Julian Jarrold’s
Becoming Jane
Opens Friday, August 3, 2007
Starring: Anne
Hathaway; James McAvoy; Julie Walters; James Cromwell;
Maggie Smith; Joe Anderson; Lucy Cohu; and Anna
Maxwell Margin.
Reviewed by Wendy
R. Williams
Tagline:
"A woman especially if she has the misfortune
of knowing anything, should conceal it as well
as she can." Jane
Austen
The cast and crew
of Becoming Jane took on a Herculean
task when they imagined and depicted an early
romance for Jane Austen. Their theory was that
Austen must have had some experience with love
that she used as inspiration for the romanticism
of her novels. And in telling this tale, they
had very few historical facts with which to work.
There are a few small references to Tom Lefroy
in the remaining Austen letters (Austen’s
sister Cassandra burned most of Jane’s letters
when Jane died). Nevertheless, the filmmakers
did not simply tell a story of an imagined girlhood
crush, they told a story that is filled with themes
from Austen’s novels. So the film's title,
Becoming Jane, should not be interpreted
as to simply the film itself. By telling this
story, the creative team channeled the spirit
of Jane Austen and literally became Jane.
Here is a quote from the press release for the
film: “Becoming Jane, a romantic
drama starring Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears
Prada), presents a fresh and daring view
of Jane Austen’s early years. Set in the
late 18th century, the film portrays Austen’s
encounters with the modern, roguish young Irishman,
Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy, The Last King of
Scotland) and imagines how their romantic
encounter could have influenced some of her most
famous novels that followed.”
Anyone who ventures to film one of Jane Austen’s
stories ventures into a drawing-room-minefield.
Austen has millions of fans to whom she is their
Jane Austen, a member of the family of their heart.
And these fans rigorously defend the honor of
their heroine and the heroines of her novels by
doing things such as expelling a collective “Hmph”
when Kyra Sedgwick (playing the newly married
Lizzie Bennet) kisses Matthew Macfadyen (playing
Mr. Darcy) at the end of director Joe Wright’s
2005 Pride and Prejudice. (There was
no kissing in the book.)
Screenwriters Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams had
most definitely studied the Austen novels and
the viewer is quickly transported into the world
of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and
Sensibility and Persuasion. It is
all there: the marriage market; the relationship
between sisters; the romance; the emphasis on
character and responsibility; and the suppressed
carnality.
The Marriage Market:
Jane Austen was born into a world where women
of her class had only one option and that was
to marry well. There were no colleges to attend;
a smart young girl like Jane Austen could not
even become a school teacher. And marrying well
did not just require looks and charm, it required
money. Austen’s novels are filled with details
of this marriage market. No character is introduced
without another character whispering just exactly
what their income is in pounds per year. And in
this world, a man or woman who ignored these monetary
realities and married for love alone would not
only consign themselves to financial ruin, they
could easily take their families with them.
The Sisters: Jane
Austen had a sister Cassandra to whom she was
devoted. Cassandra’s fiancé died
before they could be married and Cassandra remained
unmarried and Jane’s confidante throughout
their lives. This relationship between Austen
and her sister was surely the basis for the relationships
between Elinor and Marianne Dashwood of Sense
and Sensibility and Lizzie and Jane Bennet
in Pride and Prejudice. Having a sister
must have been a comfort to Austen in her life
and writing the character of the sister in her
novels gave the Austen’s heroines someone
in whom to confide and thus let us (the readers)
see their hearts.
The Romance: One
of the reasons I believe that Jane Austen’s
novels are so beloved is that the heroines conduct
their romantic life with honor. They behave the
way that we (the readers) wish we had behaved
in matters of the heart, always choosing the higher
path and forever remaining a lady. And in this
imaginary story, Jane Austen does not disappoint.
Jane is shown to be a magnificent character, as
memorable as the beloved Lizzie Bennet of Pride
and Prejudice.
Character
and Responsibility: Jane Austen had a keen
eye for human foibles and she gave this eye to
her heroines. She also gave them an overwhelming
sense of responsibility for their families. Elinor
Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility) shoulders
the burdens of her family. Anne Elliot (Persuasion)
forgoes a romance with the poor but dashing Captain
Wentworth so she can take care of her irresponsible
father and sister. And in Becoming Jane,
we see the genesis of Jane Austen’s character’s
character; it is the soul of Jane Austen.
The Carnality:
In Jane Austen’s world carnality does exist
but it is off on the sidelines of the stories
- thunder off in the distance. In Sense and
Sensibility, Colonel Brandon’s ward
becomes pregnant while unwed. In Pride and
Prejudice, Lydia was certainly doing something
she was not supposed to do when she ran off with
Wickham. But in the film Becoming Jane,
we see the carnality of the time. Jane Austen
grew up on a working farm where she was surely
exposed to the reality of sex. People had huge
families and just where did all those pigs come
from any way? In the film, we see LeFroy in a
whorehouse, jumping into a river stark naked and
in the scene where he first meets Jane, he reads
a highly erotic passage from a nature book to
her and quickly suggest that she read Tom
Jones. Rabid Janites will undoubtedly be
put off by some of this baseness. They may prefer
to continue to view their Jane as a string of
pearls on a white lacy dollie. But any sensible
person must realize that Jane Austen herself must
have been exposed to the realities of sex if not
to the act of sex itself.
So how did our filmmakers do? To quote a character
from an Austen novel, “Very well, indeed.”
The film is charming,
poignant and fun, just like the Austen novels.
The viewer is quickly transported back into 18th
century England with the beautiful shabby chic
homes. It is a time when people had time to visit
and talk and village life was a social life.
And the romance
between Jane and Lefroy is beautifully told. Jane
Austen is depicted as a fearless heroine, a lady
who knows her own heart and mind. And she has
a worthy romantic interest in the irascible Irishman,
Tom Lefroy. Theirs is a romance of both the mind
and heart. And it is a romance that could so easily
have gone a less honorable way because Lefroy
certainly shows the capacity to be a cad like
Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, but he
becomes much more when he falls both in lust with
Jane and in love with her mind.
All of the actors do superb jobs playing their
roles. Anne Hathaway plays a beautiful spirited
Jane Austen. James McAvoy plays a roguish, sexually
attractive Tom Lefroy. And the films boast an
amazing supporting cast: Julie Walters as Jane’s
mother; James Cromwell as her father ; Maggie
Smith as Lady Gresham (a Lady Catherine De Bourg-like
character). Director Julian Jarrold is certainly
to be commended for helming this beautiful film.
Gena Rowlands and Parker
Posey
Broken English
Zoe R. Cassavetes’
Broken English
Opens Friday, June 22, 2007
Starring:
Parker Posey; Drea de Matteo; Gena Rowlands; Melvil
Poupaud; Justin Theroux; Tim Guinee; and Peter
Bogdanovich.
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Zoe R. Cassavetes’ Broken English
is Sex and the City for the Lost
in Translation set. Set in New York, it tells
the smoky story of a New York single woman whose
life has been reduced to the long-gone-down-lonesome-blues.
Here is a quote from the press release: “
Parker Posey plays Nora Wilder, a thirty-something
Manhattanite who is cynical about love and relationships.
Plugging away at her job in a posh downtown hotel,
Nora can't help wondering what it is she has to
do to find a relationship as ideal as her friend
Audrey's (Drea De Matteo) "perfect marriage."
It doesn’t help that her overbearing mother
(Gena Rowlands) takes every opportunity to remind
Nora that she's still unattached. After a series
of disastrous first dates, she meets Julien (Melvil
Poupaud), a seemingly devil-may-care Frenchman
with a passion for living. Expecting another disastrous
ending, Nora tries to avoid making the same mistakes
and in doing so finds herself in Paris for the
first time, with a new outlook on life and love.”
Nora is disaffected and with good reason. Her
friend Audrey’s marriage is boredom at best
and the only men left for Nora to date are the
leftovers from the grand and glorious marriage
marriage market that most New Yorkers enter in
their mid to late twenties. Once you hit thirty,
the only choices left are jerk and jerkier.
And then she meets a hot Frenchman, Julien (played
by Melvin Poupaud) and something clicks. But Nora
is still burdened with the baggage of her passive
aggressive dating style and after all, the guy
does live in Paris. So they go to Paris to find
him, but Nora also takes along all of her self
destructive impulses and…….
This film has a tone and a feel that is quintessentially
New York and it tells a deeply psychological story
of sadness and loneliness. It is a story of how
people create their own lives by their own expectations
and nothing can really change unless they change
first.
Zoe Cassavetes’ follows in her family’s
tradition of creating intense emotional films.
Parker Posey does a magnificent job playing a
woman whose life may not be that far from her
own. Drea DeMatteo (of Adrianna in the Sopranos
fame) creates yet another New York character that
is filled with both cynicism and longing. And
Melvil Poupaud is just plain sexy and if the French
have more of him, they should import them to New
York.
Anthony Giacchino’s
The Camden 28
Opened Friday, July 27, 2007
Reviewed by Julia
Sirmons
An often overlooked
cut incredibly significant moment in modern American
history is finally given its due in Anthony Giacchino’s
The Camden 28, a resonant and incisive
examination the high-profile trial of twenty-eight
anti-war activists in Camden, New Jersey in 1973.
Giacchino’s
documentary focuses on a fact often overwhelmed
by the modern-day stereotypical image of the drug-addled,
long-haired peace protestor of the ‘60s
and early ‘70s. In actuality, the massive
cultural changes also sent shockwaves through
many religious communities, particularly groups
of pacifist Catholics – often referred to
as the “Catholic Left” – who
felt it their Christian duty to anything necessary
to stop an unjust and senseless war. Many participated
in very public and flagrant burnings of draft
cards, which almost inevitably led to jail sentences
for some of the movement’s most impassioned
and valuable members.
Meanwhile, a group
of pacifists based in Camden decided that more
drastic measures were required to stop the killing.
(A change of the entire political structure would
also be necessary, they decided, but the first
priority was to stop as many deaths as they could.)
Together the group – who would later become
known as “The Camden 28” and counted
among its members four Catholic priests and a
Lutheran minister –concocted a plot to raid
a draft office and destroy as many records as
possible. The office was ideally located across
from the Episcopal church, where group members
performed stakeouts to prepare for the break-in.
For many members of the group, making this political
statement in Camden was a highly symbolic gesture,
since scores of the city’s poor African-American
and Hispanic young men were being sent off to
war while the neighborhoods they grew up in bore
a striking resemblance to the devastated, burnt-out
villages of Vietnam. What better place, they argued,
to illustrate how the huge amount of money used
to fund an endless war could be put to better
use improving communities at home?
Through a well-edited
mixture of archival footage, photographs, and
in-depth, enlightening interviews with all parties
involved in the affair, Giacchino reconstructs
the Camden 28’s extensive planning for the
raid, its execution, the bust by the FBI, the
subsequent trial, and the group’s ongoing
and complex relationship with the informant who
betrayed them by tipping off the Feds. (The details
of this subplot are just too juicy and well told
to spoil; you’ll just have to find out for
yourself.)
Giacchino uses
several effective techniques to bring this dynamic
moment of political history to life. He cleverly
reunites all the major players – from defendants
(most of whom were actively involved in their
defense, delivering opening and closing statements
and examining witnesses) to attorneys to key witnesses
– in the same courtroom where the trial
was held, and has them re-enact key moments in
the trial and describe their emotions and reactions
at the time, as well as their feelings about the
experience with over thirty years of hindsight.
Of the many poignant moments that arise from this
scenario, particularly notable is the declaration
of Camden 28 member Joan Reilly, while reenacting
her time on the witness stand, that she hopes
this reunion will rekindle the group’s determination
to fight for peace; a fight which, she reminds
them, is a lifelong battle.
Moments like
this prove that Giacchino’s greatest assets
are the members of Camden 28 themselves, tightly
and permanently bonded by the experience they
shared and the fortitude of their convictions,
and so passionately committed to their beliefs
that they were willing to sacrifice all the securities
of conventional life to try and bring their dreams
a little closer to reality. Giacchino never directly
asks any of the Camden 28 their thoughts about
the war in Iraq, preferring to let that dimension
of the story remain a latent but profound undercurrent.
However, he does include footage of many Camden
28 members marching in protests against the Iraq
War just before the credits roll. It’s a
subtle reminder that the insistent clarion call
for peace and justice that sounded so loudly in
the ‘60’s and ‘70s can still
be heard. Enthralling and compulsory viewing,
The Camden 28 is a timely reminder of
America’s history of civil disobedience,
and a compelling call to action for all persons
of conscience living in the here and
now.
Frank Oz's
Death at a Funeral
Opens Friday, August 17, 2007
Starring: Matthew
Macfadyen; Keeley Hawes; Andy Nyman; Howard Ewen
Bremne; Daisy Donovan; Alan Tudyk; Jane Asher;
Kris Marshall;
Rupert Graves; Peter Vaughan; Thomas Wheatley;
Peter Egan; Peter Dinklage; Brendan O'Hea; and
Jeremy Booth.
Reviewed by Allison
Ford
“Riotous
mayhem and unfortunate mishaps” are not
what usually happen at funerals. Not at the funerals
that anyone I know has personally attended, anyways.
Maybe if you’re British, these kinds of
things happen often enough to be commonplace,
but I’ve never been to a British funeral,
so I can’t say for sure. I would imagine
them to be intensely stodgy, somber affairs, where
everyone wears black veils and sips tea and wears
sensible shoes. I definitely do NOT imagine upended
coffins, blackmail, hallucinogenic drugs, or nudity.
Death at a
Funeral, the new black comedy directed by
Frank Oz, explores the worst-case scenario for
a proper upper-class British family that is trying
desperately to remain dignified while chaos erupts
all around them. Oz, best known as the voices
of Yoda and Fozzie Bear, but also the director
of such classic comedies as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,
Bowfinger, and What About Bob?
has crafted a madcap, uproarious portrait of a
dysfunctional family, complete with the requisite
black sheep and skeletons in the closet.
In fact, this
family seems to be comprised entirely of black
sheep, except for the dutiful son, played by Matthew
MacFayden, who tries to hold it all together as
they attempt to give the family patriarch a proper
send-off. Although played by venerable British
actors, the characters in the film could belong
to any family on either side of the pond; the
narcissistic brother, the attractive cousin and
her hapless fiancé, the chubby hypochondriac
friend, the grieving mother who secretly enjoys
the spotlight, and the cantankerous (and incontinent)
great-uncle Alfie.
While the direction
and acting are nearly flawless, the script is
a bit contrived at times, and not always full
of surprises. The dialogue tends to foreshadow
the punchline of jokes before they have been fully
played-out. When we meet the drug-dealing cousin,
it’s pretty obvious that someone will mistake
his Ecstasy for Excedrin. When we see the Mysterious
Stranger lurking near the coffin, it’s not
hard to figure out that he harbors a Big Secret.
Madness ensues, and while Simon the Fiancé
runs naked and hallucinating through the garden,
Peter the Mystery Guest reveals his nefarious
plot, and Uncle Archie tries valiantly to get
to the loo in time. (Spoiler – he doesn’t
make it.)
Although the idea
that a family funeral is a perfect place for black
comedy is universal, the film itself has a distinctly
British feel. Much upper-class British comedy
is based on emotion bubbling up beneath a buttoned-up
exterior, and this comedy uses a perfect blend
of highbrow and lowbrow comedic elements, from
pithy bon mots to slapstick sight gags. A desperate,
quintessentially British uptightness lays the
foundation for characters to do desperately ridiculous
things in the name of saving face. As Daniel,
the stoic and dutiful son, Matthew MacFayden is
calm and rational to a fault. We know that he
harbors feelings of rage and fury, but his refusal
to acknowledge them is what makes it hilarious
when he’s eventually pushed over the brink.
Alan Tudyk plays Simon, nervous about meeting
his fiancé‘s stuffy father, and the
tension between his raging inner life and calm
outward façade makes it much more satisfying
when he’s screaming obscenities on the roof.
Although some
of the more contrived plot points feel quite American,
the film makes no apologies for or explanations
of its essential British-ness. They are relatable,
though, and far from being American-imagined caricatures
of the English (such as in Snatch). The
Britain of this film is more Four Weddings
and a Funeral than Benny Hill. The
film also takes advantage of the feeling (among
Americans, anyway) that anything is funnier when
spoken in a British accent. Even British insults
are funnier – calling someone a “wanker”
feels much cleverer than calling them a “jackass.”
The film
concludes with a primly happy ending, all the
loose ends having been neatly tied up. Its success
is owed more to the direction and performances
than to the script, written by newcomer Neal Craig.
While it does not contain some of the biting satire
or social commentary of Oz’s earlier work,
Death at a Funeral is a great lighthearted
comedy. Frank Oz’s quirky direction as well
as stellar performances by a great cast is what
make this film a welcome respite from the rest
of the end-of-summer doldrums.
For more information, log onto the movie's website:
deathatafuneral-themovie.com.
Tom Dicillo’s
Delirious
Opens Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Starring:
Steve Buscemi; Michael Pitt; Alison Lohman; and
Gina Gershon.
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Tom Decillo’s Delirious
is a fairy tale complete with a handsome prince,
a beautiful princess, a good witch and an urban
troll. And in this modern retelling of the Brother’s
Grimm, it is the prince who is rescued and
taken to an ivory tower to live happily ever after
with his drugged-out princess.
Steve Buscemi plays hapless paparazzi (the troll)
whose big dream is to get “the” photo
that will catapult him to fame and fortune. But
the only catapulting he finds is the kind that
kicks him out of all the good parties and keeps
him away from the A list stars, especially a Britney
Spears-like pop singer named K’Harma (Alison
Lohman). Then Les finds a protégé
in the person of Toby (Michael Pitt), a homeless
kid that Les “befriends” and takes
under his wing as his unpaid assistant.
And then one night K’Harma sees Toby and
they are immediately smitten with the spell of
love because underneath Toby’s street gear
is the gorgeous body and face of Michael Pitt.
But as in all good fairy tales there are complications
and the lovers are cast apart – K’Harma
into her karma and Toby into the arms of the hot
casting director Dana (Gina Gershon), the good
witch of this urban fairy tale. Toby is now a
fixture in the celebrity galaxy and Les is left
behind to ruminate on the injustice of life.
But in the end,
karma rights this celestial world. For Delirious
is a true fairy tale, one where celebrities are
Fairy Godmothers (just like they are in real life).
The film is blessed
with talented stars. Steve Buscemi delivers the
goods as always. And Alison Lohman, Michael Pitt
and Gina Gershon all do what they do best, tell
the story while looking good, really good.
The locations are terrific. For once a New York
apartment of a regular Joe looks like the piece-of-shit
dive and not like a Friend’s like
palace. The clubs are the clubs, the streets of
the Meat Packing district add grit and the ivory
tower penthouses are true castles in the air.
It is New York.
Good job.
Patrick Wilson and Claire
Danes in Evening
Lajos Koltai's
Evening
Opens Friday, June 29,
2007
Starring: Eileen
Atkins; Glenn Close; Toni Colette; Hugh Dancy;
Claire Danes; Marnie Gummer; Vanessa Redgrave;
Natasha Richardson; and Patrick Wilson.
Reviewed
by Julia Sirmons
Just off an idyllic
rocky coast, a young woman, swathed in virginal
white, lies curled up in a small wooden sailboat.
On the overlooking crags, an elderly woman, dressed
in a spangled black gown, watches the girl affectionately,
attentively, from a distance.
The young girl
awakes – from a trance or a dream? –
and looks up, anxiously, expectantly toward the
older woman.
“Where’s
Harris?” she asks, her voice querulous,
anxious, expectant.
So begins Evening,
the poignant, transcendent, and incandescent new
film directed by Lajos Koltai and adapted by Susan
Minot and Michael Cunningham from Minot’s
novel of the same title.
This opening scene
is, in fact, a dream or a delusion, generated
from the mind of a dying second-string jazz singer,
Ann Lord Grant (Vanessa Redgrave), confined to
her bed, stuck between ruminations on and analysis
of the sum total of her life and sometimes laconic,
sometimes acute and pissy reactions to her current
state of terminal illness.
The young girl
she watches over in the dream is her former self,
the young Ann Lord (Claire Danes), a college student
who’s naïve, charming but slightly
awkward, unsure of her ability or desire to pursue
a singing career.
As old Ann dreams
and ponders and curses fate in the confines of
her sickbed – in a film replete with stellar
performances from a cast chock-full of today’s
finest actors, Redgrave is the center that holds
the film together; schlumped over in bed with
scraggly hair and no makeup, she’s still
a gorgeous, dynamite force of nature – she
calls out the name “Harris,” calling
him the great love of her life and hinting that
she and Harris were somehow involved in the death
of a mutual friend of theirs.
This comes as a
complete shock to Ann’s two grown daughters
Nina (Toni Colette) and Constance (played by Redgrave’s
real-life daughter, Natasha Richardson). Later
on in the film, there’s an incredibly tender
and well played scene between these two that takes
all the clichés about grown-up children
finally appreciating what their parents went through
raising them and turns them into something subtle,
honest and beautiful.
Nina wants to solve
the Harris mystery; Constance thinks it’s
best, at this late date, to let sleeping dogs
lie. Of course, as is often the case with sisters,
there’s another, deeper dimension to this
conflict. Constance is the confident, capable
supermom and wife, whereas Nina is the only slightly
recovered bête noire of the family, who
can’t tell her committed and smitten rocker
boyfriend that she’s pregnant. She’s
conflicted; half of her wants the boyfriend and
the baby, and half of her is terrified that she’ll
be making a terrible mistake – a mistake
like the one she’s beginning to think her
mother might have made. For their respective personal
reasons, Constance wants to view their mother’s
life as inherently happy, whereas Nina wants to
see it as unhappy, tinged with bitterness and
resentment of half-successes and missed opportunities.
Again, the issues run deeper. The differences
between the sisters’ choices in life are
often a source of friction between them, as they
make each one question the decisions they made;
choices they pretend they’re completely
comfortable with. Again, a huge amount of credit
is due to Koltai, Minot, and Cunningham –
and obviously, to Richardson and Colette –
for taking on this well mined territory and not
sliding into Lifetime-movie schlock. Nina and
Constance bristle against each other, and even
flat-out fight, but even in these tensest of moments,
an incredible amount of love, laughter, and mutual
appreciation always shines through.
Meanwhile, through
old Ann’s memories and reveries –
often aided by the proddings of cipher-like, shape-shifting
nurse (played with a fantastic mix of tenderness
and practical pluckiness by Eileen Atkins) –
the audience gets to go back into the past, and
slowly discovers the truth about what really happened
with Harris.
Koltai takes us
back to Newport in the ‘50s, where the bohemian,
fresh-faced Ann (played with a luminous youthful
exuberance, vulnerability and subtlety by Claire
Danes, who with this performance finally lives
up to the great potential she showed so many years
ago on My So-Called Life) arrives at
the posh Newport estate of her college friend
Lila (Marnie Gummer), who’s about to be
married to a nice but dull society boy. Strictly
against these nuptials is Buddy (Hugh Dancy),
Lila’s brother and Ann’s friend, who
hopes, that in between the revelry of a weekend
of drunken carousing, singing, dancing, sailing
and frolicking in the woods, Ann will find the
time to talk Lila out of the wedding.
Dancy is another
standout amidst a cast of excellent actors. In
a conversation held at an advance screening of
Evening, Minot credited Cunningham with developing
Buddy’s character for the film, and there’s
no doubt that it was an excellent choice. Buddy
is a unique, compelling, charming and heartbreaking
character – the only comparison that springs
immediately to mind is Sebastian Flyte, the troubled,
sexually confused aristocratic gadfly of Evelyn
Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
Like Sebastian,
Buddy both enjoys the pleasures of his life of
privilege and abhors the pretensions that go along
with it. He has a complicated relationship with
alcohol and isn’t sure whether he’d
like to kiss his girl or his boy friends. These
complexities are combined with an irresistible,
infectious urge to drain every Dionysian pleasure
out of life, and an overwhelming desire to squeeze
out every moment of happiness while the fruit
is still ripe.
Dancy’s portrayal
of Buddy sways through all of these elements like
a beautiful, heartbreaking gavotte. An actor discovered
through BBC adaptations of literary classics,
Dancy has wasted too much of his time and considerable
talent playing Price Charming roles in B-rate
romantic comedies and using his smoldering, Byronic
good looks to great effect in Burberry ads. It’s
a great pleasure to see his impressive talent
put to exquisite use in Evening. His
ruddy, wine-filled face, alternating expressions
of enthusiasm and hope, dejection and despair,
happiness and exuberance, fear and vulnerability,
is a remarkable ever-changing canvas that is both
entertaining and heartbreaking as the film moves
on.
Buddy wants his
sister Lila to marry the oft-mentioned Harris
(Patrick Wilson), the poorer, nobler, and more
emotionally stable friend of the family who sails
with Buddy and holds him up whenever he gets a
little too loud or too wobbly. Lila is indeed
in love with Harris, but Harris has gently but
summarily rejected her advances, and so she’s
decided to go ahead and marry a man she’s
ambivalent to, much to the delight of her mother
(played with perfect pinchy WASP-iness by an insanely
coiffed Glenn Close).
The one Harris
is really interested in is Ann, and the chemistry
between the two – which even surpasses the
lovely dancing duet they did to the tune of Irving
Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do”
in a recent Gap ad – is a wonder to behold.
It’s slow and realistic, yet simmering with
the unique erotic tension of the possibility of
first real love. Audience members in an advance
screening complained about Wilson’s wooden
stiffness in his portrayal of Harris. However,
anyone who’s seen his incredible performance
as a conflicted, closeted Mormon in HBO’s
televised version of Angels in America
knows that a stiff exterior with volcanic emotions
bubbling just below the surface is Wilson’s
specialty. When, at Lila’s wedding, Ann
and Harris break into a spontaneous duet of Sammy
Cahn and Jule Styne’s “Time After
Time,” all question of wooden stiffness
melts away. There is only the exhilarating unpredictability
of new, sparkling flirtation and romance and all
the exciting promises they hold.
This blossoming,
surreptitious romance is made even more of a treat
for the audience by the efforts of cinematographer
Gyula Pados, who make their surreptitious interludes
in the woods foggy, magical and mystical –
full of that very midsummer madness and bacchanals
that date back at least as far as ancient Greece.
It’s gorgeous looking and sensational and
powerful enough to make a viewer feel as if she’s
falling in love for the first time herself.
Naturally, this
relationship comes as a great blow to Buddy, who
isn’t sure whether he’d rather kiss
Ann or Harris, and is afraid (like Sebastian Flyte)
that his family and surrogate family will steal
his friends (and possible loves) away, or that
somebody else may be having fun without him. This
deadly cocktail of feelings of betrayal can and
will lead, we all know, lead to an unhappy end
and the collapse of all these beautiful romantic
dreams.
Here again, Koltai,
Minot, Cunningham and editor Allyson C. Johnson
perfectly manage the delicate movements between
past and present, managing the tension like virtuosi,
giving the audience enough information on each
side of the story to leave them wanting more;
desperate to see what we already know will happen,
as well as what we know we’ll never see
and what we hope against hope will never occur,
even though we know it’s inevitable.
In the present
time, the sisters make peace and find their own
happiness, while thanks to a visit from the now
aged Lila (played by Meryl Streep with all the
delicacy and perfection we’ve come to expect
from her) the dying Ann comes to terms with her
unresolved issues with Harris, looking over her
rich, full life, and concurring with Lila’s
conclusion that “nothing is a mistake.”
A user comment
on IMDb has already dubbed Evening a
“great chick flick”. This same moniker
– which can mean box office gold, but also
a snooty attitude from critics – was used
for the adaptation of Michael Cuninngham’s
novel The Hours, a mega-indie powerhouse
that made a huge impact, both at the box office
and on the awards circuit.
So forget about
chicks and dudes; let your sexual predetermination
fall by the way side for 117 minutes. Are you
interested in love, youth and beauty? The existential
crises that make us wonder what our lives could
have been? The impending threat of mortality and
the questions it raises, both for the dying and
those left behind? Do you have a pulse? Then forget
about your chromosomes, and go see Evening.
Adam Shankman’s
Hairspray
Opens Friday, August 20, 2007
Starring: John Travolta;
Michelle Pfeiffer; Christopher Walken; Amanda
Bynes; James Marsden; Queen Latifah; Brittany
Snow; Zac Efron; Elijah Kelley; Allison Janney;
Taylor Parks; and Nikki Blonsky.
Reviewed by Wendy
R. Williams
Tracy Turnblad
(played by darling newcomer Nikki Blonsky) is
a “big” little girl with big hair
and an even bigger heart. She lives in John Water’s
1960’s Baltimore with her even larger shut
-in mother Edna (played by John Travolta in a
fat suit) and her loving but strange father Wilbur
(played by the loving but strange Christopher
Walken). Tracy and her best friend Penny Pingleton
(the adorable Amanda Bynes) attend high school
where they are among the misfits – Tracy
because of her size and Penny because she is quashed
by an over-protective mother (the always hysterical
Allison Janney) who won’t even let her watch
the local teenage dance TV show, the Corny Collins
show. Tracy and Penny “love” the Corny
Collins show and Tracy’s biggest dream is
to be one of the show’s dancers.
Cute little Tracy
(with the blessing of her father and the trepidations
of her over-protective mother) catches the eye
of Corny Collins when he sees her dancing at a
high school dance. Corny decides to cast Tracy
as one of the dancers, much to the chagrin of
the show’s producer Velma Von Tussle (played
by the always amazing Michelle Pfeiffer) and her
daughter Amber Von Tussle (the third of the adorable
teenage Hairspray actresses, Miss Brittany
Snow).
Once Tracy is on
the show, she wows the TV audience with her take-no-prisoners
dancing style; Tracy also catches the eye of local
heartthrob Link Larkin (played by teenage heart
throb Zac Efron). Tracy also shocks Mrs. Von Tussle
(who did not like Tracy’s size to begin
with) when she announces that she (Tracy) would
like for every day to be Negro day. (Negro Day
is the one day a month when the show features
black dancers and performers).
Tracy then befriends
the local Negros: Motor Mouth Mabel (played flawlessly
by Queen Latifah); Seaweed, a charismatic dancer
who quickly falls for Penny (played by Elijah
Kelly); and Little Inez (Taylor Parks), Mabel’s
daughter whose dancing rivals Tracy’s in
style and enthusiasm.
So the die is cast
and change is about to hit Baltimore. Nikki, her
newly energized mother Edna, Amanda and the troupe
of amazingly talented black dancers led by Motor
Mouth Mabel want to integrate the Corny Collins
show. And in this goal, they have help from Corny
himself; Corny isn’t a racist and he can
see that adding black dancers would be good for
the show. Velma is totally opposed; she is both
anti-fat and racist and her only goal is to make
a star of her Mini-Me, her bland and blond daughter,
Amber.
Hairspray (the 2007 ) works. It is charming,
good hearted, big and wonderful, just like its
star, little Tracy. The film is not quite as subversive
as the original 1988 John Water’s Hairspray
film mostly because John Travolta plays Edna as
an
almost-real-woman in contrast to Divine’s
subversive over-the-top Edna. But real or not,
he is very funny and the scene where Travolta
and Walken dance in the backyard with a backdrop
of hung laundry is simply wonderful.
But there are so
many wonderful moments in this film: Michelle
Pfeiffer is amazing as the snooty racist Velma
and her costumes are sixties marvels. And Nikkii
Blonsky was an incredible find for the role of
Miss Tracy Turnblad.
Director Adam Shankman
created some wonderful dance numbers and managed
to hit exactly the right tone with film; the film
is campy and fun but always manages to keep one
toe on the ground. The costumes and sets are candy-colored
marvels. Hairspray, with its message
of tolerance and hope, is a film that is truly
fun for the entire family.
Franc Reyes’
Illegal Tender
Opens Friday, August 24, 2007
Sin City invades Pulp Fiction
in this smokin' hot gangsta flick
Starring: Rick
Gonzalez; Wanda De Jesus: Dania Ramirez; Manny
Perez; and Tego Calderon.
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Fran Reyes has
helmed a thrilling carnival ride with his new
film, Illegal Tender. Tender tells
the story of Millie, a smart (and hot) Puerto
Rican mamma (played by Wanda De Jesus) who is
quietly living in suburban Connecticut with her
two sons: college student Wilson (played by Rick
Gonzalez) and elementary school student Randy
(played by the adorable Antonio Ortiz).
See this quote
from the press release: “After the gangsters
who killed his father come to settle a score,
a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on
the killers. Producer John Singleton (Four
Brothers, Hustle & Flow) and
writer / director Franc Reyes (Empire)
join forcers to tell the story of one family’s
quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become
the hunters in the new thriller Illegal Tender.”
Wilson is named
for his father, Wilson De Leon Sr. (played by
Manny Perez), a Bronx based Puerto Rican gangster
who was murdered at moment of Wilson’s birth.
Well, Wilson Jr. may now be a well-heeled Connecticut
college student (he drives a BMW to class), but
he is still pure Bronx, dressing in baggy pants
and blasting gangsta rap from his Beamer’s
speakers. He is more Bridgeport than Westport,
more G Unit than Ralph Lauren.
Then one day Mamma
Millie is shopping for groceries when she sees
a “ghost,” a woman from her old Bronx
neighborhood. She quickly grabs Ricky and runs
home to inform Wilson that they have to move,
“again.” (It appears that this is
family that has been mansion surfing.) But Wilson
has a great life and is less than receptive to
his mother’s hysteria. He has an adorable
girlfriend named Ana (played by Dania Ramirez),
he is doing very well in school and he wants no
part of this new move. He feels safe and just
assumes that his mother is over reacting (as mothers
occasionally do).
We then hit the
top of the roller coaster. Mamma quickly tells
Wilson that he is a man now and if he won’t
leave, he needs to be prepared to defend himself
and his girlfriend. And in one of the most unintentionally
funny part of the story, Mamma takes her boy into
the basement, unlocks the safe and distributes
assault rifles to her understandably shocked son.
Mamma leaves and
Wilson is then forced to defend his turf (and
his girl) when the sins of his father’s
past invade his luxurious Connecticut world. We
are then treated to a scene from the Scream
sequel that must have been filming in the sound
stage next door as Ana (who is supposed to be
"quietly" hiding in the basement so
the bad guys and gals won’t find her), screams
her heart out for what seems like five minutes.
This is also unintentionally (I think) hysterical.
Wilson, who is
rightfully perplexed by this turn of events, confronts
his mother and makes her tell him the secrets
of their past starting with just where did their
money come from in the first place? (He just noticed
that Mamma dosn't have a job.) So Mamma tells
him. It seems that while they are from the Bronx,
the root of their “problem” is the
gang world of Puerto Rico; Mamma has a blood feud
with a Puerto Rican based gangster, Javier Cordero
(played by Gary Perez).
Wilson then decides
to “cut the head from the hydra” and
in this quest he gets ample help from his smokin’
mamma. Mamma Millie and Wilson travel to Puerto
Rico where they undertake a Michael Corleone-type
mission to make things right for their family.
This film
is fun. I never once looked at my watch to see
how much longer it would be; it moves. And yes,
there are mixed genres – sometimes I was
watching the Godfather and then it turned
into Scream II. But there is so much
to like. Wanda de Jesus is both heartfelt and
hysterical as Millie and Rick Gonzalez gives a
quietly sincere performance as the coming-of-age
Wilson. And Tego Calderon bring in the goods as
Choco, the more than capable assistant to Puerto
Rican kingpin Javier Cordero. And you just have
to see this film to see the two bad-ass Latina
assassins (played by Mercedes Mercado and Carmen
Perez) who are seemingly moonlighting from the
set of Sin City II. They are pure camp.
http://www.epk.tv/view.aspx?request=campaign&campaign=illegal-tender&clip=part-1
In HBO’s Life Support,
Life Goes On
DVD Release August 7, 2007
Reviewed by William
S. Gooch
Unlike some films
about HIV/AIDS, Life Support is about
living with the HIV virus, not just dying from
it. Life Support provides a glimpse into
the lives of blue-collar, African American urban
dwellers that work, love, and yes, even celebrate
life in spite of HIV/AIDS, low wages, rough neighborhoods,
and bad life choices. With a stellar cast that
includes Queen Latifah, Gloria Reuben, Tracey
Ellis Ross, Wendell Pierce and Anna Deavere Smith,
Life Support details the everyday challenges of
Ana Wallace (Queen Latifah), an HIV positive,
former crack addict who struggles to transform
her life and hold her family together.
As Ana Wallace,
Queen Latifah delivers an authentically moving
and nuanced performance as a woman who is coming
to terms with past mistakes. And Tracey Ellis
Ross (Girlfriends) as the angry sister
of an HIV-positive-teen gives perhaps her best
portrayal to date.
Nelson George,
in his directorial debut, has created a movie
that illustrates the current dilemma for African
Americans living with HIV. Life is not over for
most, so the challenge is how to live with the
virus and keep on keeping on, so to speak.
During support
group discussions in the film, real-life, HIV–positive
women talk openly about life, love, choices, disclosure,
and their future. Though loosely based on Andrea
Williams' (Nelson George's sister) struggle with
HIV, Life Support is more about responsibility
and living life honestly.
To be released
on August 7, the 87-minute DVD includes special
features such as audio commentary from director,
Nelson George, “The Story Behind the Story”
featurette, including an interview with Queen
Latifah, an interview with Andrea Williams and
much more.
Angelina Jolie in A
Mighty Heart
Michael Winterbottom’s
A Mighty Heart
Opens Friday, June 22, 2007
Reviewed
by Frank J. Avella
Michael Winterbottom
is one of the most prolific and fascinating
filmmakers working today, yet he receives no
accolades for his work and is less celebrated
than lesser directors. This is a serious shame
since he is one of the most passionate and best
directors around. With his last few films he
has made a serious study in diversity: The
Road to Guantanamo; Tristram Shandy:
A Cock and Bull Story; 9 Songs;
Code 46; In this World; 24-Hour
Party People; The Claim; and Welcome
to Sarajevo. If there is one constant,
it’s the fact that he continues to go
back to political films. And the results are
always extraordinary.
Prior to her
Academy Award for Girl Interrupted,
Angelina Jolie was one of the few promising
and daring actresses on the horizon. Her astonishing
performance in the HBO film Gia proved
this. Unfortunately, her post-Oscar choices
have not been the wisest (Tomb Raider
anyone?) and her acting career has been recently
overshadowed by her celebrity, which is not
exactly her fault. Recently, Jolie and her beau
Brad Pitt have decided to use their media exposure
to speak out about political and social causes,
with mixed results.
The merging of
these two strong filmic figures (Winterbottom
and Jolie) could have spelled disaster--another
bleeding heart liberal Hollywood pic (anyone
remember Kim Basinger in I Dreamed of Africa?).
Lucky for us, Winterbottom refuses to compromise
his artistry AND Jolie has returned to real
acting.
A Mighty
Heart provides a detailed docu-cine-document
of the kidnapping and brutal butchery of Wall
Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl in Karachi,
Pakistan. Based on the account written by his
wife, Mariane, the film is occasionally nonlinear
and doesn’t follow any paint-by-numbers
structure. What it does is tell a riveting and
tragic story in edge-of-your-seat fashion.
On January 23,
2002, Daniel Pearl, while researching a story
on the shoe bomber Richard Reid, disappears.
A few days later, it is revealed he has been
kidnapped by a group that calls itself the National
Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty.
The pic chronicles the events that occur before
and after the kidnapping as seen through the
eyes of his pregnant wife, Mariane...up until
the horrific conclusion.
Although A
Mighty Heart is a condemnation of terrorism,
it asks us to, at least, understand both sides.
It’s also a powerful reminder of just
how piranha-like the media can be. One gets
the feeling that the Brangelina paparazzi attacks
may have inspired certain scenes.
Now, of course
this is a Jolie vehicle, but she never overplays
her character. It’s actually a fantastic
bit of acting and the moment she discovers her
husband is dead is devastatingly real.
Winterbottom
continues to provide vital cinematic evidence
of the current topsy-turvy, hate-obsessed world
we live in. In depicting tragedies like the
Pearl execution and the egregious human rights
violations at Guantanamo, audiences are hopefully
rattled, shaken, perhaps even stirred into taking
some kind of action. One can hope, anyway.
John August’s
The Nines
Opens Friday, August 31, 2007
Starring:
Ryan Reynolds; Hope Davis; Melissa McCarthy;
and Elle Fanning.
Reviewed by Tara Mikhail
In John August’s
directorial debut, The Nines, we are
launched into a mind-twisting adventure that
leaves us questioning the world around us. A
forewarning: be prepared to make this movie
your first stop of the night because afterwards
you will want to stop at a coffee house and
talk about questions such as: Are we living
in a parallel universe? And if so, is it the
right one and is there also a wrong one?
The film boasts a stellar ensemble of actors
including: Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder,
Smokin’ Aces); Hope Davis (American
Splendor), Melissa McCarthy (Gilmore
Girls); and Elle Fanning (Because of
Winn Dixie). Reynolds stars as three different
yet connected characters whose lives revolve
around the same people in three separate worlds.
Reynolds, who has played every genre from cheesy
(The In-Laws) to raunchy-yet-funny
(Waiting, Van Wilder) to thriller
(The Amityville Horror), is now carrying
the lead in a thought inducing film.
The film plays like an unsettling dream. Startled
awake, you fall asleep again and just as you
enter a false-calm, you realize that you are
in the same dream, only slightly modified. The
film is shot in three different ways. Not one
moment passes that is irrelevant, everything
in the film (down to the music) ties into a
broader picture. The overlapping of props, location,
music, dialog, themes and name alliteration
come together in pure genius as we journey with
Reynolds characters. The boundary between reality
and unreality is toyed with, not only making
us wonder what is truly real, but asking us
what reality truly is.
In all three parts of the film, Reynolds questions
his existence and begins to feel as though he
is not alone; he feels like he is watching himself
in an outer-body experience. Part one,The
Prisoner, revolves around the innate human
desire to flea restraining conditions. Gary
(Reynolds) is a TV actor who is under house
arrest and being care for by his publicist and
companion (McCarthy). Extremely lonely and bored,
he develops a shallow and disconnected relationship
with the house-wife-next- door (Davis). Part
two, Reality Television, is based on
reality and relationships, namely August and
his relationship with McCarthy. Reality
follows Gavin (Reynolds) as he writes a TV show
for his very best friend (McCarthy) and struggles
through a shallow relationship with a network
executive (Davis). In part three, Knowing,
the end and the beginning are now entwined.
In Knowing we follow Gabriel, who is
now living the plot of Gavin’s show. Gabriel’s
car breaks down in the woods; he is stranded
with his wife (McCarthy) and his daughter (Fanning).
He seeks help from a stranger (Davis). See the
connection in character’s roles? Just
wait until you see how the number nine plays
in.
In Nine, August, famed for writing
movies such as Big Fish, The Corpse
Bride, and Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, tries his hand at directing. His
obsession with everything that embodies the
best allows this movie to flourish. The thoughts
behind the images drive the film - the movie
is surreal without having ridiculous Matrix-esque
qualities. Connecting the characters, reflecting
on reality, questioning loops in time, pondering
the difference (if there is one) between creator
and created, this movie is high-brow, modern
literature in the form of
film.
Steven Soderbergh’s
Ocean’s 13
Opens Friday, June 8, 2007
Reviewed by Frank J. Avella
As a huge fan
of both Ocean’s 11 (a remake
of the inferior Rat Pack Ocean’s 11
from 1960) and Ocean’s 12
(which received a lackluster response, mostly
because it was way too clever for audiences
and most critics), I had high hopes for the
third saga involving Clooney and his clan.
I was a bit upset
by the exclusion of Julia Roberts and Catherine
Zeta-Jones (sooo good in 12), but the
addition of master thesp Al Pacino got me giddy
again. And Ellen Barkin is always fun. But could
Steven Soderbergh pull off three good movies
in a row without copying and compromising? I
am thrilled to report that the answer is...a
resounding hell yes!
Considering the
typical cavalcade of crap that Hollywood heaps
on the public during the summer--and there is
plenty this year to be sure--there are also
a couple of surprisingly smart studio flix for
the discerning cinemagoer who has exhausted
the terrific indie and foreign pics playing.
Knocked Up, as flawed as it is, fits
the quality bill, and Ocean’s 13
scores a royal flush!
As a matter of
happy fact, this installment may actually be
the funniest and cleverest yet! (taking into
account the prettification of everything onscreen
and the artifice at play).
Director extraordinaire,
Steven Soderbergh, has a sly way of working
within a particular genre while simultaneously
paying homage to it and satirizing it. (His
unjustly maligned gem The Good German
was another example, albeit a cooler, more experimental
one.)
Soderbergh is
rarely mean spirited. Ocean’s 13
can be seen, in fact, as a celebration of and
tribute to the oh-so-many male bonding westerns,
comedies and adventure pics from Hollywood past.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt could easily be
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin or John Wayne
and Dean Martin or even Cary Grant and Katharine
Hepburn!
In the latest
slick saga, the gang reunite for revenge. One
of the 11 have been unfairly treated by a brandy
new villain and the group must reband to take
down the evil titan. If 11 was a heist
flick and 12 was about survival, 13’s
theme is loyalty.
Reuben (madcap
Elliott Gould) partners with swarthy Trump-esque
casino maverick Willy Bank (Al Pacino, having
a blast). When Bank double-crosses Reuben leaving
him broke and broken, Danny Ocean and the team
come to the rescue with an elaborate screw-him-good
scheme that is both fantastical and preposterous.
They even include nemesis Andy Garcia on the
plan.
Ocean’s
13 is loaded with cool, breezy banter (perfectly
uttered with utter understatement by Clooney
and Pitt). Screenwriters Brian Koppelman and
David Levien are to be commended on their wit
and whimsy.
Clooney and Pitt
have better screen chemistry than most male/female
stars. Many a highlight in the movie involve
these two pals simply speaking.
There is a hilarious
moment when Clooney is caught watching Oprah,
tears welling. Pitt makes fun but is soon overtaken
himself. Another terrific and truly poignant
scene has the duo reflecting on how much Vegas
has changed. They could very well be discussing
Hollywood in general and motion pictures, in
particular. But, with Soderbergh hard at work,
classic Hollywood pics are not dead at all.
They’re just reimagined and redesigned
with new charismatic leading men (and sometimes
women), and most importantly, with their souls
intact.
The entire cast
is to be commended on their joyous performances.
Pacino, in particular, delights in playing evil
and we love to...well we love him even if he’s
evil!!! Newbie Ellen Barkin fits right in and
is especially hysterical in her scenes with
Matt Damon.
Tech credits,
as always with the Ocean flix, are
stupendous. Most outstanding is David Holmes’
score and Soderbergh’s camerawork (working
under the pseudonym Peter Andrews).
This 13
proves quite the lucky number for summer moviegoers!
