Katharina Otto-Bernstein’s
Absolute Wilson
Opens Friday, October 27, 2006
Starring: Robert Wilson,
Suzanne Wilson, David Byrne, Susan Sontag, Philip
Glass
Reviewed
by Wendy R. Williams
We travel through the world
unseen and unseeing; each with our own internal
TV sets showing only one show: our show, our own
personal view of the world. But then on the same
pathway traveled by many, a Diane Arbus stops
and takes a photo of someone walking on the sidewalk,
a subject she saw that no one else saw. Or a Philip
Perkis stops by the side of a road and takes a
photo of a desolate field as other travelers whiz
by asking, “How much longer, aren’t
we there yet?”
Robert Wilson,
the subject of Katharina Otto-Bernstein’s
documentary Absolute Wilson, is an artist
who definitely sees the world differently. Wilson
was born and raised in Waco, Texas, the learning
disabled homosexual son of the town mayor and
his lovely but distant wife. Waco was then and
is still a bastion of the Southern Baptist Church
and the home to Southern Baptist Baylor University.
Young Robert had trouble fitting in with his life.
He was clumsy and did not talk until he was five
and when he started talking, he stuttered. His
only friend was the socially unacceptable son
of his family’s black housekeeper.
And from this seemingly
unpromising beginning came the artist Wilson.
As a child he received some advice from his sister’s
dance teacher Byrd Hoffman that he should simply
slow things down. And slow things down he did
and by doing so he saw a different world.
Young Wilson tried
to fit in, even enrolling his dyslexic self in
the University of Texas to study law. But it was
to no avail. He was miserable until he “came
out” to his family and relocated to New
York to study architecture at Parsons. Once in
New York of the 1960’s, he was fascinated
by the revolutions that were taking place in theater
and dance and he vastly preferred the joy of working
in the artistic world to studying for school (he
did graduate, barely).
Absolute Wilson
tell the chronological story of Wilson’s
life: covering his great successes in Europe;
the play he staged in the Shah’s Iran that
took seven days to perform; Einstein on the
Beach (with composer Philip Glass); and his
battle to stage the CIVIL wars during
the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (it was never staged
in its entirety). The film also tells the story
of how although Wilson is revered in Europe he
is less well known in the United States. And the
film tells the story of Wilson’s work with
disabled children including the deaf mute child
that Wilson adopted. Wilson is fascinated with
the way these children see the world and borrows
what he perceives to be the images in these disabled
children's internal TV’s.
Wilson’s
lens on the world is from another dimension of
time and space. He sees vivid colors, huge spaces
filled with nothing, eloquence in silence and
power in stillness. It is a different world and
one well worth visiting. Bravo to Katharina Otto-Bernstein
for telling the story and to Robert Wilson for
simply being the
story.
For more on the film, log onto: www.absolutewilson.com.
Quad Cinema| 3
34 West 13th Street
Lincoln
Plaza Cinemas Broadway | 3Between 62nd and 63rd
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s
Babel
Opens Friday, October 27, 2006
Reviewed by Frank J. Avella
Babel is
not an easy sit. It is not a fun sit or a particularly
pleasant one. It is, however, a sense-challenging,
hypnotic and transcendent piece of cinema.
Like Amores Perros and 21 Grams
before it, the film is a rather doomy and gloomy
meditation on what unites humanity. Collaborating
a third time, gifted director Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu and maze-obsessed screenwriter Guillermo
Arriaga once again mess with traditional narrative
space and time to create a potent visual and aural
experience that seems to be warning us to take
better care of our children.
Babel follows
three different story-segments on three separate
continents to deliver one punch of a flick. In
Moroco, a reckless young boy aims a newly-acquired
gun at a tourist bus, trying to prove to his brother
that the bullets can reach that far. This lapse
in logic results in the near-fatal shooting of
an American woman, who is traveling with her husband
after a family tragedy. Their children are back
at home in the US being cared for by a loving
nanny, who makes her own consequence-filled choice
to attend her son’s wedding in Mexico. Finally,
a sexually-awakened young deaf girl in Tokyo,
who recently lost her mother to suicide, is spurned
by each and every man and boy she attempts to
seduce.
These plots, teeming
with loss, lack of communication and the need
for redemption hold Babel together pretty
sturdily. Inarritu is a master of image maneuver,
but here sound (or lack thereof) becomes just
as important to the narrative. Editing is crucial
as well, visually and sound-wise and the use of
deliberately jarring cuts work most effectively.
Lest he be accused
of filmic dazzle over substance, Inarritu has
assembled a terrific cast who provide their own
character nuances. They include: the fine Cate
Blanchett, Brad Pitt (who has a final reel phone
moment that is remarkable), the ubiquitous Gael
Garcia Bernal, the extraordinary Rinko Kikuchi
and Adriana Barraza, in a heartbreaking turn.
Babel
forces the viewer to examine his/her own prejudices.
but is NOT contrived or pandering in the way last
year’s Crash was. And although
there is a connection between all these characters,
it’s the human connection that is ultimately
felt.
Edward Zwick’s
Blood Diamond
Opens Friday, December 8, 2006
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella
An admirable filmic
endeavor, Blood Diamond works more than
it doesn’t but that is mostly due to it’s
three lead performances.
A tale of recent
horrific greed and what it does to men, the movie
is set in Sierra Leone, Africa in 1999, and focuses
on an amoral diamond smuggler and a native fisherman
who’s family is torn apart by the explosive
war caused by those seeking the coveted gems.
Add an enterprising female reporter into the mix
and you have the makings of quite an intense story.
Unfortunately,
director Ed Zwick loves to fall back on his typical
bombastic, action-adventure-y style (painfully
evident in the irritating 2004 debacle The
Last Samurai) which robs the film of a lot
of it’s power.
Yet when he allows
the human element to take center stage, Blood
Diamond soars, specifically when depicting
the plight of the Djimon Hounsou character in
trying to find his family and, surprisingly, in
the film’s love story. It is most refreshing
to find a Hollywood film where two people ooze
sexual chemistry but never even get to kiss onscreen
(making the final reel all the more poignant).
Leonardo DiCaprio,
as the mercenary Danny Archer, proves mighty impressive,
acting the shit out of the part and making all
the right choices. DiCaprio makes Danny real and
believable even when the script does all it can
to the contrary. Setting this performance side
by side with his razor-sharp turn in Martin Scorsese’s
The Departed places Leo at the top of
the acting game in this country right now.
The extraordinary
and underrated Jennifer Connelly imbues the all-too
cliche’ role of the ambitious reporter with
humanity and wit. Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda in
The China Syndrome) and Megan Carter
(Sally Field in Absence of Malice) would
be proud.
Djimon Hounsou
is raw, explosive and heartbreaking as Solomon
Vandy, a man who will do anything to find his
family.
Blood Diamond
is very exciting to watch, although many of the
more violent scenes feel repetitive and look too
computer-generated. Zwick should have kept it
grounded in realism instead of resorting to cheap
entertainment.
But as the riveting
Constant Gardener did last year in exposing
the pharmaceutical industry, Blood Diamond
should succeed in making anyone craving a diamond
think twice before they make the purchase.
Olvier Martinez and Agnes
Bruckner in Blood and Chocolate
Katja Von Garnier’s
Blood and Chocolate
Opens January 26, 2007
Starring: Agnes
Bruckner; Hugh Dancy; Olivier Martinez; Katja
Riemann;
Bryan Dick; Chris Geere; Tom Harper;
Screenplay by
Ehren Kruger from the story by Annette Curtis
Klause.
Reviewed
by Ed Carey
Blood and Chocolate
tells the story of an unrequited love between
two young lovers, one werewolf and one human.
Agnes Bruckner plays the protagonist Vivian, a
rebellious werewolf who longs for more than the
thrill of the hunt or the relative safety of the
pack. Fans of the Gothic horror genre will be
all too familiar with some of the conventions
of this story about a pack of werewolves called
the loup garoux, living in the city of Bucharest,
Romania.
Fans of films
like Underworld or any of the Anne Rice
novels will be familiar with this character’s
dilemma. Vivian falls in love with a human, Aiden
(Hugh Dancy), and is willing to forego her clan
to be with him. We learn right off the bat that
humans in America slaughtered her family and she
suffers from survivor’s guilt. Now, she
lives with her aunt in Bucharest and she has been
picked to be the next bride of the pack leader,
Gabriel (Olivier Martinez), because of some vague
prophesy that she will help lead the loup garoux
into a new age of hope.
The film spends
a lot of time setting up the romance between Vivian
and Aiden, which of course conflicts with her
betrothal to Gabriel and the wishes of the pack.
Her cousin Rafe (Bryan Dick) has ambitions of
his own and leads a group called “The Five,”
which actually doesn’t seem to have any
significance in the plot. Rafe finds out about
Vivian’s fling, informs Gabriel and is killed
pursuing Aiden, setting the whole pack against
Vivian and Aiden. We learn very little about the
loup garoux, a specific type of werewolf able
to transform into wolves at will that were once
revered by humans as gods, much like the animal
gods in Greek or Native American mythology. Now,
feared and hunted by humans, the only safe place
left for them is Bucharest where they have ruled
for centuries.
We don’t
really get an idea of why they were once revered
or their more noble aspects, as they have succumbed
to fear and greed; Gabriel rules over the city
like a mafia don or criminal warlord. The only
glimpse we get into their culture is the hunting
ritual, which takes place on the first night of
the full moon and involves the entire pack chasing
some unworthy human (someone usually a threat
to the pack) through the woods in order to tear
him to shreds. If the human makes it to the river,
he wins his life, which of course never happens
(okay, almost never happens).
The relationship
between Vivian and Aiden, a comic book artist
running from his past, consists mostly of longing
glances and stolen embraces. We’re treated
to some slow-motion scenes of Vivian and Aiden
walking through the streets or running through
a fountain, while a typical romantic score plays
overhead. None of the dark sensuality of Rice’s
novels or Kate Becksinale’s heroine in Underworld
is found here, making the romance just another
part of the plot. The chemistry between these
two characters doesn’t go beyond adolescent
love.
Blood
and Chocolate borrows from many sources,
most notably Klause’s novel, but fails to
distinguish itself or its mythology from these
other tales. Unclear whether the novel explores
the history of the loup garoux more clearly, the
tale does differ in many aspects from the source
material, particularly the ending.
After the film
sets up the main conflict, between Vivian and
the pack (her “family” and their plans
for her), the second half of the film devolves
into a suspense thriller with the werewolves pursuing
Vivian and Aiden through the city of Bucharest,
ending in a climactic fight scene at a factory
where Aiden heroically tries to rescue Vivian,
charging in with silver bullets blazing. All of
the werewolves are revealed to be treacherous
and murderous, except for Vivian whose adolescent
innocence prevents her from succumbing to bloodlust
even when Aiden offers his own cut wrist out to
her. It appears werewolves do not need to hunt,
but do so only out of tradition and fear. Vivian
and Aiden escape the city with their lives after
defeating Gabriel, off to find romance in the
city of love, Paris. How cliché can you
get?
The novel written
for young readers appears to have more three-dimensional
characters based on a description of the story
at wikipedia.org, even though the film is supposedly
geared towards a broader audience and went through
the trouble of aging the teenage characters into
their early twenties. Vivian does have a choice
to make between Aiden and the pack, but she spend
most of the film dealing with the machinations
of Astrid (her aunt, who in the film aids in their
escape) and Rafe with Gabriel even coming to her
rescue towards the end.
Even without comparison
to the novel though, the film offers very little
in the way of compelling narrative or emotional
context. It becomes difficult to care for any
of these characters, while the mythology of the
loup garoux serves as nothing more than background
to the plot and the city of Bucharest nothing
more than a striking visual backdrop for the story
(the novel takes place in America, but the director
wanted to use real wolves as opposed to computer
graphics). The wolves however provide no greater
purpose but to be used in drawn out sequences
with wolves running through the forest in slow-motion.
If the director had worried as much about the
story as the visuals in this film, then perhaps
it wouldn’t have been such a cliché
of a suspense thriller.
Gaston Biraben’s
Cautiva
Opens November 9, 2006
Starring: Bárbara
Lombardo; Susana Campos; Hugo Arana; Osvaldo Santoro;
Noemí Frenkel; Lidia Catalano; Mercedes
Funes; Silvia Baylé; Luis Gianneo.
Reviewed
by John Harris
In some of our bleakest
childhood moments, many of us have wondered, "Where
did I really come from?" In the beginning
of Gaston Biraben’s Cautiva, a
young Argentinean woman celebrates her fifteenth
birthday at an emotional gathering of family and
friends. Soon afterwards, she is summoned by her
Catholic school principal and told she must meet
with a mysterious Argentinean judge. For children,
there is no habeas corpus, no constitutional rights.
They are compelled to do what they are told. When
she asks to speak with her parents, she is told
that will not be permitted until she speaks with
the judge. A shattering secret awaits her which
will completely change her life.
Cautiva
is a film with subtle moral complexity There are
two kidnappings committed upon Cristina (played
by the incandescent Barbara Lombardo in her first
feature film role), one by her adoptive parents
when she was an infant and then the legal “return”
kidnapping by her grandmother and the judge when
she is fifteen. The Judge (played by Hugo Arana)
tries to explain why he has committed this legal
"kidnapping" and is returning her to
her biological Grandmother. Her "parents"
are not to know where she is going, he explains.
He must go about his business furtively and in
time she will come to understand why.
Cristina is turned over to her grandmother (played
by Susana Campos) and her name is changed back
to Sofia Lombardi. Slowly she begins to unravel
the mystery of her past, going through an initial
stage of denial, then anger, then finally acceptance
of the fact that her own parent’s death
may be in part attributable to the adoptive parents
that she grew up loving.
All the actors
give excellent performances in a morality tale
told in shades of gray. Inspired by the book by
Rita Arditti, “Searching For Life. The Grandmothers
Of The Plaza De Mayo And The Disappeared Children
Of Argentina,” Mr. Biraben has crafted a
thought provoking cautionary tale on the abuse
of power, and ultimately, on the nature of evil
itself. There is no black and white in Mr. Biraben's
universe, just an endless array of choices. The
timing of the release of this film, considering
the overwhelming results of our recent elections,
should give us all pause to think.
Cautiva opens Friday November 10, 2006
at Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street
Joey Lauren
Adams’
Come Early Morning
Opens November 10, 2006
Starring: Ashley
Judd; Jeffrey Donovan; Laura Prepon; Diane Ladd;
Scott Wilson
Reviewed by Wendy
R. Williams
Actress Joey Lauren
Adams, the memorable Alyssa in Kevin Smith’s
Chasing Amy, had a story she was dying
to tell. It was a story about Lucy, a hard-times
girl from the hard-drinking-God-fearing South,
who just can't get her life together. Adams is
from the South and according to the press notes,
Adams first thought about playing Lucy herself.
But then decided that she really wanted to direct
and cast the lovely and talented Ashley Judd.
Judd is also the
South; she is the youngest daughter of country
star Winona Judd and definitely knew this world
before. Judd has also played a lower class Southern
gal before in 1993’s critically acclaimed
Ruby in Paradise.
Here is a quote
from the film’s press release: ”Come
Early Morning tells the story of Lucy (Judd),
a hard-working, Southern woman, whose personal
life has been reduced to a spiral of late nights
and one-night stands. When Lucy meets Cal (Jeffrey
Donovan), a newcomer to town, she is finally forced
to confront her fears as he challenges her accept
a more meaningful relationship. Lucy must decide
whether to push Cal away or face the demons that
have left her incapable of intimacy and growth.
She begins a spiritual journey toward love and
redemption that takes her, and the film, to an
entirely unexpected and original place.”
Adams has told
a compelling story about a world that few outside
the south know exists. It is a world populated
by carousing ass-kicking drunks who occasionally
haul their hung- over-asses to church on Sunday
morning just cuz that is what they have always
done and they like the music. They are not hypocritical
Christians who act better than thou during they
day. They are the real sinners of the old saying,
“A church is a hospital for sinners, not
a museum for saints.” L. L. Nash. And religion
is as much a part of their life as beer and chicken-fried
steak.
Ashley Judd
does a fine job of bringing Lucy and all her complexities
to life. Jeffrey Donovan gives a solid performance
portraying the love interest that Lucy can't get
her shit together enough to appreciate. And Bravo
to Adams for bringing this, her first feature,
to the screen. .
Come Early Morning opens November 10,
2006 in NY Metro area at the Loews Village 7,
Clearview Manhasset Theater, Clearview Tenafly
Cinema 4, NJ, and the
Clearview Cinema 100 White Plains
Karen Moncrieff's
The Dead Girl
Opens December 29, 2006
Starring: Toni Collette;
Brittany Murphy; Marcia Gay Harden; James Franco;
Josh Brolin; Rose Byrne; Giovanni Ribisi; Kerry
Washington; Mary Steenburgen; and Mary Beth Hurt.
The Dead Girl
is a dark sad film about the death of a drug
addicted hooker and the effect her death has on
a group of seemingly diverse people. There are
five separate stories in the film and we only
meet the “dead girl” Krista (played
by Brittany Murphy) in the last story, which is
the only one that takes place before the murder.
The first story
(The Stranger) is actually the creepiest.
Toni Colette plays Arden, a sad-sack of a woman
who is the live-in caretaker for her verbally
abusive mother (played by Piper Laurie). Arden
discovers the dead girl and unwillingly becomes
something of a local celebrity. This celebrity
attracts the amorous attentions of Rudy, a grocery
clerk played by Giovanni Ribisi. It seems that
the dead mutilated woman is a turn on for Rudy
so Arden and Rudy have weird bondage sex filled
with dirty talk about serial killers. And this
experience so liberates Arden (who fortunately
walks away from her sexual encounter) that she
is able to confront her mother. But don’t
be turned away by my description, you won’t
be able to turn your eyes away from this scene
and may need a bath afterwards.
The next story (The Sister) tells the
story of Leah, a clinically depressed forensic
student played by Rose Byrne. Rose works on the
body of the “dead girl” and sees some
resemblance to her sister who has been missing
for several years. Rose desperately wants to believe
that this corpse is her sister so she can have
some closure. In fact, just the wisp of belief
that she may have found her missing sister, frees
her to also have sex (with a lab student who has
the hots for her). But her mother (played by Mary
Steenburgen) refuses to believe that her daughter
has been found. In the end, it is determined that
the body is not her missing daughter and Rose
returns to her sexless depression.
The third story
(The Wife) is actually the psychologically
darkest. Mary Beth Hurt plays Ruth, another sad-sack
of a woman whose husband (Ned Searcy) has the
habit of leaving for unexplained absences, leaving
her alone to manage his storage business. Ruth
(supposedly a devout Christian) believe he is
sleeping with prostitutes and harangues him incessantly.
But he leaves anyway, so one night she decides
to investigate and finds some horrifying souvenirs
in one of the storage units. She is then faced
with a dilemma and makes a shocking decision which
robs her of any semblance of a higher moral ground.
The fourth story
(The Mother) tells the story of Melora,
the dead girl’s mother (played by Marcia
Gay Harden). Melora drives to California from
Oregon to try to find out what happened to her
now dead daughter. She goes to the run down motel
that it her daughter’s last known address
where she meets Rosetta (Kerry Washington), the
drug addicted hooker who turn out to have been
her daughter’s lesbian lover. The two women
form an unlikely friendship and through the friendship
Melora learns two secrets about her daughter’s
life: one about why her daughter ran away from
home and one that will change Melora’s life
in a positive way.
And finally in
The Dead Girl, we meet Krista (a fragile
Britanny Murphy) herself. We see her interactions
with one of her customers (a leeringly disgusting
Josh Brolin) and her desperate attempts to get
a ride to go see her three year old daughter on
her birthday, the trip that cost her life.
This film is beautifully
acted and is blessed with great dark cinematography
(Michael Grady). Karen Moncrieff has done a great
job of telling her story in Babel like
fashion. If there is any criticism it is that
the film is just too dark. It is hard to really
feel for people when there seems to have never
been anything worth living for in their lives.
So the viewer becomes just a voyeur. But hey,
this film has truly memorable voyeuristic moments.
Gabriel Range’s
Death of a President
Opens Friday, October 27, 2006
Starring: Hend
Ayoub; Brian Boland; Becky Ann Baker; Robert Mangiardi;
Zahra Abi Zikri; Jay Patterson; Jay Whittaker;
Michael Reilly Burke; James Urbaniak; Neko Parham;
Seena Jon; Christian Stolte; Chavez Ravine; Patricia
Buckley; Patrick Clear; and Malik Bader.
Tagline: Do not
rush to judge.
Reviewed by Wendy
R. Williams
Let's get one thing
straight: this film does not glorify violence
nor does it incite violence. Instead it is a thought
provoking exploration of the United States’
culture of violence and of our present administrations
assault on our civil liberties.
Here is a quote
from the film’s press release: Death
of a President follows the investigation
of the fictional assassination of President George
W. Bush in October 2007. Combining real archival
footage with a credible but fictional story, Death
of a President presents a fascinating and
thought-provoking political thriller.”
Filmmaker Gabriel
Range has stated that he picked the fictitious
assassination of President George Bush as a catalyst
so he could explore how our present administration
would react to such a horrific event.
The film is formatted
like a documentary; Range uses actual news clips
of President Bush interspersed with film he (Range)
took of protest groups in Chicago. These film
clips are interspersed with interviews with people
who were supposedly with the President in Chicago
on the day of the assassination and also with
the Secret Service agents who were charged with
his protection and with the FBI agent who was
in charge of the investigation afterwards. The
film also shows interviews with the wives of the
two suspects: a Syrian engineer and the father
of a slain African American soldier.
This film is riveting
without being exploitative. You never see the
President being shot, only the lead up to the
assasination and the aftermath. This film is also
incredibly sad. I walked out of the film depressed
with this one thought, “How can a nation
who was founded on the wonderful principles of
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, have
gone so far off course?”
For more information
on this film, log onto: www.deathofapresident.com
For more
reading on the subject of how we are now persecuting
Arab Americans, not for terrorist acts but just
because we think they look funny, read my theater
column for June of 2006.
http://www.newyorkcool.com/archives/2006/June/theater_1.html.
Scroll down on the linked page to see the review
of Alison Maclean and Tobiase Perse’s documentary
film Persons of Interest.
Martin
Scorsese’s
The Departed
Opens Friday, October 6, 2006
Reviewed
by Frank J. Avella
So Martin Scorsese
doesn’t have a best director Academy Award.
Neither does Robert Altman. What do the two master
filmmakers have in common besides being seventies
mavericks, without Oscars, who are still working?
Well, both happen to be turning out some of the
best films of the new millennium. Neither show
any signs of slowing down. And both have made
spectacular films this year (Altman’s is
Prairie Home Companion).
Scorsese seems
to feel most at home when he’s tacking crime.
And The Departed, ironic title notwithstanding,
is quite the filmically fascinating homecoming
for him. Scorsese’s brilliant technique
has gotten more interesting to watch and his ability
to glean the best from his actor’s is perfectly
evident in his new pic.
Gritty, grisly
and especially bloody in the final reel, The
Departed is also wickedly witty with moments
of intense and dizzying suspense.
Loosely based on
a Hong Kong thriller, Infernal Affairs,
and inventively penned by William Monahan, the
story revolves and unravels around a powerful
mobster named Costello and the two cops who work
for him--one of whom is actually operating as
an informer. How these two VERY different officers
(one a street-smart thug, the other an ambitious
slickster) manage to try to outwit one another
and Costello is part of the exhilarating plot.
Leonardo DiCaprio
finally proves he’s deserving of all the
praise that was heaped upon him when Titanic
docked nine years ago. The ferocity he brings
to the role of hothead Billy Costigan propels
him to the ranks of serious actor. It’s
a stirring performance.
The always dashing
Matt Damon cuts quite the nasty yet paradoxical
figure as Costello’s inside man, Colin Sullivan.
Damon charms even when he’s cutthroat.
In a film filled
with fantastic acting, Mark Wahlberg manages to
steal every scene he is in as a vulgar, no-nonsense
sergeant. If there’s any justice this overlooked
thesp will finally snag an Oscar nomination.
Adding to the luster
of the fine ensemble are wonderful turns by Vera
Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Ray Winstone.
The casting of
Jack Nicholson as the feared mob boss Costello,
may have appeared odd to some and I’m sure
certain critics will yelp that Nicholson is simply
doing his old shtick. Bollocks to those fools!
Nicholson manages to etch a dastardly and horrific
portrayal of a vicious brute who has grown rightfully
paranoid. Yes, he’s a raving nut, but Jack
tempers the character with a surprising bored-with-his-life
spin. It’s one of the year’s best
performances from one of our best and most treasured
actors.
The Departed
is like cinematic hashish. It makes you feel
joyous. A rare emotion you want to keep alive...for
as long as you can! Thank you, Mr. Scorsese!
Bill Condon’s
Dreamgirls
Reviewed by Frank
J. Avella
Four years ago Rob Marshall revitalized the movie
musical with the delicious and delightful Chicago
which went on to deservedly win the Best Picture
Academy Award. Since then we have been assaulted
with such hodgepodge cinema-horrors asPhantom
of the Opera and The Producers,
near destroying all hopes for the future of the
genre...until now. Thank God for Bill Condon (the
Chicago screenwriter, irony notwithstanding).
Condon has proven
himself a fantastic filmmaker with the remarkable
Gods and Monsters in 1998 (which won
him the Best Original Screenplay Oscar) as well
as the controversial and highly underrated Kinsey
in 2004.
This year he has
taken a so-so Broadway show and turned it into
a dazzling, insightful and invigorating film.
One that will be a force to be reckoned with come
Oscar Nominations-morning,
The simple rise-to-fame
story of a Motown-esque trio and the avaricious
manager that guides them is given a fanciful and
much-improved screen adaptation. Condon is a master
of the visual (borrowing occasionally from Rob
Marshall) and his magical use of mirrors and sweeping
camerawork is a tribute to the original Dreamgirls
creator, Michael Bennett.
The Broadway musical,
Dreamgirls, was ‘loosely’
based on Diana Ross and the Supremes. Everyone
figured that one out. The film version is even
more tongue-in-cheek obvious with Knowles looking
and sounding like Ms. Ross in key moments from
her early career.
The joy of what
Condon has done is that we never feel that the
actors are bursting into song just to burst into
song. The songs are actual performed musical numbers
until halfway through the film when he seamlessly
makes the transition to musical dialogue, culminating
with Effie’s soul-piercing, “And I
Am Telling You.”
While I highly
recommend Dreamgirls, the film is not
perfect. There are a few wince-inducing cliche’
moments and certain characters who don’t
quite achieve three-dimensionally. But the good
far outweighs the not-so-good.
The heart and soul
of the film is Effie and she is brilliantly embodied
by Jennifer Hudson. This is a staggering film
debut and Hudson is assured an Oscar nomination
and, probably, the award itself. (Her only real
competition, in my mind, is Cate Blanchett who
sears the screen with her raw intensity in Notes
on a Scandal).
The aforementioned
power-ballad, “And I Am Telling You,”
long associated with Jennifer Holiday (who had
a hit single with it in the early 80’s)
makes the song her own in a marvelous moment of
desperation. But it’s her second tour de
force number, “I Am Changing” that
proves the moving and defining showstopper of
the film.
Beyonce’
Knowles’ Deena Jones isn’t a very
strongly defined character through most of the
film, but in the final reel where she belts the
killer new song, “Listen”, we are
finally allowed a peek into what makes Deena tick.
It’s a wonderful moment for Knowles as she
is allowed to express what she has been repressing
for too long.
Jamie Foxx is saddle
with playing a rather villainous cad but he gives
the part depth and a strange poignancy. It’s
good work from the Ray-man.
The much-ballyhoo’d
turn by Eddie Murphy is, indeed, the best performance
of his career--but, let’s face facts--that
isn’t saying much! However, Murphy is strong
and in his last few scenes, where he doesn’t
say much, is quite impressive.
Broadway’s
Anika Noni Rose near-steals all her early scenes
with quite the comic gifts. The script seems to
let her fall by the wayside, which is unfortunate
since she’s another potential star on the
rise.
Tech credits are
outstanding across the boards with spectacular
photography by Tobias Schliessler as well as fabulous
costumes (by Sharen Davis), perfect period production
designs (by John Myhre) and razzle-dazzle editing
(via Virginia Katz).
One walks away
entertained by the film and blown away by Ms.
Hudson!
Panther Bior and Daniel
Abol Pach
In the documentary God Grew Tired of Us
Photo Credit Newmarket/ National Geographic Films
Christopher Quinn’s
God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of Lost Boys
of Sudan
Newmarket/ National Geographic Films
Opens January 12, 2007
Starring: Nicole
Kidman; John Bul Dau; Panther Bior; and Daniel
Abul Pach.
Reviewed by Armistead Johnson
It’s a frighteningly
biblical order: kill every boy under age twelve,
in the land.
Only, this order wasn’t just given in that
book that’s in the nightstand of your motel
room…it was given by the Muslim half of
the civil war torn Sudanese government in the
early 90’s. The result? Thousands and thousands
of little boys, some with infant brothers or nephews
in their little arms literally walked across Africa
in search of safety.
With no food, water
or adults to care for them on their exodus, most
died. But some survived and found safety in Kenya
after a ten year walk. They are called the Sudanese
“lost boys. This is just a history lesson
though…the film is about survival.
Now in their early
twenties, the young men have been given the opportunity
for a new life in America. God Grew Tired
of Us chronicles the lost boys integration
into the United States.
Some of the most
charming moments of the film happen as the boys
are being interviewed about their fears of America
(“I have never used electricity…I
hope I am strong enough.” Or “in America
we will only be allowed one wife…this may
be a problem for us.”) Ultimately the film
is an indirect commentary on American culture.
From watching the boys wonder who Santa Claus
is and what he has to do with the birth of Jesus
Christ, and not being able to find a single adult
who can answer their question, to seeing a community
band together in an effort to ban the boys from
entering a local store in groups larger than two…the
film gives us the opportunity to see who we are
as Americans. From our genuinely generous American
spirit in offering refuges asylum to our fear
and anger when the refugees don’t arrive
at Lady Liberty’s feet speaking English/skilled
at a trade/knowing our customs/ready to discard
African identity. God Grew Tired of Us
raises the questions at the center of the immigration
debate.
Ultimately the
boys organize and flourish in the United States.
They create a better life for themselves and their
families while exposing the horrors in Sudan to
the American people and politicians.
God
Grew Tired of Us proves that while the dream
now looks different, The American Dream is alive
and well. The film opens in January of 2007.
Robert DeNiro’s
The Good Shepherd
Starring: Matt
Damon; Angelina Jolie; Alec Baldwin; Tammy Blanchard;
Billy Crudup; Robert De Niro; Keir Dullea; Michael
Gambon; William Hurt; and John Turturro.
Tagline: Edward
Wilson believed in America, and he would sacrifice
everything he loved to protect it.
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
The Good Shepherd
tells the story of the creation of the CIA
through the story of an emotionally crippled man,
Edward Wilson (Matt Damon).
The film starts
in 1961 with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of
Cuba and flashes back to young Edward’s
life. We see him as a young boy, whose father
kills himself in his bedroom with a house full
of company downstairs, an incident that seemingly
so scars young Edward that he is never again able
to truly trust another human being.
The film then follows
Edward to Yale where he is inducted into Skull
and Bones (shades of both President Bushes). But
young Edward still has some hope of redemption;
he loves poetry, which he studies under the tutelage
of Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon). And he meets
and falls in love with a beautiful young woman
who is hard of hearing, Laura (played by Tammy
Blanchard). But fate and another beautiful woman
intervene, Edward is seduced by the daughter of
a Senator, Clover (Angelina Jolie), who promptly
becomes pregnant forcing a shot gun wedding and
the loss of Laura. And in a compelling scene,
Edward shows his true nature when he willingly
spies on Dr. Fredericks at the request of a fellow
member of Skull and Bones, costing the good doctor
his position at Yale. And then war breaks out
and this to-the-manor-born young man is inducted
into the OSS and sent to England to learn to be
a spy.
And there, he is
surprised to find that Dr. Fredericks is again
his teacher – he had been spying for England
while he was at Yale and now he is Edward’s
spymaster. And the story continues throughout
Edwards’s years with the OSS, his neglect
of his wife and son (who he does not see until
after the war), his role in the formation of the
CIA and his career in the CIA through the Bay
of Pigs disaster.
The underlying
theme of this film is Edward’s search for
truth. But the reality is that Edward becomes
so paranoid that he is unable to recognize truth
and beauty when it is right in front of him. He
professes love of his son and tries valiantly
to be the father that he never had, but he has
no idea what that might mean. He is so emotionally
closed-off that he cannot be a husband or open
his eyes to a world that just might be different
from the closed Wasp society into which he was
born. The world was changing but Wilson was only
able to see what he had been taught should be
there.
By trying to tell
the story of the creation of the CIA from its
inception in 1947 through the Bay of Pigs, the
film has bitten off a huge bite of time and story.
And some of the events/stories are understandably
underdeveloped. But what makes the movie truly
great is the devastating quiet performance from
Matt Damon. Similar in tone to the performance
given by Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt,
Damon is desolation walking as he takes us through
his years as the CIA’s true believer. And
as we have seen over and over again with true
believers, he finally is tripped up by his own
Achilles heel. As they say, “When you swim
with sharks…….” well, in the
end, everyone is compromised.
The other actors
give outstanding performance: Alec Baldwin does
a solid FBI director; Williams Hurt was born to
play a CIA man; Tammy Blanchard shines as Edward’s
lost deaf sweetheart; Michael Gambon, well he
is Michael Gambon and that says it all; Robert
De Niro and Joe Pesci do outstanding jobs in bit
parts; John Turturro is a total surprise as a
CIA thug; and Billy Crudup is mesmerizing as a
Kim Philby style British agent.
Well, what about
Angelina Jolie? Angelina Jolie does her all but
casting her as the ignored-home-bound wife was
a puzzling choice. Jolie’s beauty is so
megawatt that she sucks all the air out of any
room she is in simply by walking into it. This
is no criticism of Ms. Jolie; she did her best
to pull it off. But as in the old playwriting
adage, “You can’t bring a gun onto
a stage without firing it at the end of the play,”
some explanation needed to be given for how Edward
could be married to one of the most beautiful
women in the world and neither he not anyone else
around seems to notice.
One final thought:
The Good Shepherd was directed by Robert
DeNiro and produced by Martin Scorsese. I have
always been interested in how a director like
the Taiwanese-born Ang Lee can so accurately depict
American and English culture. And I have surmised
that it is because he was not born here and that
has kept his eye from being distracted by all
of our cultural noise and allowed him to see us
clearly. And so DeNiro has taken a look at American
Wasp culture through an outsider’s eye with
equally devastating results. The scenes from Skull
and Bones, the CIA camps with their dining halls,
the social events, the family parties …..this
film would be interesting to watch just for these
history lessons alone.
Steven Shainberg’s
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Opened November 10, 2006 (NY Only)
Starring: Nicole Kidman; Robert Downey, Jr.; Jane
Alexander; Harris Yullin; and Ty Burrell.
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Steven Shainberg’s
(of Secretary fame) film Fur: An
Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus is a dreamlike
reinvention of Arbus’ life and an attempt
to use the art of film to portray the inspiration
that compelled Arbus (played by Nicole Kidman)
to leave her semi-conventional life as the wife
of a fashion photographer in Greenwich Village
and become a world class photographer. In the
same manner that a modern art portrait only represents
the feeling or essence of a subject, this film
does not attempt to tell the real story of Arbus’
life, but only a story about how Arbus might have
felt.
The film is mostly set in the apartment house
where Arbus (played by Nicole Kidman) lives and
works with her husband Allan Arbus (played by
Ty Burrell) and children. Her apartment is a marvel
of 1950’s beige chic, as is Kidman at the
beginning of the film and her parents (played
by Jane Alexander and Harris Yullin) throughout
the film. And one night, while hosting a fashion
show for her father’s fur line, Arbus escapes
for a moment to look out the window when she catches
a glimpse of her new upstairs neighbor, Lionel
(played by Robert Downey, Jr.). Lionel is wearing
a mask so all she can see are his eyes, but that
one glimpse bewitches Arbus and compels her to
don a blue dress and make the journey up the stairs
and into Lionel’s blue world. Lionel is
a sophisticate who lives in an apartment with
beautiful deep blue walls and a huge roman tub
in his bathroom (I told you this was a fantasy).
Lionel is also a wigmaker and former circus freak
who suffers from a rare form of hirsuteness that
makes him look like a sexy version of the Wookiee
in Star Wars.
Lionel befriends Arbus and introduces her to his
world of circus freaks. And by doing so, he opens
her eyes to see herself as what she really is
- a voyeur. The film then continues with her story
as she tries to integrate her world upstairs (of
the imagination) with her real life downstairs.
There are metaphors in the film. Arbus’
parents are famous furriers and Lionel is covered
with fur and Arbus feels compelled to both liberate
herself from the oppressiveness of her parents
and to liberate Lionel from his earthly covering
of fur.
This is also the kind of film that you either
love or hate (I loved it). Arbus has become an
icon to many people. She had an unflinching eye
on the world and her portraits have attracted
a cult following. And because she was such a powerful
artist, most of her admirers feel like they own
her and own their own interpretation of her. And
many critics have objected to this fanciful portrayal
of her life, stating that Arbus herself was the
ultimate realist and not some piece of modern
art to be interpreted at will.
But I think this film will survive the initial
shock to the senses and develop a cult following.
Because all art takes a while to “settle
in” with the eye.
The film is extremely well acted and boasts a
stellar cast. Robert Downey Jr. and Nicole Kidman
have a lot of chemistry together; they work equally
well as pals and as lovers. Screenwriter Erin
Cressida Wilson (using Patricia Bosworth’s
biography of Diane Arbus as inspiration) had written
a sophisticated and fanciful script. And Shainberg
has told his story of compulsion in a masterful
way; it is a story of magnets and iron and their
inevitable collision.
Nicholas Hytner's
The History Boys
Opens Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Reviewed
by Frank J. Avella
Nicholas Hytner's impressively
faithful adaptation of Alan Bennett's smash West
End and Broadway hit play, The History Boys,
retains the spirit of the stage production but
loses some of the bite. Still, it's smart, sassy
and insightful and how terrific is it that the
entire original cast has been retained for movie
(as well as the director)!
The stage version was directed quite cinematically
at a dazzling, dizzying pace. The film is surprisingly
less visually exciting but the dialogue crackles
with sardonic wit and the performances are uniformly
superb.
The setting is a Yorkshire school in the early
1980's. Eight boys are being prepped for their
applications to the most elite of English universities.
The character-driven plot revolves around the
three different teachers who are in charge of
guiding these boys towards their respective futures.
Richard Griffiths, outstanding in the stage play,
delivers a wonderful performance here as the eccentric
and grabby Hector, but seems more a supporting
player. Stephen Campbell Moore is perfect as Irwin,
the less artistic, more pragmatic educator who
not-so-secretly lusts after one of the boys.
Rounding out the teacher trio is the incomparable
Frances de la Tour (tired of teaching about "centuries
of masculine ineptitude!"), who was fabulous
onstage and is even better onscreen. Give this
woman a Supporting Oscar nomination now! And give
her more films! She is bloody brilliant!
As for the boys, Samuel Barnett, arguably the
standout onstage, is perfectly fine but two other
lads seem made for the big screen. The hyper-sexy
Dominic Cooper charms as Dakin. This boy has movie
star looks and the talent to back it up. Also
showing major screen charisma is Jamie Parker
as Scripps.
I think the film would have benefited from a longer
running time since it feels abridged. And, as
with the stage production, I was never keen on
the seemingly contrived tragedy that ends the
piece. But I was impressed with the way Bennett
and Hytner handled the ending.
All in all, The History Boys is worthy
effort, for fans of the play and for newbies alike.
Douglas McGrath’s
Infamous
Opens Friday, October 13, 2006
Starring: Sandra
Bullock; Peter Bogdanovich; Daniel Craig; Jeff
Daniels; Hope Davis; Toby Jones; Gwyneth Paltrow;
Michael Panes; Lee Pace; Isabella Rosselini; and
Sigourney Weaver.
Reviewed by Wendy
R. Williams
Douglas McGrath
has pulled off a stunning feat. He “remade”
last year’s critically acclaimed hit Capote
and has quite impossibly made it better.
The story is still
the same: An effete Capote (played by Toby Jones)
leaves his sophisticated-supper-club-Manhattan-lifestyle
to travel to Holcomb, Kansas to write a piece
for The New Yorker magazine on how the savage
murder of an innocent farm family, the Clutters,
has changed the town. This visit to the heartland
morphed into a six year trek into the heart of
darkness and produced Capote’s masterpiece,
the nonfiction novel "In Cold Blood.”
And the writing of “In Cold Blood”
so changed Capote that he never completed another
novel.
Infamous
is based on George Plimpton’s oral biography,
"Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends,
Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His
Turbulent Career." So we see Truman through
interviews with his glitterati friends: Babe Paley
(Sigourney Weaver); Bennett Cerf (Peter Bogdanovich);
Dianna Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson); Gore Vidal
(Michael Panes); Marella Agnelli (Isabella Rosselini);
Slim Keith (Hope Davis).
The film opens
in a supper club with Truman sitting with his
good friend Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), the
wife of the head of CBS, Bill Paley. They are
listening to Peggy Lee (Gwyneth Paltrow in a stunning
bit part) sing Cole Porter’s "What
Is This Thing Called Love?" Lee falters during
the singing (seemingly overcome by some private
emotion), and Truman is mesmerized, setting the
tone for the story to come.
The opulence of
the opening scene is in stark contrast to what
we see next as Truman, accompanied by his childhood
friend Nelle Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock) of the
just-about-to-be-published "To Kill a Mocking
Bird" fame, travels by train to Kansas to
conduct his interviews. Taking Lee with him to
Kansas was a brilliant move on Capote’s
part because Lee (unlike Capote) has retained
her small town Alabama ways and her “just
folks” manner helps introduce Capote (who
might as well have arrived from outer space) to
the people of the town. And the contrast between
Holcomb and Manhattan is beautifully depicted
in Infamous. Dark and dreary scenes from
Holcomb are juxtaposed with Truman’s return
trips to Manhattan, where he gleefully regales
his sophisticated friends with his “stories
from the road.”
When Capote arrived
in Holcomb he famously told the Alvin Dewey (Jeff
Daniels), of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation
(who later became Capote’s friend and source)
that he did not care if he solved the crime, he
(Capote) was just there to tell the story of how
the murders affected the town. Dewey, of course,
desperately wanted to solve the crime (the Clutters
were his friends) and he did. And when he did,
Capote’s mission changed. What had started
out as a brief visit to the heartland to write
a small story, became his life’s mission
ending six years later when the killers, David
Hickock (Lee Pace) and Perry Smith (Daniel Craig),
were executed by hanging.
Infamous
delves deeply into Capote’s relationship
with Perry Smith. Much has been written about
how Capote was in love with Smith and how he exploited
this love to get his story. Daniel Craig’s
portrayal of Perry is dangerously sexual and the
polar opposite of Jones’s effete Capote.
To get Smith to trust him and tell him what happened
that night, Capote exposes his heart to Smith
They both suffered from the same abandonment issue:their
mothers had committed suicide. But emotional attachment
or not, Capote had a book to sell and this book
could not be published into the situation in Kansas
was “resolved.” So having made this
emotional connection with Smith, Capote's book
and his life could not progress until Smith was
hanged. And hanged he was in a gruesomely compelling
scene.
The cast for Infamous
is stellar. All the actors give compelling performances
especially Jones’s Truman Capote and Craig’s
Perry Smith (Craig is the new James Bond). Sandra
Bullock is a complete surprise as Nelle Harper
Lee. She gives such a quietly grave performance
she is almost unrecognizable. And the sets and
costumes are incredible. It is such a treat to
see upper class 1959 Manhattan; the Metropolitan
Museum should really consider a retrospective.
Clint Eastwood’s
Letters from Iwo Jima
Opens Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Reviewed by Frank J. Avella
Clint Eastwood
is one of the greatest directors working today.
Quite simply put, in his twilight years he has
managed to create some of the most original and
indelible cinematic achievements ever.
In 1992, he reinvented
the western with Unforgiven. Two years
ago, he re-envisioned the boxing movie in a way
that was startling and refreshing with Million
Dollar Baby.
This year he wasn’t
afraid to tell the complex and painful tale of
the allies landing on Iwo Jima in Flags of
Our Fathers, and the very disturbing and
unpopular aftermath--once the flag boys came home.
Now, less than
two months later, in a rare and admirable move,
Warner Brothers and Dreamworks are releasing his
companion piece to Flags, Letters from Iwo
Jima, completely told from the Japanese perspective.
It is, far and away, the best film of 2006.
I have seen many
films this year (over 150) and some have been
quite impressive. A few (Little Children,
The Departed, The Queen) could
have easily been chosen the best of any other
year. Any year that did not include Letters
from Iwo Jima.
The power of Letters
lies in it’s telling a simple story in a
new and exciting way.
In most Hollywood
war movies, there are good guys and bad guys.
The good guys die for the noblest of causes. The
bad guys are evil and when they perish, we are
happy. The twain shall never meet. It cannot.
Who would the audience root for? And when there
are Americans involved, they must always be the
good guys. They have to be. And there is always
honor in dying for a cause. There must be, otherwise
we’d have no justification for war.
Eastwood chucks
these notions out to sea and demands the viewer
look at war and the “enemy” in a human
way. The genius of his method is that he uses
the structure we expect from the genre and then
forces us to see different things from it. He
shows us how quickly and easily the lines of friend/enemy
blur. We see a people that are, gads, just like
us--fighting for their beloved country and constantly
thinking about their families back home. But isn’t
that what our men did in WW2? Isn’t that
what they are doing right now in Iraq?
These people are
Japanese. They were part of the evil Axis of Power.
We hated them. We wanted them dead. We nuked them.
Clint’s provocative
decision to tell a sympathetic story about the
Japanese must have raised many an eyebrow. His
choice to have the film completely spoken in the
Japanese language must’ve sent shock waves
through both studios. Yet he achieved what no
other American director could. He has made a foreign-language
film that feels like it was actually made in Japan.
Finally, the story
Clint has decided to tell is not of an arrogant,
victorious group of soldiers, but of a people
doomed to defeat, who go into the battle with
this foreknowledge. They know they will die. They
know they will never see their loved ones again.
And still they fight. With dignity. And a touch
of sadness. Not since Richard Attenborough’s
underrated 1977 epic, A Bridge Too Far,
