(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 10, 2019)
Humorist Matt Groening once defined “cinema’s greatest paradox” thusly: “Sex is funny. The French are a funny people. Then why is it that no French sex comedies are funny?”
In my observation, over decades spent sitting in dark auditoriums munching on popcorn while gazing up at flickering images, sex comedies with subtitles have never struck me to be any less funny, nor particularly funnier than…sex comedies without them. It’s a wash.
In other words, Groening had me at “sex is funny.”
In my review of the late French director Eric Rohmer’s 1996 (wait for it) “sex comedy” A Summer’s Tale, I described it as “a movie where the characters spend more screen time dissecting the complexities of male-female relationships than actually experiencing them.” I think that also serves as a good working definition of most French sex comedies.
That is not to say that there are no “good” French sex comedies. Take A Faithful Man (aka “L’homme fidele”). It is very good. And it is very funny. And it is very short. Although it clocks in at 72 minutes, I’m guessing A Faithful Man says more about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness than, say, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw does in 136 minutes. Granted, I haven’t reviewed Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw-but seeing it took in $79,083,205 in its first week, it’ll limp by without my 2 cents.
Fashioning a narrative with the brevity of a fable, writer-director-star Louis Garrel and his veteran co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Belle de Jour, That Obscure Object of Desire, TheUnbearable Lightness of Being, The Return of Martin Guerre, et al) dive right in. In the opening scene, 30-something Parisian Abel (Garrel) gets dumped by his girlfriend Marianne (Laetitia Casta). The double whammy: she tells Abel 1) she is pregnant by his best friend Paul and 2) they’ve set a wedding date.
Abel takes this in with relative calm. Perhaps it’s shock. Perhaps he was expecting this; perhaps not. Perhaps… he’s French. He asks a pragmatic question: this is sudden; may he keep his stuff at the apartment for now? She suggests it would be best if he starts packing.
Marianne marries Abel’s friend Paul. 8 years pass; Paul (we are told) dies unexpectedly.
One thing leads to another, and Abel and Marianne are back together (it’s been an eventful 10 minutes). There are, of course, complications this time around. There is Marianne’s son Joseph (Joseph Engel), now a precocious 8-year old not quite ready to give Abel his stamp of approval. And there is the departed Paul’s little sister Eve (Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp), now a comely child-woman who (it turns out) has been infatuated with Abel since she was knee-high to a sauterelle.
It’s a messy love triangle that would make Eric Rohmer proud. What ensues recalls Hannah and Her Sisters (especially in how characters provide first person exposition via voice-over) with a touch of Dangerous Liaisons (interestingly, co-writer Carrière’s screenwriting credits include Valmont, the 1989 adaptation from the same source novel).
Despite obvious influences, Garrel’s film is original, inventive and engaging. Casta and Depp are charming and charismatic, and Garrel’s performance as a malleable pushover perpetually confounded by the mysteries of amour reminded me of Francois Truffaut muse Jean-Pierre Léaud’s recurring “Antoine Doinel” character (particularly in Love on the Run). Cinematographer Irina Lubtchansky makes good use of the lovely Paris locales.
In a movie season I’ve been known to label “big, dumb and loud”, A Faithful Man could be that romantic late-summer getaway that the adults have been craving at the multiplex.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 25, 2019)
Maybe it’s coincidence, but what with the popularity of the HBO series Barry and this new black comedy from Belgian-American writer-director Nicole Palo, it appears acting class satires with dark undercurrents are now a thing.
As she careens toward her 35th birthday, wannabe thespian Emma (Monia Chakri, in a winning performance) decides that she’s had it with failed auditions and slogging through a humiliating day job. She’s convinced herself that 35 is the “expiry” date for actresses anyway. So, she prepares for a major change…into the afterlife.
Unexpectedly lightened by her decision, she cheerfully begins to check off her bucket list, giving away possessions, and making her own funeral arrangements. However, when she develops an unforeseen relationship with a lonely young funeral director, her future is uncertain, and the end may not be near. A funny-sad romantic romp in the vein of Harold and Maude.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 13, 2019)
Do you like poetry? Do you like song mashups? Here’s an interesting mashup for you:
And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll,
I never realized the lengths I’d have to go All the darkest corners of a sense I didn’t know
As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here –
Just for one moment – Hearing someone call Looked beyond the day in hand There’s nothing there at all
Two of those verses are taken from a poem by Emily Dickinson (circa 1861). The other two verses are lyrics from a Joy Division song (circa 1980). Can you tell which is which?
Well…if you are more cultured than I (which is highly likely) or know anything about poetry (which would be more than I know) it’s plain as the nose on your face that verses 1 and 3 are from a 19th-Century poem, and verses 2 and 4 come from a 20th-Century song.
I made this association while conducting extensive background research for my review of Madeline Olnek’s Wild Nights With Emily(OK, I Googled “Emily Dickinson poems”, and that was one of the first search results. Happy now?). I was struck by Ms. Dickinson’s magnificently dark and timeless…Goth-iness. I mean “Wrecked, solitary, here”? I could totally hear (the wrecked, solitary, and late) Ian Curtis crooning the words.
Who was this intriguing woman of letters who toiled in relative obscurity for the 55 years she strolled the planet (1830-1886), seeing only a dozen or so of her 1,800 poems published during her life, but is now revered and studied and mentioned in the same breath as Whitman, Frost and Eliot? Was she really (as legend has it) the brooding, agoraphobic spinster who wears a Mona Lisa expression in that lone Daguerreotype portrait-or did she feel life was a banquet, and most poor suckers were starving to death?
Luckily for those of us who flee in terror at the prospect of sitting through a scholarly cinematic treatise soaking in the mannered trappings of a genre that a longtime friend of mine dismisses with a snort as “hat movies”, Olnek concocts kind of a mashup herself by mixing material from Dickinson’s poems and private letters with a touch of spirited speculation regarding details of her private life (think of it as well-researched fan fiction).
This lighter tone is assured by casting SNL veteran and comic actor Molly Shannon, who tackles the lead role with much aplomb. Her performance suggests an Emily Dickinson who indeed may have spent most of her adult life house-bound and somewhat socially isolated, but perhaps not so completely bereft of passion and joy as historically portrayed.
Most of that passion and joy manifests itself in the scenes depicting Emily’s longtime “close friendship” with her sister-in-law Susan (Susan Ziegler), the woman who some biographers and historians have theorized to be the key romantic figure in Dickinson’s life; confidant, mentor, muse, and (assumed) secret lover. This is complicated by the fact they live next door to each other (at least in the film), adding door-slamming “Oh no! Your husband/my brother is home early-get dressed!” bedroom farce to the proceedings.
There are echoes of Comedy Central’s costume drama parody Another Period throughout, exacerbated by an appearance from Brett Gelman-one of that show’s more recognizable cast members. Gelman does a nice turn as Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an early advocate of women’s rights and prominent staff member of The Atlantic Monthly who was a mentor (of sorts) to Dickinson (oddly, even though they formed a long friendship and exchanged many letters-he never pushed her hard to get published while she was still alive; but he did co-edit the first two posthumous collections of her poems).
Another key figure in Emily’s orbit is Mabel Loomis Todd (well-played by Amy Seimetz). Mabel is an interesting character; the de facto heavy of the piece, she also serves as the film’s narrator. Mabel Todd was the longtime mistress of Emily’s brother Austin (Kevin Seal), who (if you’ve been paying attention) was married to Susan, Emily’s longtime secret lover. Todd was also an editor and writer, who ended up co-editing the aforementioned posthumous collections of Dickinson’s poems with Thomas Higginson (which is a bit weird considering that Emily and Mabel never met in person).
This is about as far from an Oscar-baiting prestige biopic one can get, but as movies about writers and poets are a hard-sell to begin with (not enough explosions, car chases, CGI characters or Marvel superheroes to capture the general movie-going public’s attention) Olnek made a wise choice to think outside the box. Wild Nights with Emily may not be the flashiest film in theaters now, but it’s the only one with poetry in its soul.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 9, 2019)
Albert Finney died yesterday, and more people should have cared. I almost missed it myself, which is odd considering how much time I fritter and waste in an offhand way online these days. It didn’t even trend on Twitter, for fuck’s sake. No, I learned of his passing the old-fashioned way: a perfunctory mention on a nightly network TV newscast.
A file photo of Finney popped up (rarely a good sign), and the blow-dried anchor mustered all the teleprompter-fed solemnity extant in his soul to sadly inform me that “the actor who played Daddy Warbucks in the movie version of Annie has died” before moving on to “a video you have got to see”. The actor who played Daddy Warbucks in the film version of Annie? Really? That’s all you got? I wouldn’t call that his most memorable performance; I wouldn’t even consider Annie to be a particularly good movie.
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre-trained Finney’s film career spanned over 50 years, and in the course of that time he proved over and over that he had chops to spare for both drama and comedy. Innately charismatic onscreen, he could effortlessly hold your attention as the dashing leading man, or just as easily embed himself into a character role.
Finney never strayed too far from his working-class roots in his off-screen demeanor. He shunned interviews and the trappings of stardom; he was all about the work. He declined the offer of a CBE (as well as a knighthood) and once compared an actor’s job to that of a bricklayer. So let’s get to work here, shall we? My picks for Finney’s top 10 film roles…
The Dresser– Peter Yates directed this tale of a fiercely devoted “dresser” (Tom Courtenay) who tends to the mercurial lead player (Finney) of a traveling company’s production of King Lear.
The story is set against the backdrop of London during the blitz, but it’s a tossup as to who is producing more Sturm and Drang…the German bombers, the raging king, or the backstage terror who portrays him and is to be addressed by all as “Sir”. Courtenay and Finney deliver brilliant performances. Ronald Harwood adapted the script from his own play. In the most memorable scene, Sir literally halts a locomotive in its tracks at a noisy railway station with his commanding bellow to “STOP. That. Train!”
Gumshoe– This relatively obscure U.K. gem from 1971 was produced by Finney and marked the feature film directing debut for Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Prick Up Your Ears, The Grifters, High Fidelity, et. al.). Finney is wonderful as an emcee who works in a seedy Liverpool nightclub and models himself after Philip Marlowe. He decides to indulge his long-time fantasy of becoming a private detective by placing a newspaper ad offering his services-and gets more than he bargains for with his first case.
Screenwriter Neville Smith’s clever dialog is infused with just enough shadings of Chandler and Hammet to deflect suspicion of plagiarism (and Finney thankfully doesn’t overdo his Bogey impression-which isn’t half-bad). Nice supporting turn from Billie Whitelaw, and Frears’ use of the gritty Liverpool milieu lends an appropriate “noir” vibe.
Miller’s Crossing-This 1990 gangster flick could only come from the unique mind-meld of Joel and Ethan Coen (with shades of Dasheill Hammet). Finney is excellent as an Irish mob boss engaging in a power struggle with the local Italian mob during the Prohibition era. Gabriel Byrne (the central character of the film) portrays his advisor, who attempts to broker peace.
You do have to pay attention in order to keep up with the constantly shifting alliances and betrayals and such; but as with most Coen Brothers movies, if you lose track of the narrative you always have plenty of great supporting performances (particularly from Marcia Gay Harden and John Torturro) , stylish flourishes, and mordant humor to chew on until you catch up again.
Orphans– There is sometimes a fine line between “intense drama” and “overcooked ham”, and while I will admit that this 1987 Alan J. Pakula adaptation of Lyle Kessler’s stage play toddles dangerously close to that line, it is still well worth your time.
Matthew Modine and Kevin Anderson are two fringe-dwelling brothers who live on their own in a decrepit house. Finney is a low-rent Chicago gangster who gets blotto at a New Jersey bar, and upon waking up discovers he’s been “kidnapped” by Modine, who has a hold over his brother reminiscent of the dynamic between the sisters in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The story becomes even stranger when Finney decides then and there to move in and impose himself as a father figure. It’s a bit ‘stagey’, but the acting is superb.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning– This 1960 Karel Reisz drama gave the 24-year-old Finney his first major starring role and is one of the seminal entries of the “British New Wave” film movement. Finney delivers an explosive Brando-esque performance as a womanizing young man stuck in a dreary factory job. Allen Sillitoe adapted the screenplay from his own novel. A gritty slice of life steeped in “kitchen sink” realism.
Shoot the Moon– Be forewarned: Alan Parker’s 1982 drama about the deterioration of a marriage pulls no punches (it is right out as a “date night” movie). Finney co-stars with Diane Keaton as a couple with four kids whose marriage is about to go kaput. As in Kramer vs. Kramer, the film essentially opens with the split, and then focuses on the immediate emotional aftershocks and its profound impact on all family members.
Absolutely heartbreaking, but beautifully acted by a skilled cast that includes Karen Allen, Peter Weller, and Dana Hill. Bo Goldman scripted, and Michael Seresin’s cinematography is lovely (the Marin County environs almost becomes a character itself).
Tom Jones– The film that made Finney an international star, Tony Richardson’s 1963 romantic comedy-drama is based on the Henry Fielding novel about the eponymous character’s amorous exploits in 18th-Century England.
Tom (Finney) is raised as the bastard son of a prosperous squire. He is a bit on the rakish side, but wholly lovable and possesses a good heart. It’s the “lovable” part that gets him in trouble time and again, and fate and circumstance put young Tom on the road, where various duplicitous parties await to prey upon his naivety. Will he triumph? Of course, he will…the entertainment lies in how he gets there.
John Osborne adapted the Oscar-winning script; the film also won for Best Picture, Director, and Music Score (Finney was nominated for Best Actor).
Two For the Road– Stanley Donen’s 1967 dramedy is a cinematic soufflé…folding in two generous scoops of Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, seasoned with Frederick Raphael’s sophisticated script, a dash of colorful European locales, and topped by one cherry of a Henry Mancini score.
Donen follows the travails of a married couple over the years of their relationship, by constructing a series of non-linear flashbacks and flash-forwards (a structural device that has been utilized since by other filmmakers, but rarely as effectively). While there are a lot of laughs, Two For the Road is, at its heart, a thoughtful meditation on the nature of love and true commitment. Finney and Hepburn (both at the peak of their sex appeal) exude an electric on-screen chemistry.
Under the Volcano– John Huston’s masterful 1984 adaptation of Michael Lowry’s novel stars Finney as a self-destructive British consul stationed in Mexico on the eve of WW2. The story tracks the consul on the last day of his life, as it unfolds during Dia de Muertos celebrations (the irony is strong in this tale). Very dark and steeped in dread. Superb performances all round from a cast that includes Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Andrews and Katy Jurado. Guy Gallo wrote the script. My favorite Finney performance.
Wolfen– This 1981 supernatural thriller from director Michael Wadleigh generated mixed reviews, but I think it has held up rather well. Sort of a thinking person’s horror film, it follows a NYPD homicide detective (Finney) and his partner (Gregory Hines) as they investigate a series of grisly murders. The victims’ wounds indicate something much akin to a wild animal attack. Add elements of ancient Native American legends regarding “shapeshifters” and things get…interesting. Granted, some of the early 80s visual effects haven’t aged well, but overall Wolfen is a smart, absorbing, and genuinely creepy chiller.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 15, 2018)
Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema – Criterion Collection Blu-ray (Box Set)
One of my favorite exchanges from Barry Levinson’s infinitely quotable 1981 film Diner occurs between two friends sitting in a theater watching the Ingmar Bergman classic The Seventh Seal:
Edward ‘Eddie’ Simmons: Who’s that?
William ‘Billy’ Howard: That’s ‘Death’ walking on the beach.
.Edward ‘Eddie’ Simmons: I’ve been to Atlantic City a hundred times. I never saw Death walking on the beach.
Speaking for myself, I saw Death walking on the beach just the other day, in a restored 4K print. It’s one of the 39 films included in Criterion’s exhaustive, bicep-building box set. I have previously seen approximately half of the films in this collection; several I have never even heard of (18 of these titles have never before been released by Criterion).
My plan of attack is to watch the films in chronological order of original release dates. OK, full disclosure: I watched the first two (neither of which I had previously seen, from the late 1940s) but then cheated by skipping ahead to The Seventh Seal (couldn’t wait to see the restored version). So…36 to go (is mid-winter a bad time of year to plow through a box full of Bergman films? Discuss). From what I’ve seen so far, the prints are gorgeous.
Extras. Where to start? There are 5 hours of interviews with Bergman and some key collaborators. There are 2 rare documentary shorts by the director, extensive programs about Bergman’s work, “making of” featurettes, video essays by critics and film scholars, a 248-page hardbound book…everything short of a collectable Death action figure. Discs are mounted in numbered slots on cardboard flip-through “pages” (kind of like an oversized coin collection) and curated as a “film festival”. Of course, you can watch them in any order that you wish (especially at this price). A treasure trove for art house fans!
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 23, 2018)
In one scene from Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In, several people take a country stroll. One of them stops and says, “What fascinates me is that this landscape is…nothing. Shapes, colors, a sunbeam. Yet it becomes part of us, and does us good. It’s totally intact. It’s rare. Nature that looks like nature.”
That may sound like dime store profundity, but if you apply the same observation to acting, it gains depth. After all, the best actors are…nothing; a blank canvas. But give them a character (shapes and colors) and some proper lighting (a sunbeam), and they will give back something that becomes part of us, and does us good: a reflection of our own shared humanity. Nature that looks like nature.
Consider Julilette Binoche, an actor of such subtlety and depth that she could infuse a cold reading of McDonald’s $1 $2 $3 menu with the existential ennui of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 123. Binoche is not required to recite any sonnets in this film (co-written by the director and Christine Angot), but her character does speak copiously about love; love in all its guises: erotic, affectionate, familiar, playful, obsessive, enduring, self, and selfless.
She also makes a lot of love (I don’t judge. I merely observe and report). Her character, a Parisian painter named Isabelle, is a divorcee on the rebound. She’s looking for love in all the usual places, yet not settling for any one suitor. She’s pretty sure she knows what she wants, but she’s not 100% sure she really needs it (or has at least been around the block enough times to remain wary). That said, an inordinate number of her lovers happen to be married; and we know that scenario frequently ends in tears. So-what gives?
You may think you know how this is all going to turn out, but Denis’ film, like love itself, is at once seductive and flighty. It’s also quite amusing at times; with a casual eroticism that reminded me of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1986 film Betty Blue. Granted, Isabelle isn’t quite as off the rails as poor Betty, but she has issues (perhaps she is closer to Cate Blanchett’s character in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine).
There is even an echo of Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge in an extraordinary (and unexpected) denouement featuring Gerard Depardieu (I won’t spoil it for you). One thing I will tell you is that you won’t be able to take your eyes off Binoche; she gives it her all in a bravura performance.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 19, 2018)
I’ll confess, I go into any film labelled as a “mumblecore slacker comedy” with a bit of “old man yelling at whiny millennials to get off his lawn” trepidation, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had watching writer-director Lucy Coleman’s, uh, mumblecore slacker comedy from Down Under.
Comedian-playwright Sarah Gaul is endearing as a 25 year-old budding playwright and college dropout who suffers from a perennial lack of focus, both in her artistic and amorous pursuits. For example, she expends an inordinate amount of her creative juice composing songs about Toxic Shock Syndrome. She becomes obsessed with a divorced guy who seems “nice” but treats her with increasing indifference once they’ve slept together. And so on. The narrative is…lax, and the film meanders, but there are a lot of belly laughs. Stay with those closing credits, or you’ll miss “The Tampon Song” (I couldn’t breathe).
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 9, 2017)
Lost in America– Criterion Collection Blu-ray
Released at the height of Reaganomics, this 1985 gem can now be viewed in hindsight as a spot-on satirical smack down of the Yuppie cosmology that shaped the Decade of Greed. Director/co-writer Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty portray a 30-something, upwardly mobile couple who quit their high-paying jobs, liquidate their assets, buy a Winnebago, and hit the road with a “nest egg” of $145,000 to find themselves. Their goals are nebulous (“we’ll touch Indians”).
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, the “egg” is soon off the table, and the couple find themselves on the wrong end of “trickle down”, to Brooks’ chagrin. Like most Brooks films, it is as painfully funny as it is to watch it (I consider him the founding father of the Larry David/Ricky Gervais school of “cringe comedy”). Criterion’s extras are skimpy, but the 2K restoration is fabulous.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 29, 2017)
Why are New Yorkers always screaming at each other? Is it in order to be heard above the constant din of traffic, sirens, and subway brakes? Maybe there really is something in the water (that same “whatsit” in NYC tap water that makes the bagels taste so…intense).
There’s even more screaming than usual in the latest NYC-based film, Landline. That’s because director/co-writer Gillian Robespierre (Obvious Child) sets her tale of two sisters in the mid-1990s, a not-so-bygone era when humans were still experiencing “face time” with each other (now the only time people turn off their goddam personal devices is when they pay $15 to sit in the dark-and watch characters in a film text each other for 2 hours).
Not that there is anything wrong with a dialog-driven film…and every character in Landline has plenty to say, particularly the two sisters I mentioned earlier. Dana (Jenny Slate) is the older of the siblings. She’s recently become engaged to her live-in boyfriend Ben (Jay Duplass), who is a bit of a milquetoast in contrast with his quirky, bubbly fiancée. That could explain why Dana seems to be vacillating about this big commitment.
Something else has been weighing on Dana’s mind…she suspects that her father (John Turturro) has been carrying on a longtime affair. When she confides this to her sullen teenage sister Ali (Abby Quinn), the previously estranged pair now find themselves bonding as they team up to dig deeper. The trickiest part is how to carry on sleuthing without sending up red flags to their mom (Edie Falco).
Lots of family angst (and yes, screaming) ensues. Fortunately, there are laughs as well. That said, you do have to wade waist-deep in neurotic New Yorker whingeing for 90 minutes to net the choicest zingers (which average about once every five minutes or so).
Frankly, what keeps this derivative mashup of Hannah and Her Sisters and a glorified episode of HBO’s Girls afloat is an appealing cast. The always-reliable Turturro and Falco do that voodoo that they do so well, and Slate and Quinn hold their own against the seasoned players. Slate, in particular is a young actor I’d love to see more of; she has a naturally goofy charm that is hard to resist. She’s like the lovechild of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. For all I know…she is.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 3, 2017)
This oddity from Russian writer-director Ivan Tverdosky answers the question: What would happen if David Cronenberg directed a film with a script by Lena Dunham? A middle-aged, socially phobic woman who lives with her mother and works in a zoo administration office, appears to be at her happiest when she’s hanging out with the animals who are housed there. That’s because her supervisor and co-workers cruelly belittle her, on a daily basis. But when a doctor’s exam reveals a tail growing from the base of her spine, she is overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of empowerment and begins to gain confidence, perhaps even a sense of defiance about her “otherness”. This does not go unnoticed by a strapping young x-ray tech, who becomes hopelessly smitten as this ugly duckling turns into a beautiful swan…a beautiful swan with a freakishly long tensile tail.
