Category Archives: Dramedy

Drama, Dramedy, Drug Culture, Family Issues

Paper ring: The 10 worst date flicks for Valentine’s Day

February 15, 2016 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 13, 2016)

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.

–William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

You’re breakin’ my heart
You’re tearing it apart…so fuck you

-Nilsson, Son of Schmilsson, “You’re Breaking My Heart”

Alright, I’ve covered the “warm and fuzzy” angle for Valentine’s Day. But there are two sides to every coin. This “holiday” depresses some people. It’s just a corporate invention; a marketing ploy to push overpriced cards and chocolates, right? So I say, embrace your melancholia! I mean, I may be “alone”, but I’m not “lonely”, right? Right? Anyone? Bueller? Hello? (tap, tap) Is this internet working?

Anyway…here you go, alphabetically:

Baby Doll – In 1956, this deliciously squalid melodrama (directed by Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams) was decried by the “Legion of Decency” for “carnal suggestiveness”. Granted, there is something suggestive about a sultry, PJ-clad 19 year old (Carroll Baker) curled up in a child’s crib, sucking her thumb. This is our first glimpse of the young woman recently betrothed to creepy old Archie (Karl Malden). Archie is breathlessly counting down to Baby Doll’s imminent birthday. She was 18 on her wedding day, but Archie is beholden to an agreement of “no consummation” until she’s 20.

In return, Archie has promised to renovate his rundown cotton gin so he can bathe her in luxury, ‘til death do they part. However, Archie is as bereft of coin as he is lustful in loin. This leads to an ill-advised act that gets him in hot water with his prosperous business rival (Eli Wallach). Instead of getting mad, Wallach decides to get even…by seducing Baby Doll. The seduction scene is a classic; it “shows” little, yet implies much (it is left up to your imagination).

Crazy Love – For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the Bizarro World “love story” of Burt and Linda Pugach, I won’t risk spoilers regarding this 2007 documentary. Suffice it say, if you think you’ve seen it all when it comes to obsession and dysfunction in romantic relationships, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. I will divulge this much- despite the odious nature of the act one of these two people visits upon the other at one point in their relationship, it’s still not cut and dry as to whose “side” you want to be on, because both of these people got off the bus in Crazy Town a long time ago. This film is the antonym for “date movie”. Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens directed.

Happiness – If you you’re partial to network narratives populated by emotionally needy neurotics, this 1998 Todd Solondz film is in your wheelhouse. Bold performances all around in this veritable merry-go-round of modern dysfunction, as you watch a sad parade of completely hapless individuals make desperate, cringe-inducing stabs at establishing meaningful connections sometime before they die (the human condition?). Standouts in the huge cast include the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lara Flynn Boyle, Jane Adams, Dylan Baker and Camryn Manheim. Keep a pint of Ben and Jerry’s handy.

The Honeymoon Killers – Several decades before Natural Born Killers was even a gleam in Oliver Stone’s eye, writer-director Leonard Kastle made this highly effective low-budget exploitation film (based on a true story) about a pair of murderous lovebirds. Martha (Shirley Stoler) and Ray (Tony Lo Bianco) meet via a “lonely hearts” correspondence club and find that they have a lot more in common than the usual love of candlelit dinners and walks on the beach.

Namely, they’re both full-blown sociopaths, who cook up a scheme to lure lonely women into their orbit so they can kill them and take their assets. Stoler and Lo Bianco have a palpable chemistry as the twisted couple. The stark B & W photography and verite approach enhances the unsettling vibe. Martin Scorsese was the original director, but was quickly fired (!). This was Kastle’s only film.

The Night Porter – Director Liliana Cavani brilliantly uses a story of a sadomasochistic relationship as both an allusion to the horrors of Hitler’s Germany and a treatise on sexual politics. Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling deliver intense, brooding performances as a former SS officer and a concentration camp survivor who become entwined in a twisted, doomed relationship years after WW2. Steeped in decadence, deeply disturbing, yet…weirdly compelling.

Sid and Nancy – The ultimate love story…for nihilists. Director Alex Cox has never been accused of subtlety, and there’s certainly a glorious lack of it here in his over-the-top 1986 biopic about the doomed relationship between Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb chew all the available scenery as they shoot up, turn on and check out. Okay, it is a bit of a downer, but the cast is outstanding, and Cox (who co-scripted with Abbe Wool) injects a fair amount of dark comedy (“Eeew, Sid! I look like fuckin’ Stevie Nicks in hippie clothes!”). The movie also benefits from outstanding cinematography by Roger Deakins.

Image result for smash palace 1981

Smash Palace – Dramatic films about the disintegration of a marriage aren’t a romp in the fields to begin with (and as date movies…it’s safe to say that they are right out), but can be particularly heart-wrenching when children are involved (e.g. Kramer vs Kramer or Shoot the Moon). Few are as raw and emotionally draining as this nearly forgotten 1981 gem from New Zealand.

An early effort from writer-director Roger Donaldson (The Bounty, No Way Out, Thirteen Days), the film features a riveting performance by Bruno Lawrence, as an eccentric race car driver/salvage yard owner who neglects his wife (Anna Maria Monticelli) to the point where she has an affair. The cuckolded hubby (already a walking time bomb) does not react well. Donaldson sustains an incredible sense of tension. Absorbing and unpredictable right up to the end.

Swept Away – The time-honored “man and woman stuck on a desert island” scenario is served up with a heaping tablespoon of class struggle and an acidic twist of sexual politics in this controversial 1975 film from Italian director Lena Wertmuller. A shrill and haughty bourgeoisie woman (Mariangela Melato) charters a yacht cruise for herself and her equally obnoxious fascist friends, who all seem to delight in belittling their slovenly deck hand (Giancarlo Giannini), who is a card-carrying communist. Fate and circumstance conspire to strand Melato and Giannini together on a small Mediterranean isle, setting the stage for some interesting role reversal games. BTW, in case you are curious about the Guy Ritchie/Madonna remake? Here’s a two-word review: Stay away!

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – If words were needles, university history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) would look like a pair of porcupines, because after years of shrill, shrieking matrimony, these two have become maestros of the barbed insult, and the poster children for the old axiom, “you only hurt the one you love”. Mike Nichols’ 1966 directing debut (adapted by Ernest Lehman from Edward Albee’s Tony-winning stage play) gives us a peek into one night in the life of this battle-scarred middle-aged couple.

After a faculty party, George and Martha invite a young newlywed couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) over for a nightcap. As the ever-flowing alcohol kicks in, the evening becomes a veritable primer in bad human behavior. It’s basically a four-person play, but these are all fine actors, and the writing is the real star of this piece.

Everyone in the cast is fabulous, but Taylor is the particular standout; this was a breakthrough performance for her in the sense that she proved beyond a doubt that she was more than just a pretty face. Don’t forget, the actress behind this blowsy, 50-ish character was only 34 (and, of course, a genuine stunner). When “Martha” says “Look, sweetheart. I can drink you under any goddam table you want…so don’t worry about me,” you don’t doubt that she really can.

Your Friends and Neighbors – With friends and neighbors like these…oy. A very dark social satire from the Prince of Darkness himself, playwright-writer-director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Nurse Betty). As in most LaBute narratives, there’s nary a sympathetic character in sight in this study of two unhappy couples and their circle of unhappy friends. Everybody makes bad choices and generally treat each other like shit. Cynical, appalling, and perversely funny. You’ll love it! Aaron Eckart, Jason Patric, Amy Brenneman, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski, and Ben Stiller make a crack ensemble.

…and now here’s the late great Harry Nilsson to sing us out:

Dramedy, Fantasy, Social Satire

Sit on this: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence **1/2

October 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 18, 2015)

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is the kind of film that critics elbow past each other in a desperate scramble to post the earliest time-stamped review that name checks Kierkegaard and Beckett. Just between you and me and the bird feeder, I find Kierkegaard unreadable, and once nodded off during a performance of Waiting for Godot. So rest assured, gentle reader, that you needn’t worry about suffering through smug references to long-dead existentialists and avant-garde playwrights…no siree, Bob.

You have to understand, I never went to college, or even film school. I’m just a simple farmer. I’m a person of the land; the common clay of the American West. You know…

A moron.

(Awkward silence). Give me a sec; I just need to come up with some clever angle now.

How do I summarize a film that is cited in its own press release as “…irreducible to advertising”? Given that Roy Andersson’s film is a construct of existential vignettes which share little in common save for the fact that they share little in common, I’ll pick one at random, in which a girl recites the following “original” poem in front of her class:

A pigeon sat on a branch, reflecting on existence It rested, and reflected on the fact That it had no money It flew home

Now I may not know Schopenhauer from Fahrvergnugen, but I do know Douglas Adams:

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool They lay. They rotted. They turned around occasionally Bits of flesh dropped off them from time to time And sank into the pool’s mire They also smelt a great deal.

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

Or should I tell you the one about the two traveling novelty item salesmen (Holger Andersson and Nils Westblom, the titular “stars” of the film) who walk into a bar and begin their pitch, only to be rudely interrupted by a thirsty, horse-borne King Karl XII and his vast army (presumably on their way to Moscow), who have all somehow dropped in from the 18^th Century? Oh, you’ve heard that one?

Then pretend I never said anything.

I could describe some of the other vignettes, some funny, some tragic, and mostly absurd…but I don’t see much point. Which I suppose is precisely the director’s point. There is no point in describing the pointlessness of it all. Therefore, he’s made his point.

So am I recommending it? You may remember this exchange from Play it Again, Sam:

Allan: That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollack, isn’t it?

Museum Girl: Yes, it is.

Allan: What does it say to you?

Museum Girl: It restates the negativeness of the Universe. The hideous, lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man, forced to live a barren, Godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless, bleak strait-jacket in a black absurd Cosmos.

Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?

Museum Girl: Committing suicide.

Allan: What about Friday night?

Or you can look at it this way: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch made $8,119 last weekend. Minions made $115,718,405. What does it say to you? Oh, OK. What about Friday night?

Dramedy, Food, Male Bonding

SIFF 2015: Diner **** (Archival presentation)

October 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 23, 2015)

This slice-of-life dramedy marked writer-director Barry Levinson’s debut in 1982, and remains his best. A group of 20-something pals converge for Christmas week in 1959 Baltimore. One is recently married, another is about to get hitched, and the rest playing the field and deciding what to do with their lives. All are slogging fitfully toward adulthood.

The most entertaining scenes take place at the group’s favorite diner, where the comfort food of choice is French fries with gravy. Levinson has a knack for writing sharp dialog, and it’s the little details that make the difference; like a cranky appliance store customer who refuses to upgrade to color TV because he saw Bonanza at a friend’s house, and decided that “…the Ponderosa looked fake”.

This film was more influential than it gets credit for; Tarantino owes a debt of gratitude, as do the creators of Seinfeld. It’s hard to believe that Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Daniel Stern, Timothy Daly, Steve Guttenberg and Paul Reiser were all relative unknowns at the time!

Dramedy, Musical, Rock 'n' Roll

The twee of life: God Help the Girl ***

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 13, 2014)

I love Scottish pop: God Help the Girl

As far as plot-less yet pleasingly pastoral Scottish musicals centering on mentally unstable young female protagonists yearning to become pop stars go, you could do worse than God Help the Girl. An oddball cross between Alan Moyle’s manic-depressive 1980 music biz drama Times Square and Gillian Armstrong’s kooky, sunny-side-up 1982 new wave musical, Starstruck, the film (written, directed and scored by Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch) stars Emily Browning as Eve, a clinically depressed young Glaswegian with musical inclinations…and the soul of a poet. Oh, and a cool beret.

When we first meet her, Eve is in hospital for psychiatric counseling and treatment for an eating disorder. She has a habit of sneaking out to hit the live music clubs when no one is looking. During one of these excursions, Eve Meets Cute with a bespectacled, nebbish-y singer-guitarist named James (Olly Alexander), but not before witnessing the onstage dissolution of his band (an argument over volume levels results in show-stopping fisticuffs with his drummer during their opening number). James quickly intuits that Eve has a decent voice, a unique charisma and a natural gift for songwriting. He introduces Eve to his friend Cassie (Hannah Murray), an aspiring singer. Guess what happens next…

There’s not much of a “story” to speak of, but Murdoch does sustain a certain mood throughout; an impressionistic rendering of a bittersweet, youthful summer idyll informed by Browning and Murray’s dreamy, airy, vocal performances and Murdoch’s lovely chamber pop-influenced melodies (and he’s not afraid to wear his influences on his sleeve…in one of the music sequences, he has Browning hold up a 45 RPM copy of “Pretty Ballerina” by the Left Banke).

While the jury is still out on whether this is a rock ’n’ roll fable aspiring to be a musical, or a musical aspiring to be a rock ’n’ roll fable, if you accept it as a construct of endearing music videos, linked by a loose narrative, you just might get away with calling it entertaining.

No, seriously. I really do love Scottish pop:

Dramedy, Social Satire

Die bummelant: A Coffee in Berlin ***1/2

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 28, 2014)

Have you heard the good word? There’s this trendy new food pyramid that apparently keeps you energetic and svelte: Vodka, cigarettes and chewing gum. This appears to be all that sustains Niko (Tom Schilling), the Millennial slacker hero of writer-director Jan Ole Gerster’s debut film, A Coffee in Berlin (known in Germany as Oh Boy). Oh, you are allowed to drink coffee…if you can get your hands on a cup. This is proving difficult for Niko, as we follow him around Berlin on (what we assume to be) a typical day in his life.

“I’m late…I’ve got a million things to do,” Niko tells his skeptical (and soon-to-be ex) girlfriend after she catches him giving her the early-morning slip (her Jean Seberg haircut is no accident; from this opening scene onward, Gerster’s camera movements, black and white photography and jazzy score leaves no doubt that his film is a paean to the French New Wave). Niko doesn’t seem to have much of anything going on, except maybe the rent. Even that is doubtful, after an ATM machine confiscates his debit card, much to his puzzlement.

In a Benjamin Braddock moment set at a posh country club, Niko gets an explanation, along with an admonishment from his father, who has figured out his deadbeat son has in fact not been spending his 1000 Euros a month stipend on law school for the past two years. Niko’s day has barely begun; many more such encounters await him, each more discombobulating than the last.

While you could say that the film is about “nothing”, it manages to be about everything. Perhaps it is the sheer breadth of the vignettes that make up Niko’s day; from the bathos to the pathos. From moments of silly slapstick, like Niko’s attempt to appear casual whilst dipping back into a homeless man’s hat to retrieve the change he had donated a few moments before his fateful encounter with the ATM machine, to an extraordinary monologue from an elderly barfly recounting a suppressed childhood memory of Kristallnacht, it collectively adds up to a summation of the human experience.

Visually, the film evokes Wim Wenders’ moody Wings of Desire; which has everything to do with the location photography. Berlin, like New York or Paris, is a metropolis that is most likely to reveal its true colors when viewed through a stark black and white lens. It’s tough to explain why such an episodic affair, wherein the dramatic tension derives from whether or not the protagonist will find an uninterrupted moment to enjoy a cup of coffee before credits roll, is one of the freshest films I’ve seen this year, but I believe I just did.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Road Movie

Involuntary simplicity: The Discoverers **1/2

September 28, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 21, 2014)

Writer-director Justin Schwarz is the love child of Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne. Actually, this is pure speculation, based upon viewing his dramedy, The Discoverers. It’s the oft-told, indie-flavored tale of a quirky, screwed-up family who embark upon an arduous trek, only to discover that all roads eventually lead back to Dysfunction Junction. However, as the rules of this film genre dictate, it’s about the journey, not the destination.

Griffin Dunne stars as Lewis, a man in crisis. In the midst of a divorce and nearly broke, he barely scrapes by as a part-time history teacher at a Chicago community college. The only light on the horizon is that he may have finally found a publisher for his 6,000 page magnum opus about an obscure historical figure named York, a slave who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their trek to the Pacific (his obsession with this decades-long research and writing project has essentially destroyed his marriage). When he is invited to present a paper in Oregon, he decides to make it a “family road trip”, dropping by his estranged wife’s house to scoop up son Jack (Devon Graye) and daughter Zoe (Madeleine Martin).

Soon after they hit the road, they encounter their first detour. Lewis gets a frantic phone call from his smarmy yuppie brother (John C. McGinley), who asks him to check on their parents in Idaho. Lewis is reticent at first, as he has been estranged from his father (Stuart Margolin) for a number of years; but dutifully complies. What he discovers is not good; his mother lying dead on the bathroom floor (from natural causes), and his grief-stricken father, who remains silent and glowering while Lewis tends to the funeral arrangements.

His father only breaks his silence once, to insist that Lewis’ brother read the eulogy at the service (even though Lewis wrote it). After the burial, Lewis’ busy brother simply must dash, dumping their traumatized father into his charge. The next morning, Lewis’ dad pulls a disappearing act, but is located with a group of Lewis and Clark re-enactors off on an annual “Discovery Trek” that recreates the pair’s epic journey. In an attempt to snap his father back to reality, Lewis talks his reluctant teenagers into tagging along, (not an easy sell, as all are required to eschew modern amenities).

If you’re thinking this all sounds like Little Miss Sunshine meets Moonrise Kingdom by way of Nebraska, you would be correct. And as in those aforementioned films, the literal journey undertaken by the protagonists becomes a figurative journey of self-discovery; a mapping out and circumnavigation of roadblocks in their lives that are inevitably attributable to family dysfunction. These are the types of characters that make you wish you could reach through the screen, grab them by their lapels, and let them have it with that classic exhortation from Tootsie…”I BEGGED you to get therapy!”

The film would not have worked as well without Dunne; his penchant for projecting wryness in the face of existential despair (which made him the “go-to” guy in the 80s to play the Hapless Urban Everyman) remains intact. This is also a comeback for the 74 year-old Margolin, most recognizable for his TV role as the sidekick on The Rockford Files. He gives a touching, resonant performance. And Schwarz earns extra points for injecting overly-familiar material with enough freshness and heart to make it quaffable.

Dramedy, Radio Biz

Beginners and losers: Alan Partridge ***1/2

September 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 19, 2014)

The drinkin’ I did on my last big gig

Made my voice go low

They said that they liked the ‘younger sound’

When they let me go

-From “W-O-L-D”, by Harry Chapin

Four score and seven years ago (OK…1974) I was a neophyte DJ working the midnight-6am shift at an AM station in Fairbanks, Alaska. The call letters, KFAR, were apropos; this was about as far fucking north as you could live on planet Earth and still have a radio career. I have never forgotten a nugget of wisdom imparted to me by a veteran jock, who, perhaps sensing my Pollyanna enthusiasm , took me aside one day. “You’re still young,” he said with a world-weary sigh, “So I’ll tell you something about small market radio stations, Dennis. There are two types of people who work here: Beginners, and losers.” I was the beginner, so…I assume he knew of what he spoke.

No character embodies this axiom better than Alan Partridge, the creation of droll English actor-comedian Steve Coogan and writer Armando Iannucci (the comic genius behind the BBC political sitcom The Thick of It). A smarmy, egotistical “program presenter” of middling talent and perennially underwhelming accomplishment, Alan (played by Coogan) nonetheless persists in orbiting about the showbiz peripheral like an angry bee, despite continual failure.

This stalwart refusal to surrender dreams of stardom makes Alan oddly endearing, despite the fact he’s a self-absorbed asshole. UK TV viewers (and Anglophiles like yours truly) have become fixated on following Alan’s ever-downward career trajectory. It began in the mid-90s, with the one-season BBC series Knowing Me, Knowing You, which “documented” the eponymous ill-fated variety program created (and ultimately destroyed) by its prickly, passive-aggressive host.

Several years later, Coogan and Iannucci resurrected the character in I’m Alan Partridge, a two-season series that picks up Alan’s story as he moves back to his hometown of Norwich, in the wake of his humiliating failure as a national TV personality. He has managed to snag the graveyard shift on a local radio station (see paragraph 1) where he spins 80s synth-pop hits for residents of the sleepy little hamlet.

By season 2, he’s living in a trailer with his young Ukrainian girlfriend, picking up whatever gigs he can in between making desperate pitches to stone-faced BBC executives. Whereas Knowing Me Knowing You was more showbiz satire, I’m Alan Partridge has darker tones; Alan emerges more as a figure like John Osborne’s Archie in The Entertainer; or a quietly desperate character from a Ray Davies song. It’s a ‘cringe-comedy’; funny, yet discomfiting (like Curb Your Enthusiasm).

The most recent chapter of the Alan Partridge saga was parlayed via the 12-episode series, Mid Morning Matters (2010-2011), which finds Alan wearily settling for his career as a radio personality at a small market station, hosting a slightly higher profile air shift on “North Norfolk Digital”. Coogan and Iannucci ease up on the pathos that informed I’m Alan Partridge and go for the belly laughs in this series. And the laughs are plentiful, mostly thanks to Alan’s interaction with fellow staff, particularly “Side-kick Simon” (Tim Key) and Alan’s inability to complete one single interview without somehow offending his guests.

Which brings us to the new feature film Alan Partridge (released as Alpha Papa in the UK this past fall). In this outing (directed by Declan Lowney and co-written by Coogan, Iannucci, Peter Baynham and twin brothers Rob and Neil Gibbons) we find Alan (Coogan) still ensconced in the air chair at North Norfolk Digital, with Side-kick Simon (Key) covering his flank. Alan is waging his usual charm offensive, with song outros like “You can keep Jesus Christ. That was Neil Diamond…truly the ‘King of the Jews’!” and challenging his listeners to ponder and weigh in on the big questions like, “What is the worst ‘-monger’? Iron, fish, rumor…or war?”

However, it is not business as usual with upper management, who call Alan into a meeting to inform him North Norfolk Digital is about to be absorbed by a media conglomerate, who want to make some staff cuts. Alan dodges the bullet, but his old pal Pat (Colm Meaney) is not so lucky. The new owners want to pick up younger listeners, and Pat is seen as too stodgy. Pat doesn’t take it so well; he comes back with a gun and takes hostages. Alan becomes the reluctant liaison between Pat and the police in the resulting standoff; hilarity ensues.

I know that may not sound like the setup for a riotous comedy, but it works as such, thanks to the sharp writing, smart direction and deft ensemble work from the cast, right down to the smallest roles. Meaney (a fine actor equally adept at dramatic and comedic roles) plays it fairly straight, lending the film an edge and genuine poignancy at times.

Still, this is ultimately Coogan’s show; he’s inhabited this uniquely weird character over so many years with such commitment that it’s nearly impossible to figure out where Coogan begins and Partridge ends, or vice-versa (not unlike Andy Kaufman and Latka Gravas). But you needn’t ponder that. Your job is to simply sit back and enjoy 90 minutes of laugh therapy…something we could all use.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Road Movie

Swinging 60-ish: On My Way * & Le Week-End *

September 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 12, 2014)

Grandmere du jour: On My Way

So if you have been staying away from theaters because you’re one of those folks who feels the majority of Hollywood product these days is just big, dumb, loud (in 3-D IMAX) and targeting sub-literate 12 year-olds, I have good news for you. Two (count ’em, two) eminently watchable flicks for grownups. Two films featuring fully fleshed out characters over 60…who are neither senile nor terminally ill (!).

(First up). I think smoking is a disgusting habit. But there’s something about a beautiful French woman puffing on a Gitane that makes it seem…how do you say? SoDamSexy. Consider Catherine Deneuve, who maintains her ageless allure even while taking up a chunk of screen time in Emmanuelle Bercot’s On My Way bumming cigarettes, scrounging for money to buy cigarettes, desperately seeking any place that sells cigarettes, and of course, chain-smoking cigarettes.

Deneuve is Bettie, an ex-beauty queen (Miss Brittany 1969!) turned restaurateur, who has actually been on the cigarette wagon, at the encouragement of her cashier (Claude Gensac) who also happens to be her mom. But Bettie is about to fall off the wagon. She has reluctantly inherited her family-owned eatery, which is operating barely above water.

Living with her overly-protective elderly mom further elevates Bettie’s stress level, and now she hears it through the grapevine that her lover has dumped her for someone else (“Some 25 year-old slut,” her mom informs her, unhelpfully adding, “…a beautician.”). Say…anybody got a smoke?

Suddenly overwhelmed by life in general, Bettie impetuously hops into her car Thelma and Louise-style and hits the road, with (as Chuck Berry once sang) no particular place to go. When she calls one of her employees a day or two later to assure everyone that she hasn’t gone missing, she finds out that her estranged daughter Muriel (Camille) has been desperately trying to reach her. Muriel has had a last-minute shot at an internship in Brussels, but can’t find anyone else available to take her precocious son (Nemo Schiffman, real-life son of the director) to his grandfather’s house in the country.

To the surprise of both her daughter and herself, Bettie agrees to do her the solid (despite the awkwardness of barely knowing her grandson and having never even met her daughter’s father-in-law). And so they are off on their adventures through pastoral provincial France.

While Bercot’s script (co-written with Jerome Tonnerre) doesn’t venture too far from the traditional road movie tropes (unexpected detours, episodic meet-ups with quirky characters, etc.) the film is buoyed by her intelligent direction and the ever-radiant Deneuve’s engaging performance. Cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, The Artist) nicely captures the sun-dappled beauty of central France for a pleasing backdrop.

It’s interesting, I finally got around to seeing Alexander Payne’s Nebraska recently; and I found On My Way to be strikingly similar. Both films examine an aging parent and an adult child coming to grips with an estranged relationship.

Granted, Deneuve’s sixty-something character is relatively “younger” and more sound of mind than Bruce Dern’s dementia-suffering octogenarian, but both of these protagonists need to embark on a meandering road trip before ultimately coming home (both literally and figuratively) to the realization that what they were really looking for was tucked away in the bosom of their family all along…unconditional love.

Just another happy couple: Duncan and Broadbent in Le Week-End

Among the Boomers, who are now finding themselves irrevocably “turning into their parents” and thereby forced to commit previously unthinkable acts (e.g., sheepishly flashing an AARP membership card for a senior discount, or maybe going out for dinner at 4pm) those who are married with children arguably face the most dreaded crossroads of all: The Empty Nest Years.

Personally, I wouldn’t know, being a barren bachelor, but you know…this is what I’ve heard. The kids all have moved away, and now here we are, staring at each other across the table thinking: “So…now what do we do for excitement?”

If taking a young lover or a new sports car is off the table, how about a weekend in Paris? That’s what English couple Meg (Lindsay Duncan) and Nick (Jim Broadbent) are banking on to spice things up for their anniversary. That is the setup for Le Week-End, an uneven yet absorbing effort from Notting Hill director Roger Michell and Sammie and Rosie Get Laid screenwriter Hanif Kureishi.

Meg and Nick, both academics, don’t appear overtly affectionate, but they seem comfortable with…whatever “it” is that they do have (like a well-worn yet cozy pair of slippers you won’t toss). However, once they run into an old colleague (Jeff Goldblum, playing the Ugly American to the hilt) and he invites them to a soiree at his upscale Parisian digs (swarming with French hipsters), the facade crumbles.

The film is marketed as a comedy, but Kureishi’s literate screenplay is darker in tone; closer to Harold Pinter or Edward Albee (at times, Nick and Meg are like a benign George and Martha). Still, Paris is gorgeous, Duncan and Broadbent give great performances, no shots are fired…and there isn’t even one car chase.

Adventure, Dramedy, Writers

Quirky lodgings: The Grand Budapest Hotel ***1/2

September 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 15, 2014)

In the interest of upholding my credo to be forthright with my readers (all three of you), I will confess that, with the exception of his engaging 1996 directing debut, Bottle Rocket, and the fitfully amusing Rushmore, I have been somewhat immune to the charms of Wes Anderson. I have also developed a complex of sorts over my apparent inability to comprehend why the phrase “a Wes Anderson film” has become catnip to legions of hipster-garbed fanboys and swooning film critics (even the normally discerning Criterion Collection seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid).

Maybe there’s something wrong with me? Am I like the uptight brother-in-law in Field of Dreams who can’t see the baseball players? Am I wrong to feel that Plan 9 From Outer Space should be supplanted by The Aquatic Life with Steve Zissou as Worst Movie of All Time? To me, “a Wes Anderson film” is the cinematic equivalent to Wonder Bread…bland product, whimsically wrapped.

At the risk of making your head explode, I now have a second confession to make. I kind of enjoyed Anderson’s latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel. A lot. I know, I know, I was just as shocked as you are right now. I can’t adequately explain what happened. The film is not dissimilar to his previous work; in that it is akin to a live action cartoon, drenched in whimsy, expressed in bold primary colors, populated by quirky characters (who would never exist outside of the strange Andersonian universe they live in) caught up in a quirky narrative with quirky twists and turns (I believe the operative word here, is “quirky”). So why did I like it? I cannot really say. My conundrum (if I may paraphrase one of my favorite lines from The Producers) would be this: “Where did he go so right?”

Perhaps it was the casting. Ralph Fiennes is a delight as the central character, Gustave H., a “legendary” concierge at the eponymous establishment, a luxurious mountain resort housed in the mythical eastern European Republic of Zubrowka. His story (the bulk of which takes place between the World Wars) is told in flashback, as recollected decades later to a young writer (Jude Law) by the hotel’s owner, the “mysterious” Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham).

Young Zero (Tony Revolori) was originally hired by Gustave as a lobby boy, but eventually becomes his protege and closest confidante. When rich eccentric Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) a longtime hotel patron who has enjoyed Gustave’s additional “special services” over the years, dies, she leaves her favorite concierge a priceless heirloom painting in her will, much to the chagrin of her greedy heirs, spurred by her unscrupulous son (Adrien Brody). Knowing that Madame D.’s family will never willingly surrender the treasure, Gustave and Zero abscond with it on a whim. Gustave is framed for murder and gets shipped off to prison, but not before striking a pact with the devoted Zero, making him his sole heir.

What ensues is part Arnold Fanck (DP Robert D. Yeoman’s beautiful cinematography cannily emulates the look of the German “mountain films” of the 1930s), part Ernst Lubitsch, and part Herge (in fact, Anderson’s film played closer to a Tintin adventure to me than Spielberg’s actual Adventures of Tintin did). The huge supporting cast is peppered by familiar faces (Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Wilkinson). Saoirse Ronan is a charmer as Zero’s love interest. I still can’t pinpoint where Anderson went so “right” (aside from instilling his story and characters with a hint of emotional resonance for once) but I’d dare say this is the most entertaining film I’ve seen so far this year (stranger things have happened). By the way…when did those ball players get here?

Dramedy, Family Issues

SIFF 2014: Family United **1/2

September 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2014)

The lovely Spanish countryside provides an eye-pleasing backdrop for director Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s audience-pleasing romp. Not that there’s anything wrong with an audience-pleasing romp (I’m not one of those kind of film snobs…am I?). This lively (if somewhat predictable) family dramedy centers on a wedding. The groom is the youngest of five brothers, who have reunited for the event at their father’s country estate (the parents are estranged). Something unexpected happens, postponing the vows. Further complications arise, leading to an acute case of nuptials interruptus. It’s a slight but likable enough mash-up of romantic comedy and telenovela, with a nifty soundtrack.