Terry Zwigoff's
Art School Confidential
Opens May 5, 2006
Starring:
Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim
Broadbent
Reviewed by Frank J. Avella
Terry Zwigoff’s films are noted for their
surprising originality. Surprising because the
director seems to love to take a done-to-death
subject/genre/idea and inject it with refreshing
new spintwists. Crumb, Ghost World
and Bad Santa all shake up and strange-ify
existing genres and allow audiences to delight
in quirky, three dimensional characters. (In the
case of the docu Crumb, a non-fictional
character.)
His latest feature,
Art School Confidential, is no exception.
A clever, cutting look at the insanely eccentric,
cutthroat and self-important world of arts academia,
the film isn’t afraid to poke fun at the
sheer insanity of who decides what is art...and
how.
Using Daniel Clowes
commendable script as a blueprint, Zwigoff proceeds
to genre-blast the coming-of-age college movie,
the 50’s teen flick, the creative-artist
biopic and the serial killer thriller...just to
name a few.
The film centers
on a handsome young artist Jerome Platz (Max Minghella),
an art school freshman who hero worships Picasso
and happens to be...a virgin. On his way to becoming
the ‘World’s Greatest Artist.”
he encounters a slew of lunatic stereotypes including:
his filmmaker roommate (Ethan Suplee, chewing
scenery flawlessly) who would sell his soul for
a good idea; an arrogant, now-famous alumnus (Adam
Scott, dead on dripping with contempt) and the
bizarrely behaved jock (Matt Keesler, perfectly
cute and creepy) who has a secret...
Jerome quickly
falls for an older artist model (Sophia Myles,
who resembles a Cate Blanchett/Kate Winslet hybridization--although
I wouldn’t compare her acting to these thespian
titans).
Minghella is commanding
enough to make us give a damn about Jerome and
follow his oddball odyssey which blend the hilarious
with the melodramatic.
The ensemble rocks
and special kudos go to the lunatic John Malkovich
who can dust onscreen for two hours and make that
look interesting. His Professor Sandiford is a
scaryass mix of the pathetic and the weird. Also
on hand to twist the plot is the divine Jim Broadbent
who brings new meaning to the label “angry
artist.” His Jimmy “lives only for
the narcotic moment of creative bliss.”
The final revelation is a testament to just how
frightening that phrase can be.
Art School
Confidential exposes the ass-kissing corruption
inherent in most of academia as well as unveiling
the frauds that masquerade as professors. At one
point Broadbent asks Minghella how he is at giving
fellatio since the measure of a true artist is
in his ability to boink the right person. It may
sound like biting satire, but Art School Confidential
can also be seen as a road map on how to survive
in the real world. And that’s the most terrifying
thing of all.
Heather MacDonald’s
Been Rich All My Life
Opens July 21, 2006
Quad Cinemas
An ice cream cone of a
film with double scoops of sass and class!
Starring: Bertye
Lou Wood; Cleo Hayes; Marion Coles; Elaine Ellis;
and Fay Ray
Heather MacDonald’s
Been Rich All My Life is a feel-good
documentary about a talented and fun group of
Harlem dancers named the Silver Belles. These
ladies became friends back in the 30’s when
they were chorines at the Apollo Theater and the
Cotton Club. They continued their friendship as
the world of big bands and chorus shows died off,
taking up other lines of work to support themselves.
But then in 80’s they reunited to form the
Silver Belles.
Here is a quote
from their press release: Been Rich All My
Life, the new film by Sundance Award-winning
director Heather Lyn MacDonald, follows the most
unlikely troupe of tap dancers you'll find today,
the Silver Belles, a group of sassy hoofers who
met in the chorus lines of the Apollo Theater,
the Cotton Club and other legendary Harlem venues
of the 1930s. Now aged 84-96, they're still not
ready to give up dancing and have been performing
together again to standing ovations in the concert
halls of New York City.
MacDonald follows
the dancers as they rehearse and perform. We get
to know them both by seeing them in the film and
also through the stories they tell about both
themselves and each other (these ladies are great
gossips). And what stories they tell. They travelled
through the Jim Crow South, but they also took
a triumphant tour of South America and perfomed
with the USO during World War II. We hear about
the Harlem Clubs that employed black workers but
only allowed white patrons. We here about their
how their dear friend Bertye Lou Wood took each
of them under her wing when they joined the chorus
and then we watch them stand by Bertye as she
became ill and passed on.
One of the most
remarkable things about watching this film was
seeing how their friendship and their love of
perfoming has kept them forever young. Or maybe
they were just born that way - forever young.
Quad Cinemas |34
West 13th Street New York, NY
Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's
Brothers of the Head (UK)
Opens July 28, 2006
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival
Brothers of
the Head, the poignant and affecting fiction
feature debut from Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe
(Lost in La Mancha) exhilarates the viewer
with it’s frenetic camerawork, oddball docu-storytelling
and intense performances.
This oddball work
appropriates from several distinct genres to create
it’s own. Imagine blending Zelig
with Velvet Underground with The
Elephant Man with Reds with Twin
Falls Idaho, and (here’s the paradox)
coming up with something alltogether original
and dazzling.
Brothers of
the Head takes you on a rocu-journey inside
the lives of conjoined twins Tom and Barry Howe
(real life identical twins Harry and Luke Treadaway),
who are discovered by an 1970’s music promoter
and fine tuned into a pop/rock act. Their story
is told via “old footage” from a documentary
that was shot at the time of their career genesis,
along with present interviews with those who were
closest to them.
It is an easy sell
that these boys actually existed (plot spoiler--they
did not) since the film unfolds in a most extraordinarily
real manner. Definitely NOT a mock-umentary (a
la This is Spinal Tap), the characters
and situations are given quite serious due and
envelop the audience into complete belief capitulation.
Both Treadaway
brothers (in their film debut) deliver immensely
searing and impressive performances. Luke is mesmerizing
as Barry, the brazen, difficult one and Harry
is perfectly piercing as Tom, the quiet ticking
timebomb. The entire ensemble are to be applauded
as well.
Tony Grisoni has
crafted a clever and disturbing script based on
the novella by Brian Aldiss who gets kudos for
imagining this strange and surreal saga.
The original songs
are reminiscent of the glam/punk early 70’s
but have a style all their own. The lyrics are
simultaneously satiric and sometimes sentimental.
Brothers builds
to a truly haunting final image that makes quite
an impression. This is an alltogether absorbing
film that piques the viewers curiosity. You find
yourself desperate to know more about the Howe
twins...if only they actually had existed.
Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela
Llana's
Cavite
Cinema Village
Through June 15, 2006
Starring: Ian
Gamazon
Reviwed by Jessica Cogan
Described as a
“no-budget” film, Cavite
is a remarkable adrenaline-charged thriller that
proves good films can be made with a single actor,
a cell phone and a couple of fairly expensive
plane tickets.
Shot on location in and around Manila, Cavite
follows Adam, a Filipino-American living aimlessly
in San Diego, who returns to the Philippines for
his father’s funeral. When he arrives, he’s
met at the airport not by his mother, but by a
ringing cell phone. On the other end is a sinister
voice who promises to kill Adam’s mother
and sister – who are being held by the villain
– if Adam fails to follow directions.
Adam is sent on
a string of odd errands through the humid, hectic
streets of Manila and its nearby slums. Some of
his tasks seem trivial and aimed to disconcert
him: he’s made to attend a cockfight, witnesses
a beating and choke down a balut (an aged fertilized
duck egg). But Adam is also ordered to clean out
a bank account and learns about his father’s
own involvement with Muslim extremists. In fact,
the sinister voice on the other end of the line
is himself a Muslim extremist – although
the underdevelopment of his affiliations is one
of the film’s shortcomings. Finally, Adam
is ordered to take innocent life in order to spare
his family’s – and his native land’s
history and troubles are brought crashing into
the life he’s built thousands of miles away.
Cavite
does an impressive job in building and sustaining
suspense. Adam is convincing as a bewildered ex
pat feeling both alienation and familiarity in
his native land. And the voice on the phone makes
a strong, sinister villain. He’s taunting
and menacing. Psychopathic. So it’s a shame
that he’s billed as an Islamic terrorist
since his ideological motivations feel tacked
on. Still, the film succeeds—and bodes great
things for the filmmakers who will likely never
need to work on so low a budget again.
Cavite was written and directed by Ian
Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana. www.cavitemovie.com
Cinema
Village| 22 East 12 St.
André Téchiné's
Changing Times
Opens Friday, July 14,
2006 at the Paris Theatre
Opening
Bastille Day at the Paris Theatre, Changing
Times is an intimate drama starring two
A-list giants of the cinema – Catherine
Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu. Yeah, it’s
from France. Moreover, there is a lot of longing,
pain, pathos, and hushed conversation. But I’m
not making fun, because it really works, and
if more films like Changing Times were
made in the States – and released in the
summer! -- “Hollywood” might not
be such a dirty word for the first nine months
of the year.
More than anything, the French really love their
film actors. They’re respected as purveyors
of the nation’s artistic heritage, and
each new film seems a celebration of all the
emotional journeys we’ve experienced with
them in the past. In Changing Times,
it’s awfully hard to resist Deneuve and
Depardieu as first loves encountering each other
again after thirty years. She’s totally
believable as Cécile, a wife and mother
who has “been accused of being cold,”
leading a strained but comfortable life in Tangiers
as a radio host. And he’s perfect as the
awkward Antoine, an accident-prone engineer
who’s come to Tangiers to oversee the
construction of a media center. The catch is
that his trip to the region is a ruse; he’s
been in love with her all along, and he’s
come to make her fall for him again. This is
signified by orchestrated contact, some nervous
behavior that borders on stalking, anonymous
flowers… and a heartbreaking old photo
of the two famous faces together, each in their
glorious prime. It may be Deneuve from Belle
de Jour and Depardieu from Loulou;
whatever, they’re beautiful, and the classic
movie memories enrich every moment they share
together. (They previously co-starred most notably
in Truffaut’s The Last Metro,
1980).
A highlight, without question, is a scene that
follows after their car breaks down, and the
couple is compelled to walk through a forest
to a seaside villa. The conversation is touching
and tinged with sadness. Director André
Téchiné (My Favorite Season)
wisely uses shadow here, capturing a tentative
human connection that the rest of the film’s
characters, who are all younger, struggle to
find.
Yes, there are other people in Changing
Times. It’s a movie about personal
stories, and the film is happily not content
to rest on the sheer weight of the two leads.
Ensemble is another great quality of French
cinema. There is Sami, Cécile’s
son, who has arrived at the family home in Tangiers
with Nadia, a Moroccan turned Parisian, and
her nine-year old son. The arrangement is not
what it seems; Sami has a former boyfriend,
a groundskeeper on a nearby estate, and Nadia
has come to town primarily to re-connect with
her twin sister Aicha, a devout Muslim who shuns
the company of men and works in a McDonald’s.
Strikingly, Lubna Azabal plays both sisters,
and through these two characters, Changing
Times dramatizes a cultural divide that
factors into every storyline.
Nadia is westernized (she’s a drug addict,
after all), and her condition soon catches the
attention of Nathan, Cécile’s physician
husband. Played by Gilbert Melki, at least half
of this role is curiously spent in the family
swimming pool. It’s a fair suggestion
that the character is adrift; indeed, that all
of them are trying to find direction when love
and country are so jarred by – you guessed
it – the changing times. Téchiné,
who is largely unknown in the US outside of
the art-house circuit, is a subtle filmmaker
who lets us watch as the tension between France
and North Africa does more human damage, both
universally, and personally. (For greater combustion
on this subject, see 2005’ s French masterpiece
Cache). Even in a 2004-set film, it’s
striking to see Antoine in his tailored suits
supervising the local laborers on his Tangiers
construction project. At the same time, Téchiné
is adroit enough to use hand-held camera and
a noisy bulldozer montage to symbolize Antoine’s
personal devastation.
Changing Times offers a key event that
puts it all into perspective, but I won’t
mention it, even if the idea of “spoiler”
is almost beside the point in a film as nuanced
as this one. The surface pleasures are enough,
and that includes what is ultimately one of
Deneuve’s best performances in many years.
Watch, for instance, as she bolts her broadcast
booth and wildly berates Antoine when he pays
an uninvited visit to her radio station, only
to return, seconds later, to her cool on-air
demeanor as if she had merely stopped to swat
a fly. Changing Times is Téchiné’s
4th film with Deneuve, so they have that dazzling
“short-hand” we hear so much about
in artistic collaborations. As a film, Changing
Times succeeds along the same lines: If
you happen to love French cinema, it will meet
you half way…
Ed Burns's
The Groomsmen
Opens Friday, July 14, 2006
Reviewed by the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival
Reviewed by Noelle
Ashley
The Groomsmen
screened at the Tribeca Film Festival to
a full house. This funny, feel-good film is written
and directed by Ed Burns, who plays Paulie, a
man about to get married. The central topic revolves
around what it means to be a grown up. At age
thirty-five, Paulie and his four childhood buddies
are lovably dense in this area – or are
they?
Brittany Murphy
does a fine acting job as Sue, Paulie’s
fiancé. When she’s not touching her
pregnant belly, she is flailing her skinny arms
in anger at Paulie. Sue hates his blasé
attitude about their upcoming commitment.
The guys spend
a week hitting every possible spot for male bonding:
the pool hall, the bar, the fishing boat, the
golf course, band rehearsal in the garage and
a strip club. The official bachelor party, however,
is a baseball game that turns into a brawl, in
the tradition of their drinking, blue-collar ways.
Instead of supporting
Paulie, the groomsmen burden the groom-to-be with
their own problems. His old friend TC (John Leguizamo),
who left town eight years ago, returns with a
secret. Jimbo (Donal Logue), Paulie’s brother,
has sibling rivalry and marriage issues that have
gone too far. Dez (Matthew Lillard), a father
of two who settled down at age twenty-two, obsesses
about getting their high school band back together.
Mike (Jay Mohr), Paulie’s cousin, lives
with his dad and has no date to bring to the wedding.
The men are a bunch
of self-proclaimed derelicts trying to understand
life. John Leguizama said, “Behaving badly
in your thirties isn’t as cool as behaving
badly in your twenties.”
There is a sense
of realism to the movie, set in the Long Island
suburbs and filmed in the Bronx (City Island)
and Brooklyn (the Ditmas neighborhood).
Burns feels affection
for suburban life and he doesn’t believe
previous films do it justice. “I’ve
seen some films that paint a less than flattering
picture of life in the ‘burbs, as if the
suburbs cause or are responsible for a lot of
that dysfunction,” he said. “This
was in part a reaction to some of those other
films, but mostly just my looking back on the
world I grew up in and wanting to paint a realistic
picture of it.”
Brittany Murphy
calls Burns “the only writer/director that
I’ve ever worked with that, if someone drops
one little part of a speech out, he’ll say,
‘If it keeps dropping then it’s not
supposed to be there because it’s not organic
and it doesn’t feel real.’”
Referencing her last film with Burns, Sidewalks
of New York, Murphy said, “All of his
films have just a feeling of a natural, easy,
flowing nature. Everybody is here because they
want to be, because they like Eddie and they like
working with Eddie, and that energy is really
incredible to be around every day at work.”
In July, Bauer
Martinez Entertainment will distribute the film,
produced by Edward Burns, Philippe Martinez, Aaron
Lubin, and Margot Bridger on a $3.2 million budget.
Like The Brothers
McMullen, Burns’ much-praised debut,
this character-driven tale is entertaining but
also meaningful. One touching moment is when Paulie’s
brother sits alone in his house and sings the
song he wrote for his wife back in high school.
In the previous scene, he told her he couldn’t
remember the words.
Ward Serrill’s
The Heart of the Game
Opens Friday, June 9, 2006
Angelika Theatre
“It's
your life. Make every shot count.” Heart
of the Game.
Narrated
by: Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
The Heart
of the Game is a feel-good documentary
that follows college tax professor Bill Resler
for seven years as he coaches the girl’s
basketball team at Seattle's Roosevelt High.
Filmmaker Ward Serrill wanted to make a sports
documentary so he started filming Resler and
his team. And from the school of thought that
if you stand on a street corner and watch the
world go by you will eventually see everything,
Serrill found his story. A few years into the
filming, Darnellia Russell joined the team as
a freshman and what had been a very good documentary
about hard work and the love of the game suddenly
had a compelling plot.
Here is a quote from their press releases: “Serrill,
camera in hand, followed Resler – who
looks more like Santa Claus in Birkenstocks
than a whistle-blasting high school coach –
into the Roosevelt High School gym and soon
discovered a group of girls whose unbridled
toughness, passion and energy he came to call
The Heart of the Game. Then, one day,
onto the Roughriders’ court (and into
the film) walked Darnellia Russell – a
tough, inner-city girl whose off-court struggles
would eventually threaten to crash the star
athlete’s plans to play college ball and
be the first person in her family to get a college
education. At the center of The Heart of
the Game is Darnellia’s unforgettable
true story – the loss of her eligibility
and her legal battle to get back on court to
play the game that means everything to her.
With Coach Resler, her team and her family standing
by her side, she takes on enormous personal
obstacles as well as the ruling body of high
school sports in Washington State.”
Resler is an incredible coach; his huge heart
matched only by his total commitment to win.
Every season he gives the girls a mental image
to inspire them to win like telling them that
they are a pack of hungry wolves who are out
to kill and devour their opponents. From a less
charismatic man, these instructions would seem
totally bizarre. But the girls love him for
it and go out and “kill and devour their
opponents,” nearly becoming the state
champion year after year.
And then Darnellia joins the team as a freshman
and there is a change in the air. What had been
a great team now has that extra-luck-called-talent
to let them take the state championship. The
press releases are a little coy about why Darnellia
lost her eligibility, but almost anyone can
figure out that she became pregnant and had
a baby (a darling little girl). Before the pregnancy,
Darnellia was just a kid who did not have the
motivation to work hard at school. Her mother
had insisted that she attend Roosevelt instead
of her more ghetto neighborhood school and she
felt out of place and unmotivated at mostly
white Roosevelt; her heart was still in the
hood. After the birth of her daughter, Darnellia
returns to Roosevelt, excels academically and
wants to play ball. Her heart is now in her
game but she is thwarted by the “powers
that be” who rule that she lost her eligibility
when she "decided" to drop out of
school to have a baby. But Resler and her teammates
believe in her and vote to let her play while
they fight the decision in court. And Darnellia,
with the help of some incredibly talented team
mates, finally gets a chance to show what she
really can do.
So, if you loved Hoosiers, or for that
matter any great story, go see The Heart
of the Game. It will definitely warm your
heart.
Heart was produced by Serrill and Liz
Manne. The executive producer is Larry Estes.
Angelika
Theatre |18 West Houston Street
Kevin Bacon’s
Loverboy
Opens Friday, June 16, 2006
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella
As a showcase for
the tremendous talents of Kyra Sedgwick, Loverboy
proves the perfect vehicle. Sedgwick, one of the
best indie actresses working today, has delivered
the thespian goods in such diverse films as Personal
Velocity, The Woodsman, Mr.
and Mrs. Bridge as well as the Julia Roberts
starrer, Something to Talk About. Loverboy
allows her to portray a painfully complex and
emotionally scarred woman who’s misguided
mindset leads her to an astonishingly incredulous
act.
Directed with confidence
and panache’ by (her husband) Kevin Bacon,
with a screenplay by newbie Hannah Shakespeare
(based on the book by Victoria Redel), the film
juxtaposes moments from Emily Stoll’s present
and past as a way of compellingly telling her
story.
As an only child,
Emily (Sedgwick) is atypical in the sense that
she constantly feels her parents (Bacon and Marisa
Tomei having a loveblast) are: “the embodiment
of the dreadful exclusivity of true love.”
The only bright spot in her childhood is provided
by the sexy and savvy Mrs. Harker (Sandra Bullock
in a radiant turn).
Grown up Emily
is determined to never marry, but is obsessed
with having a child who she can devote her life
to and love, like she feels she wasn’t.
After a legion of sexual encounters with a gaggle
of guys who she feels possess the qualities that
will help her conceive the perfect child, she
finds herself unable to get pregnant. That is
until she meets Paul (a wonderful Campbell Scott).
Once she has her baby, her life is given a purpose.
When Paul, Jr.
is born, Emily exposes him to a magical world
of imagination--exclusive to the two of them.
For six years Emily succeeds in keeping Paul all
to herself, but Paul soon begins to wonder about
the world outside and why he isn’t a part
of it...
Loverboy
is unrelenting in it’s portrayal of a damaged
woman and her determination, born out of defiance,
to exclusively love her child.
Bacon manages to
draw rich performances from his stellar ensemble.
In particular, newcomer Dominic Scott Kay impresses
as the boy. But the film is Sedgwick’s from
first frame to final moment. She allows us access
inside this complicated woman--a frightening example
of how we are all products of our upbringing.
The one flaw in
the film is the cop-out ending. While Loverboy
may not be a feel-good movie, it’s
certainly a thought-provoking and significant
one.
Nick Guthe's
Mini's First Time
Reviewed at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival
Opens Friday July 14, 2006
Reviewed by Brian
Shirey
In her first starring
role since 2003’s Thirteen, Nikki Reed is
the ultimate LA bad girl in a biting dark comedy
that plays like a cross between Heathers and
Body Heat.
The title is accurate,
but it’s not what you think. Mini is way
beyond virginity; in fact, she doesn’t think
twice, as her wry voice-over informs us, about
spending her high school nights part-timing at
an escort service. Mini’s First Time
is a character study of a young woman who finds
that life is in ALL the first-time experiences,
and morality, compassion, and remorse should not
get in the way.
Writer-director
Nick Guthe sure knows how to exploit the premise:
He gives Mini a trashy actress mother (Carrie-Anne
Moss), a scumbag PR guy stepfather (Alec Baldwin),
and a snazzy sports car. Then he sets the whole
thing in the homes of the SoCal super-rich, and
lets Mini loose in a hot-red string bikini. Mini’s
First Time is the kind of film that makes
you laugh because the shallow people are so willfully
mean (and it conforms to what a lot of NYers think
about LA, anyways). Mini gets sexually involved
with her own stepfather, of course, and together
they devise a sick plan to get rid of Mom.
In his manic, befuddled
way, Baldwin gives another memorable performance;
he’s a master of subversive comedy. Reed
is heartless from start to finish, but beneath
it all, she creates a sharp sense of what unloving
parents can do to a kid. The movie looks great,
especially the ritzy sets; you see the kind of
moneyed world that seems to encourage depraved
behavior.
Most of all, Mini’s
First Time is a wildly entertaining LA satire
with smart writing… and we can see it all
from the calm safety and sanity that is New York
City!
Robert Altman’s
Prairie Home Companion
Opens Friday, June 9, 2006
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella
I must confess
to being a Robert Altman aficionado. And I am
the first to admit that not all of his films are
everyone’s cup of tea. Quintet,
which I love, can be a maddening sit, but if you
cannot appreciate Nashville, The
Player, Short Cuts, Gosford
Park and M^A^S*H, you should spend
the rest of your days on earth locked in a room
with nothing but Michael Bay films playing over
and over again.
The fact that this
living legend, filmic innovator, auteur-genius
has NEVER won an Oscar (he was deservedly presented
an Honorary one last year) and hack Ron Howard
has makes me seethe with the kind of anger usually
reserved for the spouses of adulterers.
So it was with
great excitement and anticipation that I began
my Prairie Home Companion journey. It
was also with great trepidation since I never
really thought of Garrison Keillor’s radio
show as anything special.
As the first frames
flickered I found myself wearing this ridiculously
wide smile on my face. 105 minutes later, I was
heartsick to learn two things: that the film was
over and that I had been smiling that silly grin
for the entire length of the picture. I prayed
no one saw how dopey I must’ve looked. The
only comfort I got was from the fact that the
film was so delightful, so infectious, that I
could not have imagined anyone wanting to take
their eyes off the screen long enough to look
at anything else--let alone goofy-grinned me!
Once again Altman
has fashioned a non-traditional narrative (basically
non-linear and short on plot) that explores character
and tells a pretty straightforward story in a
fascinating and mesmerizing way.
The screenplay
imagines a final farewell broadcast of a very
Midwestern radio show. (ironically the real Prairie
Home Companion is still on the air and still
quite popular after thirty years!)
The potpourri of
talent includes: oddball sisters Yolanda and Rhonda
Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) who were
part of an ill-fated quartet, and the envelope-pushing
cowboys Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John
C. Reilly).
Along the cinematic
road we encounter luckless PI Guy Noir (Kevin
Kline) who is the backstage doorkeeper; Axeman
(Tommy Lee Jones), the Texan who is responsible
for the show’s demise; Lola (Lindsay Lohan),
Yolanda’s songstress-wannabe daughter and
an Angel (Virginia Madsen) who has come for more
spiritual reasons.
The all-star cast
is simply sensational beginning with the perennially-amazing
Meryl Streep (has she ever not been anything short
of astonishing in any film?), who is obviously
having a ball with the role. Her onscreen sister,
Lily Tomlin, is also splendid and the two share
a fantastic chemistry when they are singing as
well as off-stage. They’re so good, in fact,
that it becomes painful to realize that the Johnson
Sisters are actually failures. Streep and Tomlin
are particularly glorious performing “Goodbye
to My Mama.”
Kevin Kline is
a comic wonder and his Guy Noir is a hilarious
and sad creation. The enigmatic Dangerous Woman
is divinely embodied by the ethereal Virginia
Madsen. In the hands of another director this
particular character and plot point could have
been delivered in a heavy-handed manner, destroying
it’s power and ultimate transcendence. Altman
allows her to enchant us.
Garrison Keillor
does an admirably respectable job basically playing
himself. Keillor fashioned the terrific imagined-swan
song screenplay on some of the persons and anecdotes
that have kept Prairie on the air. It
includes many of his self-penned songs.
Altman lets these
marvelous characters simply be, allowing them
the freedom to soar but knowing exactly when to
cut away. He is precisely aware of where to place
the camera and when to move it. And he trusts
his actors enough to let them do what they do
best.
The music is infectiously
entertaining with Streep and Tomlin the chief
showstoppers. Camerawork is captivating with the
usual Altman dolly pans and extended takes.
Filled with so
many unexpected pleasures, Prairie Home Companion
sometimes feels like Nashville-lite.
And while that 1975 masterpiece was a filmic feast
for all senses. Prairie is it’s own smorgasbord.
Yet as fun and facile as it seems on the surface,
the theme of death pervades the film, in a strangely
transportive and magical way.
Most directors
in their twilight years lose their creative spark.
Altman, now an octogenarian, is as innovative,
clever and thought-provoking as ever.
Woody Allen's
Scoop
Opens Friday July 28, 2006
Reviewed by Frank J.
Avella
Last year's astonishing
thriller Match Point proved a triumph
for Woody Allen and silenced detractors who insisted
the master's shining era as an extraordinary and
significant American filmmaker was over. Now comes
Scoop, a very funny comedy that I am
guessing critics will maul with shouts of alleged
redundancy and appropriation (mostly from his
own oeuvre). God forbid Woody borrow from his
own genius style!
Now, truth to be
told, Scoop is more Hollywood Ending
and Manhattan Murder Mystery than Annie
Hall and Manhattan, but you can't
knock every one completely out of the park every
time. It's important to either remember or do
some research to learn that now classic Woody
flix like Love and Death, Interiors
and Stardust Memories (to name a few),
were initially met with quite the cool critical
reception.
I'm not exactly
sure where Scoop falls in the Woody canon,
but I am sure that it's certainly not the debacle
Curse of the Jade Scorpion was. Scoop
IS consistently amusing, devilishly entertaining
and nicely acted
The film kicks
off with a killer opening: Ian McShane, an egocentric
journalist finds himself dead and crossing the
River Styx with the eccentric Fenella Woolgar,
who claims she was assassinated because she knew
the identity of the Tarot Card Killer, a serial
murderer on the loose in London.
The way the still-story-hungry McShane crosses
back over into the land of the living to deliver
the 'scoop' to Scarlett Johansson is one of the
many joys of the movie.
McShane is terrific
in way-too-small part. Johansson, as she did in
Match Point, perfectly embodies the Woody
heroine - eager, driven & uncertain---all
simultaneously. Hugh Jackman charms as the suave
would-be killer. Allen, looking a bit weary, is
his hilarious self.
The production design is splendid and Woody pays
homage to George Steven's masterpiece A Place
in the Sun in a key scene, although the end
results are quite different.
The scoop on Scoop
is that it's absorbing, winning Woody by way of
Woody past. I eagerly await the next Woody. I
have a feeling we may all be happily surprised.
David Frankel’s
The Devil Wears Prada
Opens Friday, June 30, 2006
Reviewed by Christina
M. Hinke
Starring: Meryl
Streep; Anne Hathaway; Emily Blunt; Stanley Tucci;
Adrian Grenier; Tracie Thoms; Rich Sommer; and
Simon Barker. Daniel Sunjata; Jimena Hoyos; Rebecca
Mader;
Tibor Feldman; Stephanie Szostak; David Marshall
Grant; and James Naughton.
The devil must have decided
to go down to Georgia because there wasn’t
an opening for the post of editor-in-chief at
the fictional New York fashion magazine Runway.
In the movie version of the best-selling book
by Lauren Weisberger, Meryl Streep brilliantly
plays the cold-to-the-core editor Miranda Priestly.
But in true Streep fashion, she also manages to
show the warmer side of the ice queen. It would
have been a lot easier to hate Miranda had Streep
played Miranda as a Sub-Zero refrigerator, but
instead she shows Miranda as a warm-blooded person
with feelings (although they are demanding feelings),
so you hate to hate her.
Dowdy Andy Sachs
(played by Anne Hathaway), is fresh out of Northwestern
University and she has a passion for journalism.
Somehow Sachs touches a nerve with Miranda and
soon the grandma skirt-wearing Sachs is fetching
Starbucks (hot, very hot), answering phone calls,
attempting to schedule impossible flights during
torrential thunderstorms and scouring New York
to get her hands on a copy of the latest unpublished
manuscript of Harry Potter for her impeccably
dressed, unnerving boss.
Anne Hathaway is
darling as Andy and manages to hold her own against
Streep, Stanley Tucci and the delicious Emily
Blunt (who plays Sachs nemesis, actually named
Emily). Hathaway manages to look comfortable both
in her sweats and straggly hair and in her post
transformation head-to-toe Chanel. Surprise! Surprise!
Impeccable performances,
a tight script and an effortless one hundred and
ten minute run time make The Devil Wears Prada
into a devilishly good New York time.
Michael Cuesta's
Twelve and Holding
Opens Friday May 19, 2006
Starring:
Bruce Altman; Conor Donovan; Jesse Camacho; Zoë
Weizenbaum.
Twelve and Holding, Michael Cuesta’s
eagerly awaited follow up to the intense and controversial
LIE, is a rich and resonant look at the
lives of three distinctly different twelve year-olds.
While Cuesta is regressing as far as his main
character’s ages go, he’s grown in
filmic confidence and storytelling.
Twelve begins
with the tragic and freakish death of Rudy, one
of a set of Identical twins. He leaves behind
his meek, birth-marked brother Jacob as well as
his revenge-obsessed mother and confused father.
Rudy and Jacob have two misfit friends: Malee,
a half-Asian girl who longs to be an adult and
falls in love with one; and the overweight Leonard,
who realizes he must shed his pounds and goes
to extreme lengths to make sure his mother does
the same.
As he did in LIE,
Cuesta coaxes fantastic work from his actors,
most especially Jeremy Renner, who gives a powerful
and heartbreaking performance and manages to deliver
a third act speech that in the hands of a lesser
actor, could have elicited laughs instead of tears.
He is riveting. Annabella Sciorra adds another
outstanding turn to her growing list of supporting
work. Someone needs to write this gal a lead!
And the young actors
are all touching and convincing. Conor Donovan,
in particular, plays both twins with amazing ease
displaying remarkable range.
The script is a
bit too cliche’ but Cuesta has a magical
way of directing THROUGH them.. He, also has a
great gift in being able to show us the inner
adult-wannabe world of a child and how much their
psyches are affected by their parents and the
“adult” world around them.
I’m still
not sure I appreciated the ending and what it
said about revenge (especially since the crime
wasn’t really intentional). Come to think
of it, I absolutely hated the ending of LIE,
where the Brian Cox character was killed in a
horrific way because he was a pedophile. Cuesta
seems a bit too bent on marring his films with
biblical vengeance (or choosing scripts that do
so) which is a shame because everything else avoided
the bullshit-trappings usually reserved for studio
films.
Twelve and
Holding was reviewed at the 35th New Directors/
New Films Festival
March 22 through April 2, 2006 at Lincoln Center
and MoMA.
Larry Clark
Wassup Rockers?
Opened Friday, June 23, 2006
Angelika Film Center
Reviewed by Armistead
Johnson
Some of my favorite
movies: Best in Show, Drop Dead Gorgeous
and Waiting For Guffman, have all been
part of a new genre called “mockumentary.”
The films are not documentaries because they are
scripted situations (even though dialogue is improvised)
and the point is to satirize the situations. Larry
Clark’s Wassup Rockers is yet another
layer on this new genre that does not include
satire, nor is it going for obvious laughs.
Wassup Rockers
hits the streets of L.A. following a group of
teenage skater boys as they traverse their way
from South Central into Beverly Hills to skateboard
the famous “nine Stairs.” The teenagers,
led by fifteen-year-old Jonathan, are all Hispanic,
and their puck rock, Ramones inspired look is
not the norm in the hip-hop flavored ghetto of
South Central. These boys are real people, not
actors, and the cameras follow them while they
are put in situations that might mimic their actual
lives (with actors playing the parts of the other
people in the scenes.) It’s a tricky balance…the
actors in the scenes are not as good as the “real”
boys and subtlety is not Clark’s strong
suit.
A policeman, played
by an actor, harasses the boys for skating on
the public steps. In the interrogation, the policeman
consistently refers to the boys as “Mexicans.”
The boys, who are from different Hispanic origins,
none of which is Mexican, correct the “policeman”
over and over and over…to the point where
we start to wonder if the policeman is retarded.
Then it dawns on you…this is the scene where
the audience is supposed to learn that “Hispanic”
does not equal “Mexican.” We’re
also supposed to realize that this is a mistake
commonly made by policeman, even if the policemen
are corrected over and over, leading us to wonder…are
the police a little bit racist?
In an equally subtle
scene, the boys stumble into a fancy, backyard
Beverly Hills party hosted by a gay, Gay, GAY
man. The gay, who of course is instantly fascinated
by the group of boys flamboyantly agrees to let
Jonathan use one of his seven bathrooms, but not
before hissing at his DJ, “Please play some
Madonna!” While showing Jonathan to the
bathroom, the gay immediately begins to hit on
the fifteen-year-old (because most gays like little
boys.) When Jonathan refuses his advances and
goes in the bathroom alone, the gay then frantically
tries to get a look at Jonathan’s penis
through the doors keyhole (because the gays are
all perverts.)
A drunken actress gives one of the boys a bath
because “being clean is fun!” A Dirty
Harry look alike shoots one of them because
he believes in “shooting them first, asking
questions later.” The stereotypes go on
and on, and it seems like these boys might encounter
less racism if they just stayed out of Larry Clark
films.
Wassup Rockers
does succeed however in giving the audience a
peek into these boys lives, despite the film’s
desperately trying to script them. The more revealing
and interesting scenes are the ones where the
boys are unscripted, either being interviewed
or interacting with each other. I wish Clark had
more faith in his audience. Racism is obvious
in their poor living conditions, their poorly
supervised school and for that matter, their poorly
supervised adolescent lives as a result of parents
who work in other people’s homes, watching
other people’s children. The audience does
not need to see a buffoon of a policeman repeatedly
calling them Mexicans to “get it.”
The boys, as I
believe Clark intended for them to be, are the
most interesting thing in the film and the process
is interesting to watch. Wassup Rockers
is now playing in select theatres.
Angelika
Theatre |18 West Houston Street
