New York Cool

New York Cool: In this Issue

	what's up for today!
	you report
	about town
	arts
	fashion / style
	film
	interview
	miss wendy
	music
	new york stories
	theater
	home

Listings:

	arts
	broadway theater
	cabaret \| comedy
	clubs
	dance
	events
	film
	music
	off broadway theater
	off off broadway theater
	submit listings

New York Cool:

	archives
	advertise with us
	contact us
	join our mailing list
	work for us

Film

Wong Kar Wai's
Ashes Of Time Redux
Opens October 10, 2008

Written By: Wong Kar Wai adapted from Louis Cha's novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes
Starring: Jackie Cheung; Leslie Cheung; Maggie Cheung; Carina Lau; Tony Leung Chiu Wai; Tony Leung Ka Fai; Brigitte Lin; and Charlie Yeong

Sony Pictures Classics
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B-

Happiness is a bad memory, they say: for example, if only I can block out the recent 777-point drop in the Dow Industrial Average! Wong Kar Wai's Ashes of Time Redux, re-imagining of his original martial arts drama, is based on the adage about memory, as misery plagues at least one fellow whose memory of a lost love is deadly. Ashes is a picture better noted for style than substance: meaning that legendary Christopher Doyle's cinematography already looks like a nominee for end-year awards. Or maybe it's more accurate and complimentary to say that style IS substance. The plot line, adapted freely from a story by Louis Cha, is nothing to write home about, whether you're scribbling from a seemingly endless strip of China's desert land or from your seat in the cineplex. The best that can be said from my own seat, however is that a) the film is easier to respect than enjoy; and b) Wong's artfully drawn story is targeted to those in the audience who have a fondness for classy martial arts films.

Characters are difficult to follow despite the fact that Ashes is theatrical. Doyle's camera is given to extreme close-ups especially of actors' profiles and the simple mise-en-scenes which involve usually only two people at a time—with some time taken out for groups of bandidos who you'd expect to be defeated by one or two expert swordsmen.

China looks ahead as the world's fastest-growing economy, even sending an astronaut into space, but is known as well to gaze backwards in its long fondness for martial arts tales—as far back as the Ming dynasty of the 14th century. In this martial arts yarn, which celebrates the world of the Wuxia, or martial arts warriors, five seasons are portrayed, the leading thread being Ouyang's (Leslie Cheung) morbid cynicism following the loss of his main squeeze to his brother. Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai) takes the film's first dramatic step by drinking a magical wine that makes the bearer lose his memory. While loss of memory is supposed to lead to happiness, this is not always true as he missed an appointment with the woman of his dreams, Murang (Brigitte Lin). Also of note is that the increasingly sight-challenged swordsman (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) has stopped wandering, while Hong Qi (Jackie Cheung) seeks to make his own mark in that career.

But synopsis takes us only so far, as Ashes appears to have a story line to serve principally as rationale for the bold cinematography of Christopher Doyle (Temptress Moon, Psycho [1998], Paranoid Park) and to a lesser extent the choreography of Sammo Hung—who shows his stuff in a couple of swordfights which are—to me—of lesser impact in that the action has the same blurry editing that we find in conventional action-adventure pics.

Ashes is as cynical as Ouyang's in its portrayal of love as the quality most sought after not only in our own century but in China's 14th yet the most difficult to achieve. As a story, to sum up, Ashes is less than involving, its true resonance taking hold in stylistic delineation.

Lance Hammer's
Ballast
Opens October 1, 2008

Written By: Lance Hammer
Starring: Michael J. Smith Sr.; Jim Myron Ross; Tarra Riggs; and Johnny McPhail

Alluvial Film Co
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B

There are essentially two kinds of movies just as there are two kinds of literature, theater, TV, and radio dramas. The first kind takes us away from our daily troubles into a world of fantasy, violence, noise—all the attributes that have made producers like Jerry Bruckheimer household words among cinephiles. The other kind is gutsier, the reverse of the escapist. That type relies on images from real life, real human beings who do not live like Batman or Tom Cruise but who (especially nowadays with the economy in the tank and Wall Street sucking up savings from Main Street) embody real life. This type is ultimately the more satisfying, giving us insights into the human condition—which many people would as soon skip given their diurnal battles at home and in the workplace.

Ballast is as close a model to this second type as you can get, more indie-ish than most non-mainstream films that show their face at Cannes, Toronto, and especially Sundance. This may relegate Ballast to the festival circuit, as a film with no musical soundtrack other than what may be playing on the radio of its subjects, and with an absence of professional actors and even a script that emerges from the characters themselves. The story is bleak, albeit with an optimistic conclusion, and while Lance Hammer in his first full length feature (his 29-minutes' long Issaquena six years ago chronicles the decay of a Mississippi Delta family), he shows promise as a fellow who writes and directs about that part of Americana that he knows best. As a white director of a movie that stars African-Americans, he gives pause to those who believe that only black directors can successfully interpret the African-American experience.

A film that moves along quietly with only a couple of melodramatic flourishes, Ballast takes us into the Mississippi Delta, which is the modern area of land (the river delta) built up by alluvium deposited by the Mississippi River as it slows down and enters the Gulf of Mexico. Hence the name of the distributing company.

When a neighbor (Johnny McPhail) checks in on Lawrrence (Michael J.Smith, Jr.) , he finds the large black man in a state of depression over the death by a drug overdose of his twin brother, Darius. Attempting suicide, he shoots himself but recovers after a fairly long stay in a hospital. From time to time, Lawrence finds himself at the gunpoint of a 12-year-old nephew, James (JimMyron Ross), whose mother, Marlee (Tarra Riggs) believes that Lawrence is holding money that belongs to his brother. Obviously Marlee and Lawrence are seriously at odds: For his part, James is in trouble with some young drug dealers to whom he owes a hundred dollars. Ballast is the story of the threesome's redemption.

Ballast brings to mind Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, about a man's dissatisfaction with his job in a slaughterhouse, a film that likewise takes us into the lives of poor people that most moviegoers may never meet. At times the dialogue is difficult to understand, given a low pitch and a heavy southern accent. The film's pace and lack of melodrama take away some of the passion that even erudite film-goers seek. Still, for the natural acting, the example that writer-director Hammer sets for moviemaking without background music, its firm roots in American soil, and its authenticity, Ballast should be on the list of serious cinephiles.

Stuart Townsend's
Battle In Seattle
Opens September 19, 2008

Written By: Stuart Townsend
Starring: Andre Benjamin; Woody Harrelson; Martin Henderson; Ray Liotta; Connie Nielsen; Michelle Rodriguez; Channing Tatum; and Charlize Theron.

Redwood Palms Pictures
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+

Where have all the demonstrations gone? While Battle in Seattle has an epilogue stating that globally, more people have protested the Iraq War than any other issue, the war—unpopular though it be within the United States—has not led to large-scale protest marches. The presumption is that absent a military draft, young people have no fear of being called up to the Middle East. This is what was so surprising about the major demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, in late 1999 against the entire system developed by the WTO, or World Trade Organization. The WTO, which counts in its membership countries representing ninety-five percent of the world's trading countries, seems innocuous enough. Nonetheless, critics have cited the inability of the developing nations to have an equal say in what gets free-traded, while multinational corporations are making hay by undercutting local producers from the poorer nations. Environmental issues also abound, as countries destroy large segments of their forests to meet the demands of international commerce. Another issue is that while Big Pharma, representing the large drug corporations, has promised to make their drugs free or at a cut rate to save lives in areas of the globe that cannot afford them, little has actually been accomplished to implement their plan.

Yes, but, doesn't all this sound abstract, something that college youths would dutifully ask the professors, "Are we responsible for this on the test?" Not to the 10,000 or so protesters who gathered in Seattle in late November-December of 1999 for a peaceful protest that got out of hand when lunatic fringes on the far left began breaking windows of downtown stores for reasons that are obscure to us in our theater seats.

Stuart Townsend wisely made a docu-drama out of the incident, sidelining a classic documentary which would have brought out the usual array of dull talking heads. In fact, to his credit, there are no talking heads in Battle In Seattle, most of which is filmed by Barry Ackroyd in Vancouver, with only the last week of the filming taking place on location in Washington's leading city.

Battle opens with Fernando Villena's rapidly edited introduction to the history of trade organizations from 1947 to 1999—too quickly for allow the concepts to sink into audience minds.

The film is anchored by a charismatic performance from kiwi-born Martin Henderson in the role of Jay, the group's leader. Jay is most concerned that violence not take place, that there be no action that would provoke the police department and result in beatings of demonstrators and mass arrests. As interested as Jay in keeping the demonstration peaceful is the city's Mayor Tobin (Ray Liotta), a worrier whose job evaluation with the voters will depend in part on how he handles the demonstrators. The mayor resists the call of the governor (Tzi Ma), who wants to call out the national guard and set a strict curfew. When anarchist vandalize stores, including one that finds the four-month-pregnant Ella (Charlize Theron) behind the counter, the police respond in full-scale riot gear and tear gas, the police, acting in much the way they did during Vietnam protests with theif inate belief that lousy, privileged, commie students are the ones who riot. One cop in fact causes major damage to Ella's developing pregnancy to the concern of both her and her husband, Dale (Woody Harrelson).

Battle also features a romance between Jay and Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), because some love interest must take place to up the entertainment ante.

It's nice to know that there's still some energy in the protest movement, especially since the issues are, as stated above, would appear to be abstract to the young people in the film who yell "The whole world is watching." Apparently the kids in Seattle knew, or at least they believed (contrary to right-wing dogma) that human beings are the cause of global warning, sweatshop conditions, and the destruction of independent farms in the Third World. No one seems to be demonstrating to meet the opposite sex or to listen to rock music as some did during the Vietnam War.

There are good guys on the other side of the student lines, such as Abassi (Isaach De Bankole), who speaks for an African state, and Dr. Maric (Rade Sherbedzija), who represents Doctors without Borders at the conference and browbeats the members about the African AIDS epidemic. An especially fine performance comes from a veteran campaigner, Django (Andre Benjamin), who does his best to keep up the groups' spirits even when things look especially bad for them in jail. The crew did a fine job merging archival film from the 1999 events with the fictionalized account, making a case that perhaps all documentaries would be improved by the docudrama technique. After all, it's the spirit of the actions that count, not just the facts.

Fernando Meirelles’
Blindness
Opens October 3, 2008

Written By: Don McKellar, based on Jose Saramago's novel
Starring: Julianne Moore; Mark Ruffalo; Alice Braga; Yusuke Iseya; Yoshino Kimura; Don McKellar; Maury Chaykin; Mitchell Nye; Danny Glover; Gael Garcia Gernal.
Miramax Films
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+

Disasters are a natural for the big screen: Earthquakes, fire, nuclear holocausts, tornadoes, dragon-like creatures and spiders—all the elements found in nature that try their darndest to upset us human beings. What makes a good piece of disaster fiction, as opposed to a documentary that might have come from the Discovery Channel or Nature Magazine, is a look at how we cope with these formidable traumas. Do we take them in stride, cooperate with one another in a joint effort to conquer nature's malignant forces, or do we fight one another, an occurrence that would make our natural enemies grin with contempt if they were human?

Fernando Meirelles, who knows quite a bit of the constant battle of people against people (City of God looks at the evil shenanigans of children of Rio's slums) now gives us Blindness, which deals with how we cope when we lack vision—both literally and figuratively. In that area he was preceded by the likes of William Golding's novel, often required reading in high school, Lord of the Flies, a tale of English schoolboys victimized by a plane wreck, let loose on a deserted island without the presence of a single adult. Children hunt children as order deteriorates. OK, these are kids; adults would never turn savage would they? But how about John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, in which the whole world is struck blind suddenly and simultaneously? Individualism, so prized in our own country, becomes a death sentence in Wyndham's vision.

In his film Blindness, Meirelles joins the crew of writers and directors who look into the thin veneer of civilization, a patina that melts away under extreme stress. Without citing the Spanish proverb, "En el pais de los ciegos el tuerto es rey" ("In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"), Don McKellar, who adapted Nobel-prize-winning author Jose Saramago's novel to the screen, shows us that when an entire city has gone blind for no explicable reason, new communities will be set up to deal with the crisis. Unfortunately, one person or one group will grasp power because of some edge. The most logical leader of a small community of newly-blinded people would be a doctor's wife (Julianne Moore).

For reasons unknown, she is the only individual with continued eyesight. Yet a blind man (Gael Garcia Bernal) assumes authority over the distribution of food in Ward Three (where the film is set). Rather than dish the portions out equitably as he was expected to do, he becomesn corrupted, insisting that only after the women in the wards submitted to the sexual advances of the men would nourishment be apportioned.

Predictably enough, the little society crumbles because of its "lack of vision." Blindness, an worthy allegory which could have used more of a solid story—like Jonathan Swift's Gullivar's Travels, for example, a spoof of the British monarchy with a fascinating story that can be appreciated on its own narrative level—falls short. While the characters are not given names in the movie or the novel, the better to sound like expressionist works such as Elmer Rice's play The Adding Machine, matters work their way in a predictable fashion.

Mark Ruffalo does good work as an ophthalmologist married to the Julianne Moore character, but on the whole the film lacks emotional connection with the audience while merely providing a heady experience.

Ridley Scott's
Body of Lies
Opens October 10, 2008

Written By: William Monahan, from David Ignatius's novel
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio; Russell Crowe; Mark Strong; Golshifteh Farahani; and Simon McBurney
Warner Bros
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+

The questions you might ask yourself while watching Body of Lies are: 1) What is the Russell Crowe diet? He was asked to gain fifty pounds from his already-heft bulk, and might offer some hints on treating anorectics; 2) Why would Russell Crowe, an A-list actor, be willing to endanger his health and appearance for Ridley Scott when he could presumably name his roles? Other than those, another query might be: What's going on? In reaching for the resonance of Stephen Gaghan's "Syriana," which is about the oil industry and America's role in protecting it, director Scott departs from his usual tense, easily comprehended thrillers like Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster and Gladiator. He succeeds only in making a muddle of his latest offering, throwing in a romance as though it came from another movie—a muddle for audience members who don't speak fluent Arabic like Leonardo DiCaprio's character and need time to sort out who's who among these exotic (to most Americans) names.

Ridley Scott, who seems willing to mute his usual simple stories in favor of convoluted ones in a desire to appear arty, is working with William Monahan's script adapted from David Ignatius's well-received novel of the same name. Thinking, perhaps, that his usual audience might be bored by endless chatter on cell phones, Scott changes the scenery every so often with an explosion or shoot-out every quarter-hour, taking his people from Iraq to Jordan to Syria and to Washington while photographer Alexander Witt captures vast stretches of desert—actually shot in Morocco. Ignatius's novel, considered by some book critics to be one of the best post-9/11 spy thrillers to come out, stresses a plan based on one used by the British against the Nazis in World War 2. While Ignatius would have A-list jihadists believe that some leaders are working with the Americans, Monahan's script focuses on a plan to create a fake organization whose leader gets credited with a terrorist act that allegedly has killed many Americans.

Leonardo DiCaprio performs in the role of Roger Ferris, a CIA agent who speaks fluent Arabic and who, after being wounded in Iraq, is sent by his superior officer, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) to Jordan. His aim: to ferret out a leading terrorist, putting his body on line while for his part, Hoffman comes across as a pudgy house-husband who is more concerned with getting his young boy to school and doing his laundry as he is for the very life of his macho underling. A cynical humor is evoked as Hoffman phones in dangerous orders while professing his love for his son. Ferris, perhaps motivated by newspaper columnists who believe that Osama Bin Laden is envious of the attention given to other violent groups, creates a scheme to flush out head jihadist, using a local patsy and a geeky computer expert (Simon McBurney) while taking orders from a superior officer whose rich life in suburban Washington should make the audience realize that the men in the field are more to be commended than their high officials back home.

DiCaprio follows up on his macho role in Blood Diamond as a guy who's masochistic enough to almost like being tortured. Contrary to good CIA sense, he hits on a pretty Jordanian nurse of Iranian ethnicity (the Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani), even while knowing that Arabic eyes will focus on the couple and that in this part of the world you are not allowed even to shake hands with a woman unless you're married to her. Mark Strong takes on the role of Hani Salaam, chief Jordanian intelligent expert who wears a different suit or jacket each day under the hot Jordanian sun, and who almost destroys the CIA plan when he is lied to.

One final query raised by a fellow critic whose writing I respect and whose political views are considerably to the left of center: What are Americans doing in these Middle Eastern countries, places which according to Ed Hoffman nobody should want to be in and which offer not much of anything? The Europeans, who are closer to the areas of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, and who are threatened by the militants in this pic, are doing far less to contain the terrorism which, according to the Muslim fundamentalists, are provoking a lust for revenge by some Arabs.

Clark Gregg's
Choke
Opens September 26, 2008

Written By: Clark Gregg, from Chuck Palahniuk's novel
Starring: Sam Rockwell; Anjelica Huston; Kelly Macdonald; William Henke; Clark Gregg; Bijou Phillips; and Gillian Jacobs

Fox Searchlight
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B

David Duchovny's admission to an institute for sex addiction makes a movie like Choke seem torn from the headlines (unless you read the NY Times). Sex addiction? Is this something new? Smoking is bad for you, irresponsible drinking and gambling likewise, but what's so bad about sex addition? After all, if a man can get all the action that he professes to have, even if he's forty-eight years old like Duchovny, some would say, "More power to ya." The problem, at least according to Clark Gregg's first feature as a director, is not really THAT much of a dilemma, but sex addiction, like nymphomania (its former name, at least as this applies to women), can prevent guys and gals from working effectively, that is, if they do not work in the sex industry. All women of any age, even nuns—according to Gregg's adaptation from Chuck Palahniuk's novel—are undressed in the minds of addicts. Onanism is repeated, maybe fifteen times a day until, as one character states, you lose the ability to make a fist. Airline rest rooms are locked by addicts for an inordinate amount of time for purposes that afford privacy, but not much romance--which is not very nice when today's aircraft may have no more than four johns for 150 people. In short, the psychological illness may exhaust its bearers, but the illness can make for interesting books and movies.

As for how interesting Gregg's film is, that depends wholly on the mindset of the viewer. Some will smile, others may laugh uncontrollably. Who knows? Some may even walk out while assuring the rest of us, "Hey, I'm no prude, but…"
The best news about Choke is that it stars Sam Rockwell, a funny man who has made a career of hangdog expressions and cynical repartee. Rockwell takes on the role of Victor Mancini, a med-school dropout and con artist who forms parasitic relationships with people by pretending to choke on food to encourage rich people to save and feel sorry enough for him to give him money. He works for a theme park, playing an 18th century Irish indentured servant, to support his mother in a private home for Alzheimer's patients.

An unusual love story and a comedy of manners, Choke delivers episodes of sex that can make male moviegoers wish they had his problem and could find willing partners. He bonds in airline restrooms, in a church, in the men's room of a building. His partners include a woman (Paz de la Huerta) who is also going through the 12 stages toward recovery but scarcely advances past the first. One playing a colonial milkmaid resists his advances while another (Kelly Macdonald), a doctor in his mother's rest home who may be insane, asks for a roll that even Victor considers perverse. In the movie's funniest scenes, a stripper named Cherry Daquiri (Gillian Jacobs) is advised by Victor to take better care of herself since blondes are prone to skin cancer. When Victor returns to the bar days later, he finds that she has dyed her hair.

With a solid supporting role by Brad William Henke as Victor's best friend and fellow sex addict, Choke gives its viewers a look at the eccentric style of novelist Chuck Palahniuk, whose Snuff is about an aging porn queen who intends to make a film showing her having sex with 600 men in one day. Choke is a film considered by a few to be the highlight of the 2008 Sundance Festival. Some will laugh. I smiled.

Saul Dibb's
The Duchess
Opens Friday, September 19, 2008

Written By: Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen from Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

Starring: Keira Knightley; Ralph Fiennes; Dominic Cooper; Charlotte Rampling; Hayley Atwell; Georgia King; Aidan McArdle; Simon McBurney; and Mercy Fiennes Tiffin.

Paramount Vantage
Reviewed by Allison Ford

To be an aristocratic woman in the 18th century, "You must equip yourself with patience, fortitude, and resignation," Georgiana Spencer's mother advises her in The Duchess. The film, starring Keira Knightley, tells the story of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, a woman ahead of her time, yet completely beholden to its strict and stultifying social rules.

Georgiana of Devonshire was known in her day for being flamboyantly fashionable, intensely political, and true to her passions, and as a result, almost everyone in Britain was in love with her. The Duke is cold and ambivalent, leading one character to remark that "The Duke of Devonshire is the only man in England not in love with his wife." The Duchess has overtly feminist leanings, describing the powerless plight of women in 1780's England. Georgiana was married at 17 to a man she barely knew and whose only desire was for a son and male heir. On her wedding night, as her new husband callously strips off her clothes, we see the corset marks embedded into Georgiana's skin…an apt metaphor for the life of a headstrong woman chafing at society's constraints.

The Duchess does not fall into the usual trap of period films. The characters and the setting demand a certain level of opulence, but the film is stronger than other period dramas, and it doesn't substitute good art direction for a good story. The costumes and set only provide a context in which the story plays out; they're not a character in their own right. However, the film is visually engrossing, with art and set direction that perfectly capture the grandeur and frigidity of a historical turning point.

Much is made in the film of freedom, since the political backdrop of Georgiana's story is the American and French revolutions, as well as the abolitionist movement in England. Georgiana spars with politicians, opining that "One cannot be free in moderation, just as one cannot be dead in moderation," she says. "One is either free, or not free." That idea is one that permeates the movie, making the statement that among all oppressed people, it is women who are ultimately the least free of all. Despite her popularity, Georgiana is not free to marry a man of her own choosing, she is not free to choose her own destiny, and she is not even free to expel her husband's mistress from the house.

Knightley is charming and powerful as the Duchess; girlishly playful, yet with a steely resolve. Ralph Fiennes is remarkable as the Duke of Devonshire, and although his character is the source of many of Georgiana's troubles, the film never resorts to characterizing him a villain. Ultimately, despite his moral depravity and callousness, he, too, is simply a product of his time. Their work together is brilliant and fiery; their obvious physical and stylistic differences reflect just how mismatched the real Duke and Duchess were.

Despite her attempts to follow her passions, Georgiana, too, is still bound by the rules of society and the demands of her position. Throughout the film, she rejects traditional female roles and seeks to create an independent identity for herself. In one transcendent moment, she is given the choice between keeping her lover and keeping her children. For a few glorious and startling minutes, it seems that she will actually choose her lover, Charles Grey, a future prime minister, and hold onto the love she has longed for. However, she eventually retreats back home, destined to live out the rest of her life in confinement. Georgiana chooses motherhood, domesticity, and safety, all for the good of her children. As she says to her husband, "It's my life for theirs."

The Duchess cannot be faulted for telling the story as it happened, but a typical display of female self-abnegation feels particularly empty at the end of a film that glorifies rebellion. Her husband, the Duke, shows signs of wanting a freer existence, as does Georgiana's best friend and rival, Bess Foster. All of the main characters have to leverage themselves to get what they want – Bess whores herself to the duke to regain custody of her children, Georgiana gives up her lover for the sake of hers, the Duke gives up freedom for a life of wealth and privilege, and Charles Grey is forced to give up Georgiana in order to pursue his political career. As an audience, we want better for Georgiana, a feisty and sympathetic heroine, and it is hard to accept her choice to resume her unfulfilling former life. Just when the imprints of the corset were fading, she has cinched it tighter.

The Duchess tells the fascinating story of a remarkable woman, and its greatest achievement may be to make its audience want to read the book on which it was based, Amanda Foreman's Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The Duchess admirably depicts an intriguing historical figure caught between two worlds, and she elicits our admiration, our jealousy, and ultimately, our pity.

Saul Dibb's
The Duchess
Opens Friday, September 19, 2008

Reviewed by Julia Sirmons

When you see an advert for the latest British period film, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for should you choose to shell out your ten clams. Odds are good that, at some point, a symbolically potent handkerchief will be dropped in slow motion and a woman in a cape will be standing alone in a desolate landscape, staring stoically ahead and contemplating the tragedy of her existence.

To some extent, this all holds true for The Duchess, Saul Dibb’s biopic of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, adapted from Amanda Foreman’s biography. All the traditional elements are here: heaving bosoms, tightly laced corsets (much credit is due to costume designer Michael O’Connor and the hair and makeup department for creating some of the most deliciously flamboyant dresses, wiggery and hattery ever to grace the screen).There’s also the common themes of the repressive consequences of aristocratic obligation, the oppression of women, and the British stiff-upper-lip standby of sacrificing love for the abstract notions of honor, duty, and children who are barely seen and even less frequently heard.

At this point you’re probably thinking, haven’t I’ve seen this one already, only with Emma Thompson? But with The Duchess, Dibb has managed to skillfully subvert and the conventions of the costume drama and breathe new life into a traditionally staid and stuffy genre.

He’s got the rather incredible real-life story of Georgiana of Devonshire working in his favor: When your heroine was a notorious gambler and fashion plate who endured her brute of a husband and his live-in mistress by engaging in electioneering, bedding a future prime minister and bearing an illegitimate child, you’re pretty safely out of the stuffy, fiddling with teacups territory of many British period pieces.

And as portrayed by Keira Knightley, Georgiana is brought gloriously, vivaciously to life. An actor who occasionally comes across as staid or wan, Knightely here gives free reign to the mishevious spark viewers saw hints of in Bend it Like Beckham and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. To watch the barely restrained glee on her face whilst delivering a quip, or even lasciviously grabbing a goblet of wine or throwing the dice is a thrilling, infectious delight. She also achieves the necessary balance of melodramatic pathos and nuanced emotion in the contrived moments of personal conflict and struggle that the long, slightly overblown script throws her way.

But much of the credit belongs to Dibb, who gives us a fresh look at life in 18th century England and some innovative new ideas about how a period piece can be made. He heightens the stereotypes of the genre for comedic effect, giving us husband and wife sitting at opposite ends of impossibly long tables, standoffs in absurdly cavernous hallways, and farcical country idylls with guns and dogs. But he’s also smart enough to know that life back then wasn’t all unmussed skirts and serene teas. He gets our hands dirty with the political mudslinging, the behind closed doors sexual antics, the bawdy theater, and the truth behind just what a pain all those corsets and wigs were. There’s a hilarious and horrifying scene where Knightley experiences a wardrobe malfunction (the specifics are too fantastic to divulge) that will make any Regency fetishists reconsider their next Halloween costume.

Georgiana was also a close friend of playwright Richard Sheridan (Aidan McArdle) and influential Whig party politician Charles Fox (Simon McBurney), and when Dibb shows us the three of them conspiratorially gossiping like a gaggle of sexy, impossibly witty fishwives, it’s an absolute treat. This is real life; these are people we like and want to meet.

Dibb also uses film techniques more commonly associated with more modern stories, which further help liven up the movie. The use of titles, quick cuts, wickedly funny shot—reverse shot sequences and extreme flash forwards make The Duchess shockingly entertaining. They also keep the long story moving at a refreshingly fast clip; although it does lag a bit in the film’s final tragic act.

The rest of the cast provides excellent support for Knightley’s star turn. Ralph Fiennes is wonderfully disturbing as Georgiana’s baddie philandering husband. His abominable cruelty and complete lack of charm or sensitivity is accompanied by such a blasé, twisted sense of humor that it’s difficult not to love the mean old bastard. Hayley Atwell, so impressive in Brideshead Revisited, turns in another layered and nuanced performance as Bess, the Duke’s mistress and Georgiana’s closest friend. Playing Georgiana’s lover, Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia) makes a most excellent piece of 18th century beefcake. His rugged, almost common good looks provide a sexy foil to Knightley’s refined features, and he imbues the role with the kind of fiery idealistic political passion that you easily believe could moisten aristocratic pantaloons.

If, like this reviewer, you were raised on a diet of Merchant Ivory films, The Duchess will provide you with an extra special pleasure. If, on the other hand, the thought of this kind of movie wants to make you run in the direction of the nearest Michael Bay feature, give The Duchess a try anyway. You might find that bosom of yours can be made to heave after all.

Saul Dibb's
The Duchess
Opens Friday, September 19, 2008

British monarchs would not exactly have sung Kumbaya during their reigns. Some were murderous, beginning when Alfred the Great secured Wessex and took domination over western Mercia. Our own country fought King George III for independence. On the other hand, some titled, powerful men were content to make love, not war, incidents that would be recorded by the press or whatever served as the gossip lines before printing. Prince Charles' dalliance during his marriage to Princess Diana is hardly unique: just part and parcel of the customs of the nobility, which is not altogether surprising when you consider that marriages were commonly arranged between people who may not even have met. Such was the case involving the title character of Saul Dibb's The Duchess, adapted by three scripters from Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The biopic is filmed by Gyula Pados sumptuously displaying the real estate and costumes that graced the court of the Duke of Devonshire—a man who'd probably not blink an eye (if he were alive now) when witnessing the butchery at work on Wall Street. Dibb considers politics only in the conversations of the politically astute, but does not actually display the revolutionary events occurring outside the limited circles in which the duke and duchess traveled.

Fair enough: Director Dibb focuses on sexual politics rather than the kind we in the U.S. are now inundated with on TV and in the press; affairs of the bed rather than those of state. A costume drama in the best sense of the word, The Duchess is anchored by a spot-on performance by the lovely Keira Knightley (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice), whose character, if alive in America today, would doubtless be a Democrat drinking Chablis and dabbing brie on her biscuits.

In 1774, Lady Spencer (Charlotte Rampling) sets up a wedding between her sixteen-year-old daughter Georgiana Spencer, and the fabulously wealthy and powerful William Cavendish, a.k.a. the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes). Though Georgiana considers the duke to be cold to the point of constipation, others may not have thought so, given his liaisons. He is surprisingly unimpressed by his new wife's beauty and brains, a woman he considers of little use until she can produce a male heir. When G, as her husband calls her, develops a friendship with Lady Elizabeth Foster (Hayley Atwell), she learns about the birds and the bees from her new best friend, but not just in theory. Her new enjoyment of her body encourages Georgiana to seek a liaison of love, finding great possibility in handsome, politically progressive Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), who urges her to give up her current partner and elope with him. This would not be a bad idea at all, considering that G's best friend has betrayed her with the duke, but who wants to run away and abandon her children?

While the film is as gorgeous as its leading lady, who changes costumes almost as many times as did Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries, Dibb appears so afraid of turning the festivities into soap opera that he plays down the emotions, allowing only a single outburst from the duke upon hearing some thoughts of independence from the mind of his wife. This kind of feminism, by the way, is not a fairly recent American invention, beginning, in fact, in ancient Greece as displayed in the texts of such dramas as Medea and Lysistrata.) Nor is the American Revolution worth more than a quick mention though it began two years after the nuptials of the duke and duchess. Dibb is intent on keeping The Duchess within the realm of costume drama, putting great attention on Georgiana's three-foot-high wig, a hair style that would make you change your seat if you were sitting behind her at the cinema. Not only is the story told in a political vacuum: more important, we are not privy to the sources of G's great appeal among the people. By contrast, now in the age of media, we can easily understand Princess Diana's popularity as we watch videos of her trips around the world and of her service to the less fortunate.

Nonetheless, at a time that more movies are being shown that were filmed with hand-held cameras and a lack of respect for the quality of the pictures, it's a pleasure to feast our eyes on a production whose technical effects are excellent. And mercifully, there are no car chases.

Isabel Coixet's
Elegy
Opens Friday, August 8, 2008

Written By: Nicholas Meyer, from Philip Roth's novella "The Dying Animal"
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson, Deborah Harry, Peter Sarsgaard

Samuel Goldwyn Films
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: A-8

In his four-stanza poem, Sailing to Byzantium—which includes a verse to "a dying animal," also the title of a recent novella by Philip Roth—William Butler Yeats describes both about the journey taken by the speaker's soul around the time of death and the process by which the artist transcends his own mortality. Philip Roth, whose novella forms the basis of film Elegy, is obsessed with age, with mortality, and with the fading of his own passions—all of which come across in this remarkable movie by the Spanish director, Isabel Coixet. Without passing judgment on a man who might be roundly condemned by feminists today, Coixet directs from a screenplay by Nicholas Meyer, one which closely follows the trajectory of Roth's book. Prestige films from literary sources are a rare breed today: Elegy joins such summer-released films as Julian Jarrold's Brideshead Revisited as must-sees on any sophisticated moviegoer's itinerary.

"That is no country for old men…An aged man is but a paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick, unless/ Soul clap its hands and sing…" So goes some verses from Yeats's poem, and so evolves the character David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley), a charismatic professor of literary criticism who uses his prestige at a New York university (one that looks like Columbia though the filming took place in Vancouver) to bed several women three or four decades his junior. He keeps his distance emotionally from the women—something his best friend, squash partner and Pulitzer-prize-winning poet George (Dennis Hopper) urges him to do. Kepesh is floored by the beauty of a Cuban-born student, Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz); he senses that she must be wooed before being won just like women in the 1950's, he correctly notes in discussing America's Puritan heritage on the air. Kepesh is fascinated by her beautiful breasts—which Ms Cruz generously exhibits for us in the audience—so much so that contrary to feminist beliefs today, Consuela lauds him for his attentions therein. "Nobody else loves my body as you do," she states with love in her eyes. While Kepesh sets up a sexual liaison with the young student, he maintains a long-term, commitment-free affair with an older woman, Carolyn (Patricia Clarkson), a sophisticated businesswoman in her late forties who believes that she is his only bed partner.

Philip Roth's obsession with age and decline, punctuated by at least one death in the story, evokes the title Elegy, a mournful poem or lament for the dead. As an older man who ponders his age almost daily, he is certain that a youthful charmer will steal his great love away. Jealousy demands that she remain in touch with him regularly. "Stop worrying about growing old," his friend George advises, knowing that his counsel will not be followed, "And think about growing up." (Lots of us men should have such problems with immaturity.)

Aside from its theme of mortality and decline, Elegy concerns itself with the impact on others of pure physical beauty. David, by way of illustration, simply cannot see beyond Consuela's body to understand that this woman wants a man who can offer her a future, and that David would be the one she would choose. David's womanizing has an effect on his son, Kenny Kepesh (Peter Sarsgaard), a doctor who cannot forgive his dad's marital abandonment and therefore remains loyal to his own wife though he has fallen in love with another. In the film's final scene, there has been an about face, one which demonstrates Consuela's spirit to David for the first time.

Jan Claude Larrieu photographs the proceedings in Vancouver, which stands in for New York, heightening director Coixet's emphasis on the pain that complements the human condition as well as its physical pleasures. The music, both in the background and as pieces played by David on the piano, are the antithesis of summer-movie soundtracks—featuring works from Bach's "Adagio from Concerto in D Minor" through Vivaldi's "Vendro Con Mio Diletto" from "Giutino" but not ignoring pop favorites like Al Lerner's "Loneliness Ends with Love." Acting is magnificent all-around with Dennis Hopper supplying much of the humor as the principal's sexual and spiritual adviser, Ben Kingsley's piercing job particularly in a concluding scene that finds him awash in tears, and Penelope Cruz's deft portrayal as a woman of spectacular beauty, charm, and ultimate vulnerability.

Jason Todd Ipson's
Everybody Wants to be Italian
Opens September 5, 2008

Written By: Jason Todd Ipson

Starring: Jay Jablonski; Cerina Vincent; John Kapelos; John Enos; Richard Libertini; Marisa Petroro; Dan Cortese; and Penny Marshall.

Roadside Attractions
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+

Says she, a veterinarian, to a prospective boyfriend: "So do you like animals?"
Replies he, the owner of a prosperous Boston establishment: "Sure. I have a fish store."

This repartee is one of the few gems in an otherwise recycled comedy that may be trying to cash in on the unusual box office success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The 27-year-old proprietor, Jake (Jay Jablonski) is courting Marisa (Cerina Vincent), a woman he believes to be Italian. Advised by the sales help in the shop that no Italian woman would consider a man who is of another ethnic background, Jake, who is of Polish stock, agrees to the pretense. However the movie does not really spend much energy on the prevarication, but centers on a young man who is caught between the love he still feels for Isabella (Marisa Petroro), a woman who dumped him eight years ago and who is now married with three kids, and his feeling for Marisa, who is the more eligible prospect at age thirty-three.

If you believe a veterinarian would hook up with a fishmonger, you have a fertile imagination and could conceivably go for the story. However, there is no comparison between Everybody Wants To Be Italian and another film about an unlikely couple, Knocked Up. You can always suspend disbelief, especially if you're dealing with a comedy. But Italian comes up far short of Judd Apatow's picture in the laughs department, principally because Jason Todd Ipson's tale is dated, recycled, and repetitive. The trajectory followed is more or less this: the principal character continues to court his old sweetheart while headed into a new relationship with a more eligible woman. The principal character goes back to the fish store after each date or meeting with this new person, and is advised by the people on his staff on how to deal with her and with women in general. Principal character goes on another date with Marisa, then returns to the store to get the same advice: déjà vu all over again.

Some of the conversation that would make anyone of a certain age think that this movie was made in the repressed 1950's includes the counsel of Marisa's older neighbor who tells the 33-year-old that the way to a woman's heart is through her stomach. "Papa" (Richard Libertini), comes out with the opinion that you've got to make a woman feel special. Would you believe that two of the other salt-of-the-earth clerks in the fish store are going to night school—one studying psychology, which allows him to tell Jake what Freud would say in each situation, while the other is taking up English literature which he proves by using words like "metaphor" and "simile?" Or that Jake would tell his prospective girlfriend that she is not a doctor, but rather a veterinarian, and not allow her to order in a restaurant, instead giving the waiter the choices for both of them?

As the story runs in circles—dates followed by counseling sessions in the fish store—you couldn't be blamed for thinking that this looks like a TV serial, something like Frazier or Cheers, but at the same time a far cry from the quality of those shows.

Irena Salina's
Flow
Opens September 12, 2008

Written by Irena Salina
Starring: Peter Gleick; Maude Barlow; Ashok Gadgil; Erik D. Olson; William E. Marks; Wenonah Hauter; Shri Rajendra Singh; Jim Schultz; and others.
Oscilloscope Laboratories
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B

If you're in the mood for a fight, go right up to a resident of New Orleans and tell him, "What the world needs now is lots of water."

Strange thing about H20. Seventy percent of the world is water, and there are shortages of clean aqua and one billion of our neighbors in poor countries do not have access. The reason is in part that only one half of one percent of the world's blue gold is drinkable. So when you look at the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian oceans, just remember Samuel Taylor Coleridge's quote through the mouth of the ancient mariner, "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink." We all know about the oil crisis: the premium prices we pay here in the U.S. and the exorbitant fees that the Europeans have to shell out at the pump. But according to Irena Salina, who directs the documentary Flow, the increasing power that multinational corporations have has resulted in a diminishing supply of clean water mostly in poverty-stricken areas in countries like Lesotho, Bolivia, South Africa and India—which countries are featured for a large proportion of the doc—and that ultimately not only will we in the wealthy U.S. face a shortage, but some of us right now are taking showers that allow all sorts of gunk to slither through our pores. Forget about Freddy Krueger: this picture is scarier. Here's yet another film on the political left, one that blames, oh, not the United States as such, but multinational corporations like Coca-Cola—which is draining water from South America for processing the black sludge.

Flow opens with a quote from WH Auden, who said, "All that we are not stares back at what we are." Ooops, wrong quote. Auden said, "Thousands have lived without love; none without water." True enough, though the film does not state that we human beings can live for perhaps two months without love, but for maybe four days without food or water. When you're practically dying of thirst, you're going to pay more for a liter of water than for a carful of oil.

But I digress. The talking heads in Flow are easy to take because director Salina does not have them sitting in a chair talking to some faceless interviewer—though let's not sell interrogators short: they can always ask interesting questions like, "Sarah Palin, can you tell us why you do not own a passport?"

Some of the shots are visceral, most particularly one of some water in a Bolivian stream that feeds into Lake Titicaca (our favorite name back in Middle School), which runs red, not blue or clear, thanks to the action at the nearby slaughterhouse. One of the world's most sacred spots catches the interest of photographer Pablo de Selva, who shares lenses with the director: that spot is the Ganges River, whose holy liquid is dropped into the mouths of newborns and when someone dies, their ashes are floated out in the river to assure passage to a better life later on.

Corporations wear the black hats in Flow. Thanks to the big multinationals, water—which we repeatedly hear from the speakers should be the free property of all--is gobbled out not only by Coke but by manufacturers of bottled water, eighteen brands of which are owned by Nestles. Interesting, isn't it, that there is only one person in the United States in charge of regulating the industry to try to catch the one-third of bottled brands containing arsenic, and maybe some old lace? Go to http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp to find out what you didn't want to know about the bottles you imbibe. (If arsenic does not get you, you might get hit from some of the 116,000 human-made chemicals finding their way into the public water systems which maybe thirty percent of bottled water brands do not filter out.)

There's a shortage of humor in the doc, which all the more punctuates the relief of a quick Penn and Teller skit wherein folks in a fancy restaurant pay seven bucks for a bottle of tap water with a fancy French name (that means "tap water") and who insist that it tastes much better than the stuff they wash their cars with.

Each of us owns our own body, including the seventy percent that is water. Unfortunately you won't find people making $1 a day in India or Bolivia or South Africa and scores of other countries who can afford to pay three days' wages for a liter of Poland Spring. Is everything hopeless? Maybe not. Socially conscious people are waging war against the greedy, in one case filing a suit to enjoin Coca Coca from draining the water in Michigan. After the district judge handed down an injunction, Coke appealed and won the right to continue the drainage while the appeal slogged its way through the judicial system. Finally, the company got a slap on the wrist from the Michigan Supreme Court, which allows Coca-Cola to use "a reasonable amount" of Michigan's water for the gunk that it makes.

If you have a double-feature movie in your area, such as we had in the 1940s and 1950s, see this pic together with Stuart Townsend's Battle in Seattle, which deals with the rigorous demonstrations in Washington States' leading city in 1999 against the World Trade Organization, a group which the protesters consider nothing but an arm of (you guessed it) the multinational corporations.

Udi Aloni's
Forgiveness (Mechilot)
Opens September 12, 2008

Written By: Udi Aloni
Starring: Itay Tiran; Clara Khoury; Mori Moshonov; Makram Khoury; Tamara Mansour; Ruba Bial; and Michael Same
International Film Circuit
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+

Someone said that happiness is best achieved by those with money, love, and a short memory. A short memory is just what David (Itay Tiran) needs. A handsome lad in his twenties, he should be enjoying life to the fullest. He's not really short of love and a decent standard of living, but his memory has given him a life-threatening psychosis that nudges him into thoughts of suicide. Conceptually, Udi Aloni's film has much going for it: here is an original take with a theme that references the Holocaust, but Aloni has written and directed such a hodge-podge of realism, hallucinations, and recent history that Forgiveness, whose dialogue is mostly English with a modicum of Hebrew, Yiddish and Arabic, charges head-on into pretentiousness.

Anyone familiar with the idea of Jewish guilt ("Some day you'll be sorry for what you did to your mother") can easily understand the plight faced by David, a Jewish guy from New York who is not a slacker as much as someone who is drifting along without a clear goal. His father (Michael Sarne), a Holocaust survivor, had originally settled in Israel before emigrating to the U.S., giving David an excuse to make aliyah, or to leave the U.S. for the Middle East, and sign up for the army. Accidentally killing a Palestinian girl during a moment of great tension, he becomes emotionally paralyzed and is dispatched to a psychiatric hospital filled with Holocaust survivors like Muselmann (Moni Moshonov)—who has much to teach the more rational among us.

Since the hospital was built on land that saw the massacre in 1948 of a hundred Arab villagers by Israeli militias, the institution encourages inmates to dig for remains of the Palestinian bodies. The unusual therapy is designed to bring the patients back to the real world. Given a drug that flushes out bad memories, he leaves for New York again, he hooks up with Lila (Clara Khoury), a Palestinian singer, and is dumped when he stupidly reveals that he was an Israeli soldier.

As with Indian movies, there are occasional flashes of music, some high-stepping better than others. Ultimately David might have been brought back to the routines of life had he kept his mouth shut. Forgiveness, or Michilot in Hebrew, is too disjointed to exploit its originality sufficiently.

Courtney Hunt's
Frozen River
Opens Friday, August 1, 2008

Starring: Melissa Leo; Misty Upham;