Archive for Movies & TV

Monday Movie Review: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

June 15, 2009 / / Comments Off on Monday Movie Review: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) 8/10
A group of hijackers led by Ryder (John Travolta), take a subway car hostage and demand ten million dollars for their release. On the other side of the microphone is transit dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), struggling to keep the situation from becoming deadly. Directed by Tony Scott.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 opens like a fast shot of whiskey, all quick cutting and smart story-telling and brutal music. The situation is introduced with economy and enthusiasm; HERE is the MTA and HERE is the subway being boarded and HERE are the hijackers.

In general, the pace remains excellent, moving briskly, telling the story clearly, letting us breathe and laugh when we need to, but then pushing us right back under water. Pelham 1 2 3 shares with the original movie a gritty, unadorned feel for New York City, and a cast of real characters without any prettiness or Botox in sight. The on-location feel isn’t a gratuitous show of cleverness, it’s fully integrated into the film. This story needs these streets; it is particular and specific about subways, motormen, old tunnels, new technology, and rats.

The story takes us a little into Garber’s life, a little into meeting the mayor (James Gandolfini, reminding me why I love him), and a lot into Ryder, who is angry, maybe crazy, and definitely dangerous. Ryder is the real thing: A bad guy all the way. Not for one moment is the audience led to sympathize with him or believe that he is cool. As he says so very often in the R-rated film, he is a motherfucker. And I appreciate the actors and script and director for keeping him bad, because I don’t think the alternative is “misunderstood,” in general, the alternative tends to be “cool” or “gangsta.” And really, this crime is just too nasty to be treated like outlaw chic.

Tony Scott is a journeyman director; he does good work and is not in the business of making masterpieces. Like every movie of his that I’ve seen, this one is flawed. There are moments that are too corny, close-ups that over-emphasize points that could have been delicately revealed, and an overall heavy-handedness. But I am quibbling. Pelham 1 2 3 works, it is exactly what it’s meant to be: A thrill-ride crime story that races like an out-of-control subway.

The acting is, well hello, did you see the cast? There was a small moment when I realized how good Travolta was, and a funny moment when I realized how deft Gandolfini was, and then I realized I never had a thought like that about Denzel, because Denzel is so good, you never see him acting. Not for one moment. And by the way, John Turturro and Luis Guzmán are in this movie too, and when those guys are “by the way,” well, that’s quite a cast. Did I mention any women? No. That’s because there aren’t any. Some hostages, a conductor who leaves early on, Garber’s wife for the duration of a phone call, I think a cop ina background shot, and that’s it. I really enjoyed this movie, but I am sick of that shit.

Monday Movie Review: Last Chance Harvey

June 8, 2009 / / 2 comments

Last Chance Harvey (2008) 5/10
Sad, awkward Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) travels to London for his daughter’s wedding. He meets lonely, nervous Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) and they strike up a tentative romance.

I had high hopes for this one. Quirky independent romances appeal to me. It had some awards buzz. It has a good cast and I’m drawn to the idea of showing romance between people who aren’t 22 and perfect. Alas.

I am often struck by the observer effect as it relates to movie reviews. We do like to pretend that reviews can be objective, that there is a “good movie” and a “bad movie” on some absolute scale of Movieness that exists in some corner of the universe. Yet a review is written by a person who was in a mood of some sort during the time of viewing. That reviewer has life experience brought to the film (Ebert, for instance, hated Marilyn Hotchkiss because he hated ballroom dance lessons and could not imagine wanting to return there). In addition, there are the vagaries of viewing circumstances.

For the current movie, I confess that Arthur and I had a big fight over whether or not we would watch it, and I insisted, because DAMMIT I just wanted to return it to Netflix already. And within ten minutes he’d walked out of the room to leave me to watch it alone. So maybe I would have liked Last Chance Harvey better under better conditions—who can say?

Old movies often rely on a man meeting a woman and then, let’s face it, stalking her. This is why a movie like The Gay Divorcee can be uncomfortable to watch nowadays. Newer movies don’t cotton so much to stalking and so rely on Meet Cute. But Last Chance Harvey is more in the stalker mold. Harvey is small and mild and not scary, and checks in often with Kate to make sure he hasn’t pushed too far, yet push he does, and it doesn’t feel good to me.

The delicate, tentative connection that Kate and Harvey have is nice, but it doesn’t seem like all that much, and certainly not enough to inspire the kind of transformation we know these characters need, and we know (being an audience who has seen romances before) the film will deliver.

There is a profoundly moving moment at Harvey’s daughter’s wedding. I totally had to pause the film and wash the runny makeup off my face. But what led us there? It seems the simple act of having anyone to talk to allowed Harvey to step out of his shell and speak truthfully to his daughter. But he seems, I dunno, friendly. Surely he talks to other people?

Dustin Hoffman is good but not wonderful. Emma Thompson, on the other hand, is glorious. She is rich with feeling and really grounded; present in her body in a way that is always full and real and engaging.

Still, the romance is slight and not all that much to build a movie around. I mean, really?

Parenthetically, it is an odd comment on movie assumptions that Emma Thompson, 50, feels like an appropriate age mate for Dustin Hoffman, 72. They do briefly mention that he’s kind of old, but I suppose it’s so refreshing that she is less than 30 years younger than him, unlike, say, Harrison Ford’s leading ladies. Whatever.

Monday Movie Review: The Anderson Tapes

June 1, 2009 / / 2 comments

The Anderson Tapes (1971) 7/10
Duke Anderson (Sean Connery), released from prison after serving ten years for safecracking, plans the intricate heist of the entire luxury apartment building he lives in with his girlfriend, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon). Directed by Sidney Lumet.

Anderson is angry at the world, but he loves robbery. He describes it in sexual terms, admitting frankly he’s aroused by it. Immediately upon being released from prison he is ready to put together the next job. On his crew are Haskins (Martin Balsam), a flamboyantly gay interior designer, “The Kid” (Christopher Walken, in an “and Introducing” role), who is an electronics expert, and Spencer (Dick Anthony Williams), the coolest driver in Harlem.

Anderson is also being taped. To be specific, everyone Anderson encounters is being taped; Ingrid’s apartment is bugged by a private detective who is bribing the building doorman, Spencer is being watched because he lives above Black Panther headquarters, and the mobster (Alan King) to whom Anderson goes for financing is being investigated by multiple sources.

There’s a lot going on here. The paranoia about a society that watches and tapes everyone and everything, all of us filming and spying on each other, was very new and fresh in 1971, and it’s filmed with that sense of newness. Anderson has been in jail for ten years, so it’s all an unknown to him; it didn’t exist in 1961. Quincy Jones‘s score highlights moments of surveillance with electronic sound effects that are like warnings and alarms. As dated as it is, it still succeeds in conveying a sense of overwhelm at the amount of electronic data being gathered.

At the same time, there’s an amusing and quirky cast who behave in a naturalistic way. There’s a late scene where someone has to use a rope to scale a ledge; it’s done awkwardly and without heroic grace. There’s a guttural quality to the sexuality, and a pleasant sloppiness in the way people talk and move.

Let’s pause for politics: We fail the Bechdel test badly in terms of major characters: Only one woman, and she’s a whore. We pass on a technicality; two elderly women live together in the building (this was Margaret Hamilton‘s last film appearance). The attitude towards women is pretty negative. There’s also the gay thing. There are two gay designers in this movie, both constantly and casually referred to as “fag” by several characters (but not by their friends). And these men are both insanely stereotyped in their queeny clothes and gestures and, well, everything. I know people can easily say this is homophobic. But there’s something delightful to me about it; so few movies of that era showed gays at all, or identified them directly as gay, or liked them as characters (and we definitely like Balsam). It strikes me as real; that yes, there are gay people, and yes, they will be called fags, and yes, they might be campy. It’s also homophobic in that, of course, they are only campy and only stereotypes, but for 1971 I’m giving it a hurrah. (It’s pretty much consistent Dog Day Afternoon (1975), a brilliant movie with a frank but problematic portrayal of gay characters).

On the whole, the heist and small character stuff works better than the efforts at meaning and deeper stuff, but the movie is richly entertaining and wonderfully gritty. I love New York City locations in the 1970s, I love heists, and Chris Walken, by the way, at the age of 28, looked like a god.

Monday Movie Review: Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School

May 25, 2009 / / 2 comments

Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2005) 9/10
On an isolated road, Frank (Robert Carlyle) comes across a devastating car accident. He calls 911 and waits with Steve (John Goodman). Since the dispatcher told him to keep the victim talking, Frank learns that Steve was on his way to the Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School for a fated meeting.

When I first saw an ad for this movie, it looked interesting. Then I saw terrible reviews: 22% on RottenTomatoes, 2 stars from Ebert, and I passed.

Well, the other night Arthur and I saw a preview for it, and it just looked so charming, so I took a chance, and my oh my I’m glad I did.

The movie follows three paths; Frank and Steve by the roadside, and then in the ambulance, Steve’s childhood, during which he attended the titular school, and Frank’s life following his encounter with Steve. The tone is poignant, sad, wistful, and fantastical. There’s something of the fable in this story, something as if Frank has gone down the rabbit hole, and the Red Queen is Marilyn’s daughter (Mary Steenburgen), still teaching dance as if forty years had not passed since Steve’s fond memories of his childhood.

Steve wants to meet the girl he loved when he was twelve years old; the girl he promised to meet at the dance school on this day. Certain of the rightness of this reunion, he crashes on the way, and presses his ticket onto Frank to go in his stead, and tell Lisa he tried to make it. Everyone in this story lives atop a terrible pain; Steve alludes to a dark choice made long ago, Frank attends a widower’s therapy group where no one seems to be getting much better, Miss Hotchkiss’s daughter pretends her mother had not been dead for thirty years, and on and on.

In this fable, everyone can either carry a burden or put it down. Everyone can change or stay the same, and dance is the means by which they will discover what to choose. It is tender and sentimental, but not corny, and it is populated by wonderful characters: Meredith (Marisa Tomei), her lunatic companion Randall (Donnie Wahlberg), Gabe (Adam Arkin) who is full of anger at his late wife, and really, a host of familiar character actors who make the action light and funny and charming.

Some movies are fables. They are not meant to be closely examined for what really would have happened. They are magical tales, and the qualities of a musical (although this really isn’t a musical) are there to clue you into the fantastical elements, so that you won’t be too bound up by the need for veracity. Still, some people are going to hate that sort of thing. I’m not one of them.

The original 1990 short film, concerned only with the school as it was in 1962, is included on the DVD.

Apparently, “Murder She Wrote” is a meme

May 18, 2009 / / 2 comments

…as in a language meme, not a survey on MySpace.

Because the other day, a friend referred to Castle as “Murder He Wrote.” HA!

And here’s an interview with Joss Whedon about Dollhouse:

The last few episodes we got to play “the man behind the curtain” a lot. We did less of, “And this week, she’s a neurosurgeon!” Which we’ll still do to an extent, it’s part of the fun. But we got into what makes the place tick, what makes it wrong. It was less, “Murder She Was Imprinted to Write.”

Priceless quote, pure Whedon. Except that’s twice in two weeks for me, and that’s weird.

Monday Movie Review: Mozart and the Whale

May 18, 2009 / / 4 comments

Mozart and the Whale (2005) 10/10
Donald (Josh Hartnett) has Asperger’s Syndrome. He runs a group for other people with Asperger’s, austism, and other socially-isolating disorders. When Isabelle (Radha Mitchell) joins the group, a tentative romance begins.

I see a fair number of movies. And most of them are good, because I’m picky and I read reviews and I have no taste for “so bad it’s good.” I see many movies I like, admire, and recommend. But I don’t fall in love all that often. I don’t often say, “Oh, my,” with stars in my eyes after seeing a movie, and that’s what happened with Mozart and the Whale.

So I saw this movie with my son, and he has Asperger’s, and that kind of colors everything, doesn’t it? I mean, I rearranged my Netflix when he came home from college so that there were movies we would want to see together. But this could all have backfired. Because Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a part of Asperger’s, not getting it right can be painful, and any sense of humor about sensitive subjects is right out, and overall, I was fully prepared for him to run out of the room. (As an aside, the movie opens with the unusual disclaimer, “This movie is a work of fiction based on a true story.” Most movies use a shorter “based on a true story” statement, and I am 100% certain that the longer version was needed to appease the OCD of Aspies being depicted.)

So where was I? Right, run screaming. He didn’t. He loved it. It may be his new favorite movie (except he has a whole OCD thing about calling things his favorite). He declared Isabelle “my perfect woman.” He related to the characters, who were not cute or pretty or comic relief fodder or disgusting or charming or inspiring or heroic or any of the other things that we expect to happen to real people when they become movie characters. In fact, the only way Donald and Isabelle were movied-up is that they were played by breathtakingly pretty people.

The whole thing works. The supporting cast (including Rusty Schwimmer, Gary Cole, and John Carroll Lynch) do the job. The filming is understated and warm. The cinematography and set decoration work to convey these people and how they place themselves in the world. The love story is unbelievably touching. And the sum total is that you feel enriched just to have watched it. Just to have been there, witnessing the act of loneliness being eased by love.

Just see it, ‘kay?

Monday Movie Review: I Married a Monster from Outer Space

May 11, 2009 / / Comments Off on Monday Movie Review: I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) 7/10
On the eve of his wedding, Bill Farrell’s body (Tom Tryon) is taken over by an alien. Marge Farrell (Gloria Talbott) quickly realizes she is married to a stranger, and gradually is able to confirm her fears, but how to get others to believe her?

I absolutely watched I Married a Monster from Outer Space for the giggles, and ended up impressed by its subtlety. It doesn’t deserve its campy title.

In the opening moments, Bill is overtaken and the cheesy alien costume and special effects are revealed: No Cat People here! Instead, the horror is personal and romantic. The young newlywed was so in love, but this man is not loving; her life is isolated and hellish, but not in a way she can explain. Meanwhile, cold, unfeeling aliens take over this small town. When we see that cops are among the aliens we know that help will be hard to find.

There is a surprising amount of sexual and social subtext in this film. Long before we learn that the aliens have breeding as a goal, there are long camera pans to one or the other of the Farrells going upstairs to bed, there are hookers and party girls trying to gain interest from both normal men and aliens, and finally, there is a visit to the family doctor; Marge is concerned about her fertility. Which means, yes indeed, that she is having sex with the unfeeling stranger who terrifies her; enough sex to expect that she’d be pregnant by now. That’s creepy.

The whole thing is put together with subtlety and intelligence, although there are also gaps and missed opportunities in the narrative. Certainly this is not Invasion of the Body Snatchers; despite a very similar theme, it lacks the power of a true classic. But it is thoughtful, and tense, and has all sorts of lovely grace notes. Music is one: Most B movies tend to abuse music in a way that may well violate the law; this movie hits the right balance of expression without hammering a point home. The ending was satisfying and exciting, and not at all what I expected.

There’s also an enormous amount of sexual politics that the writer never intended. It’s just there, like the classic fifties cars. Aliens only overtake male bodies. Ultimately, we learn the aliens themselves are all male, but why does that matter? Our human, oxygen breathing lungs are no problem for the methane-breathing aliens, why should it matter whether or not they overtake bodies with penises? It’s simply the writers who cannot visualize a male in a female body, even a tentacled, glowy male. Similarly, if only male bodies are being overtaken, why not rally the women to fight back, rather than risk approaching men who may or may not be compromised? It never occurs to anyone in the film. How could it? Women are helpless creatures good only for love and sex, both the human and alien males agree on that.

Am I underestimating screenwriter Louis Vittes? Is the gender role thing there on purpose? I doubt it; surely a moment of dialogue would have been dedicated to it if it was really a part of the theme. Yet it is one of the films most fascinating components.

Monday Movie Review: Son of Rambow

May 4, 2009 / / 3 comments

Son of Rambow (2007) 8/10
In 1982, two boys become friends. Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) is deeply imaginative, lonely, and forbidden to watch TV by his strict religious family. Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is a troublemaker, frequently punished in school. With Lee’s movie camera and Will’s script, they set out to make “Son of Rambow” in order to win a young filmmakers contest.

There should be room for little movies. Son of Rambow will not change your life, or the world, or filmmaking. It is not, by and large, extraordinary. It is the very definition of a “small” movie. Its budget appears low, its stars are unknown, and its concerns are the delicate moments in young lives. It’s almost hard to figure out how to review it. It’s just this lovely little movie, so what is one to say?

It’s 1982. Will’s father is dead. He carries a journal with him everywhere; richly illustrated, it is an adventure tale with monsters and heroes and a father being rescued. He has never seen television or a movie, but he is busily creating them in his journal. He is incredibly sheltered and innocent, but his geekiness is not overdone. It’s enough to know that he’s absorbed in his own book. There are no scenes of him being teased or ostracized, but it’s pretty clear that he has no crowd, no friends, no life outside his inner creation. When Will visits Lee’s home for the first time, he sees his first movie: First Blood (the first Rambo movie, which Lee is making pirate copies of), and he’s stunned. He’s simply floored; adventure, heroics, explosions—it’s his fantasies come to life. He begins to rewrite his adventure tale to make his imprisoned father “Rambow,” and give himself Rambo’s abilities.

Meanwhile, a busload of French exchange students have arrived at Will and Lee’s conservative English school, and one student, Didier (Jules Sitruk) makes a huge splash by introducing his New Wave style and disaffected sensibility.

What happens is uncomplicated, comical, and engaging. The characters are not exactly profound or complex, but they are uniquely themselves. Will is no stereotypical geek, Lee is not a clichéd “bad boy,” and Didier is unlike anything or anyone. Most of the fun is in the making of Son of Rambow; the insanely clever setup of stunts and effects is fun to watch, and also a bit of meta-commentary on making a low-budget film. As things get more complicated, they get less fun, which is what we might expect an indie filmmaker to say. But the movie retains its fundamental innocence, unencumbered by commentary on filmmaking or anything else.

Monday Movie Review: Cadillac Records

April 27, 2009 / / One comment

Cadillac Records (2008) 8/10
Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) meets Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright) and forms Chess Records.

The movie opens in a field. It looks like it may be one of those idyllic Kansas wheat field kind of things, and then you see it’s sharecroppers, breaking their backs and singing. The scene is definitely not idyllic, but the music is beautiful.

The movie opens in another field. Again you wonder: Kansas? Something beautiful? This time it’s a junkyard, where Leonard Chess is making love with his girlfriend. Soon her father will show up and express his disapproval.

These opening sequences embody everything that’s right and wrong about Cadillac Records. On the right side, of course, is the music, which just gets better and better and better with each scene. The music plus the earthy quality, a grittiness, make this a very watchable movie. You feel present in every moment, and as we move to Chicago and the mixed bag of success in the blues and early rock and roll, that immediacy and grit carry you through.

Also right is the terrific cast. Jeffrey Wright, from sharecropper to blues god, is magnificent, mumbling and preening and living deeply inside his music. Adrien Brody is one of my favorite young actors, and here he’s doing not just his usual great work, but also working his voice into a hustling Chicago immigrant, without mucking around with an accent. He’s sure and good-hearted and also kind of a prick. There’s an extensive supporting cast. Beyoncé as Etta James is surprisingly good; her work in Dreamgirls didn’t indicate to me that she could do this kind of physical role. Eamon Walker, unknown to me, blew my mind in a small role as Howlin’ Wolf.

The movie has been criticized for being too shallow, touching lightly on too many little bits of this moment in history without ever landing. And again, back to the two fields: We fly over a lot of spots, and it is kind of shallow. But it’s also a musical, not just because it’s a movie where a lot of people sing, but because its story is told through the music. These are people whose lived experience resides inside performance. Muddy Waters is the guy with the guitar, Howlin’ Wolf is that big voice. While a deeper story can certainly be told, a rich, textured, deeply musical overview is not at all unwelcome.

Okay, sure, it’s a little all over the place. There’s no clear main character, and the women (as usual) are a little invisible (Etta James isn’t introduced until fairly late). Chess’s wife is barely a presence at all, and while Gabrielle Union does the best she can as Muddy’s wife, Geneva, she’s nothing that can’t be summed up by “Muddy’s wife, Geneva.” Chess himself remains a cipher.

But then I’m back to that great cast. Brody pumps life force into a slight bit of scripting and makes the character seem rich, just as almost every actor in this fine ensemble does.

Monday Movie Review: Wanted

April 20, 2009 / / 2 comments

Wanted (2008) 7/10
An ancient weaver’s guild discovers the mystery of becoming super-powered assassins. Wesley (James MacAvoy), a stifled and anxious white collar drone, discovers his father was a member of this cult, and that he has their powers.

For what it is, Wanted is very enjoyable. It turns out it’s damn hard to make brainless, entertaining, comic book fare. Most of it is drivel that makes me believe that I don’t really like senseless action/adventure. Which is annoying, because I know that I do like it, but what I generally see on screen isn’t senseless and entertaining, it’s dumb and unacceptable.

The suspension of disbelief is a delicate balance. It’s a bargain between the filmmakers and the audience. Sitting in our seats, or home on the sofa, we want to believe, we just want the film to meet us halfway. We want the movies to care whether or not we’re still with them, and to act like it’s at least possible we might not be.

There’s lots of ways to do it badly, and lots of ways to do it well. Wanted does it well by saying, “We’re doing the impossible here. See this? Impossible. We have a thinly plausible explanation that we’re breezing by quickly. Wave bye-bye to the explanation and lets get a move on.” You know what? It works.

James MacAvoy is one of those actors who everyone assures me I love. I don’t. He’s okay and all, but when I see him, I don’t run to the IMDb to find out what else he’s been in. Angelina Jolie, on the other hand, is amazing. She’s so beautiful you can almost forget she’s talented, and so talented you can almost forget she’s beautiful. As an assassin who takes Wesley under her wing, she’s perfect; self-contained and self-assured, amused, grounded, and relaxed, she makes it seem as if her part has some depth (it doesn’t).

The movie isn’t winning any feminist points. Jolie is a Smurfette; there are no other female assassins. And, being the lone female, she hits all the cliché notes, including the daddy issues. Nonetheless, her presence is much appreciated.

On the other hand, I think I’m over Morgan Freeman. He’s a great actor and I love him, but his roles are now almost entirely imitations or paradies of his previous roles. Yawn.

Wesley’s disaffection with his lifestyle struck me as a cut-and-paste from Office Space (including the red stapler) and Fight Club. You say “homage,” I say “write your own damn movie.”

Despite its flaws, my verdict is that Wanted is wildly fun, just a crazy drive down twisty streets. The climax is too gorey, and the implausibility could add up if you let it, but you don’t have to let it, because it’s a movie that reaches out and invites you to play along.

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