofreader. When one of his co-workers chastises him for not sharing in the congratulatory excitement surrounding the news that another co-worker (an aspiring actor) has just landed his first television acting gig, he dismisses the scold with a shrug and says “I don’t delude myself with hopes and dreams.” He’s a real piece of work.

Interestingly, however, he does have friends. He participates in a weekly after-hours jam session in the back room of a music store with some pals, and proves to be a decent guitarist; it makes us wonder why he’s squandering his talents. As the music store owner  observes, “That’s a shame, to be good at something no one cares about…” (as a blogger, don’t I know that feeling). His roommate Ibu (Michael K. Williams) a Senegalese immigrant, doesn’t let Ben’s chronic glumness dampen his own perpetually sunny disposition, and considers him a friend, despite all of his negative waves.

Ben does approach a state approximating enjoyment when he spends time with his precocious 11-year old daughter (Jodelle Ferland); although his rampant cynicism is markedly straining their relationship and becoming a source of concern to Ben’s ex-wife (Ally Walker). Ben seems quite happy to continue wallowing in his half-empty glass bubble of apathetic detachment, until a series of unexpected and personally challenging events shakes up his world, not the least of which in the person of Ibu’s sister (Sanaa Lathan) a Senegalese national who shows up on his doorstep one fateful day.

While this is familiar narrative (the self-pitying mope gets snapped out of his myopic torpor by the Free-Spirited Other), writer-director Goldin gives it a fresh spin. I expected things to go in another direction (another black comedy about a bitter children’s entertainer); but was pleasantly surprised by the warmth and humanity at its heart. Broderick gives a nuanced performance that I would put up there with his work in Election. Lathan does a lovely job, as does Williams (you may recognize him from HBO’s The Wire). Wonderful World may not be a major film, but it is a rewarding one.

Behind the Music, Drama, Road Movie

Sturm and twang: Crazy Heart ***1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 9, 2010)

Ev’rything’s agin’ me and it’s got me down
If I jumped in the river I would prob’ly drown
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive.

-Hank Williams

I think I stumped Mr. Google. For the life of me, I can’t pin down the name of the artist who wrote and/or sang my favorite country song of all time. Let me qualify that. That would be my favorite country song title, which is “I’m Gonna Build Me a Bar in the Back of My Car and Drive Myself to Drink” (I believe it came out circa ‘78, if that helps jog memory). At any rate, after watching Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart, I can visualize the film’s protagonist, “Bad” Blake (Jeff Bridges) as that songwriter. This guy is a country song-with a pocketful of whiskey and a lifetime full of heartache and regret.

Look in the dictionary under “has-been country musicians” and you’ll see an 8×10 of Bad Blake. Take a little whiff of the accompanying “scratch’n’sniff” card, and you’ll catch a pungent mélange of stale beer, cigarettes, musty nightclubs and cheap motel rooms.

Tooling around the Southwest in his antiquated, “lucky” Suburban, Blake’s life is a never-ending series of shithole one-nighters (in the film’s opening scene, his name gets second billing to a league tournament on a bowling alley sign, which reminded me of the visual gag from This is Spinal Tap with the amusement park marquee touting “Puppet show…and Spinal Tap”).

Keeping his road expenses to a minimum, he tours solo, using pickup bands to back him at each location. Eschewing rehearsals and sound checks, he spends his off hours brushing up on his ornithology (e.g. Wild Turkey, Old Crow and Eagle Rare). Somehow, he still manages to get through his performances. Oh, on occasion, the band has to vamp while he slips out to vomit in the alley-but that’s showbiz.

His love life is in similar disarray; it is a trail of broken hearts, one-night stands with groupies, an adult son whom he has not seen since infancy and a handful of exes (who may, or may not, live in Texas). His romance with the bottle is his longest-standing relationship.

Enter a small-town newspaper reporter named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a divorcee with a 4-year old son. A piano player who is backing Bad at one of his gigs asks Bad to grant her an interview as a favor. Preferring his fans to remember him as he was “back in the day”, the initially reluctant interviewee becomes much more enthusiastic once he meets the winsome young woman. Sparks fly, and the heat, as they say, is on.

Bad starts feeling much more enthusiastic about life in general; he surprises his long-suffering booking agent by agreeing to bury the hatchet with Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), a former protégé who is now a country superstar, and open a stadium show for him. Things are looking up. But as anyone who has seen more than one film about an alcoholic knows, it’s about this point where you begin to brace for the fall (“How’s he going to fuck it up? Pass the popcorn”).

So, is this just another “narcissistic, self-destructive musician who has hit rock-bottom but just needs the love of a good woman to put him on the road to redemption” story? Well, yes. And no. Writer-director Cooper’s script (adapted from the original novel by Thomas Cobb) does travel down some dusty and well-worn country roads, but thankfully avoids some of the usual clichés before it takes us home. For instance, there are no barroom brawls, and nary even one scene shot in a trailer park (that was refreshing). Yes, we’ve seen this story before, but we don’t always get to see it with such a great cast.

There’s a lot of Oscar buzz about Bridges’ performance, although if truth be told I wouldn’t necessarily consider it the best thing he has ever done. But if anyone deserves a statuette for a consistently fine body of work, it would be Jeff Bridges. He’s got a good shot; if history has taught us anything, it’s that Oscar loves drunks (and nuns, according to Kate Winslet in a classic episode of Extras).

Robert Duvall has a small but memorable role; he and Bridges are a joy to watch together. Gyllenhaal is excellent, although her part feels a little underwritten. Bridges does his own singing, and he isn’t half-bad. Crazy Heart may be a small and simple film, but it has a big heart…like a good country song.

Family Issues, Food, Romantic Comedy

Von liebe und schnitzel: Soul Kitchen **1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 18, 2010)

You know, it’s great when you can find a nice palette-cleanser to tide you over during these dog days at the multiplexes, as the last crumbs of empty-calorie summer fare are cleared from the table to make room for the heartier fall menu. Soul Kitchen is one such cinematic soufflé; it bakes up light and fluffy, stopping just this side of demanding any deeper contemplation, yet it is still substantial enough to leave you feeling pleasantly full.

Equal parts romantic comedy, foodie film, and (mildly) raunchy screwball farce, German writer-director Fatih Akin’s breezy story concerns a grubby but amiable young restaurateur named Zinos (co-scripter Adam Bousdoukos) who has converted an abandoned warehouse in Hamburg’s Wilhelmsburg quarter into a funky eatery called “The Soul Kitchen”.

Operating on the cheap, Zinos is not only the manager, but the cook as well, serving up your basic beer ‘n’ pizza, schnitzel and French fries menu to a not-so-picky neighborhood clientele. If Zinos seems a bit harried and distracted, it’s due to the impending departure of his journalist girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) to China.

Zinos’ separation anxiety comes to a head when he joins Nadine and her family for dinner at another restaurant, where the two have an embarrassing public spat. Just a few moments later, that restaurant’s head chef, Shayn (Birol Unel) quits in a huff after losing his shit when a customer demands that his gazpacho (a Spanish soup, traditionally served cold) be heated up for him. The two sulking men are soon commiserating outside, where the pragmatic Shayn asks, “So, do you have a job for me?”

Although Shayn  admires what he refers to as the “Romanesque” ambiance of the Soul Kitchen, it doesn’t take long for him to ascertain that Zinos’ pedestrian menu could use sprucing up. At first, the regulars are bewildered by the “fresh sheets” and the upscale presentations on their plates. “Where’s our fries, burgers and pizza?” they demand-to which Shayn rebuffs “Get your pizza at the supermarket! Culinary racists!” before storming back to the kitchen.

Things settle down, the word gets out, and business picks up as the eatery gains hipster cachet. Zinos is not out of the woods yet, however. His brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtrau), a convicted thief, shows up unannounced on his doorstep, fresh out of prison on work release. Things get (as Arte Johnson’s catchphrase used to go on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In) “Velly interestink…but schtoo-pid!”.

Bousdoukos (whose passing resemblance to Jim Morrison is amusing, considering the title) and Bliebtrau have good chemistry as the brothers. Keep an eye out for the great Udo Kier in a minor role. Although many elements of the narrative feel familiar, the combination of energetic performances, well-chosen music (featuring everything from Louis Armstrong and Ruth Brown to Curtis Mayfield and Burning Spear) and Akin’s fresh directing approach make up for it. Sometimes, it’s all about presentation, ja ?