Watching The Squid and the Whale (2005), I was made aware of how different people are. I don’t think I would ever make a film so true-to-life about a traumatic event, say, like my parents’ divorce.
But I’m not Noah Baumbach, and he made this movie. It takes place in the early ’80s, about a young boy, Frank, and a teenager, Walt, (Jesse Eisenberg) in Brooklyn and his parents (Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels), both writers, decide to get a divorce.
The scene where the parents break the news to the kids is pretty harsh. Both parents are more into their “what’s next” rather than gauging their kids. Frank, the 9-year-old, takes up drinking. Walt, a preternaturally cold Eisenberg, adopts his dad’s standards with women – and a crush on one.
Making the film as an adult, I wondered if Baumbach felt more empathetic towards his family, trying to make it as people and parents. The whole experience feels like a therapy exercise – it has its charms, but might bring up too much of someone else’s pain to be entirely enjoyable.
“I’m not living with you! We occupy the same cage, that’s all!” Maggie the Cat (Elizabeth Taylor) snarls at her detached husband Brick (Paul Newman). Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, written as a play by Tennessee Williams, was made into a film in 1958. Some plays do not easily translate from stage to screen, the film’s claustrophobia (almost all the action takes place in one house) enhances how the characters have trapped themselves.
Brick drinks himself into a stupor as Maggie sashays around trying to trick him into loving her again. Brick’s father, Big Daddy, is dying but doesn’t know it, and his other son Gooper and his brood of annoying children have dedicated themselves to giving Big Daddy a birthday celebration (and remind him to update his will). A storm on the night of the big party forces the family to face their demons, which are themselves.
Taylor especially is a spitfire of action here. She’s utterly ruthless as a woman who married for love and money, had one snatched away from her but will be damned if she loses the other. Newman reminded me so much of Marlon Brando in this role, brooding lion-like until all of a sudden he snapped. The homosexual subtext got scrubbed from Williams’ play for the movie, but there are still hints of it. The ending smacks of studio interference, and twists the brow of a modern viewer, but it’s a film filled with strong acting fit to burst out the screen.
Might be worth seeing alone for Elizabeth Taylor in corseted slips. You too will be tempted to act the grande, wronged Southern dame for the evening.
Someone could easily accuse me of having a slight prejudice against Sofia Coppola and I’d have a hard time coming up with a counter-argument. I enjoyed Lost in Translation, but found Marie Antoinette to be a lavish Vogue photospread with an admittedly excellent soundtrack. Her movies always feature waifish, lost young women navigating a world that bemuses them.
In Somewhere, the young woman is Cleo (played by the younger Fanning, Elle), daughter to the remarkably successful yet otherwise unremarkable actor Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff). Marco lives at the Chateau Marmont, that decadent LA hotel off Sunset that has seen its share of Hollywood debauchery. He whiles away his day having sex with very willing women, drinking Coronas, and generally hanging.
What can you do when your life of repetitive pleasure has made you so numb you can’t even enjoy a private pole dance by leggy blonde twins? Nothing, but oh, look, here’s your eleven-year-old daughter you’ve paid marginal attention to her whole life. Her mom’s having her own crisis and you have to take care of her for a few days before camp, so you head to Italy on a studio’s budget, eat gelato in bed, play Guitar Hero, and learn about deferred pleasure for the first time in your life (specifically, turning a naked girl in a sailor hat out of your bed).
Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford, no doubt had similar experiences trailing after a famous father and got to witness some major celebrity pitfalls. And what is her conclusion – “Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us! Lonely, Confused & Searching”? It doesn’t help that Dorff, at least as Marco, coasts by on amiability and fading good looks. There’s no intensity in his desire to be an actor; he fell in it, and the life treats him well. There is a great acting moment by Fanning the younger at breakfast in Italy, with her father and her father’s morning after. She gazes critically at both the woman and her father and coolly assesses but does not judge. The whole movie can’t help but lighting up while Cleo is around because she’s the most dynamic part of it.
I’m not doing the film justice entirely. There are some very sweet moments between Marco and Cleo, and some beautiful shots poolside and in Italy. But the stretches in between them are few and far between. It was the cinematic expression of apathy, and I confess I couldn’t see the point.
Why did I put of seeing The King’s Speech? It takes place in my favorite time period (interbellum WWI & WWII in Great Britain), has one of my favorite actors (Mr. Darcy, natch), and from all the commercials seems like just the sort of stuffy, Oscar-baiting historical fare that I savor.
I finally caught it Monday, and I must say it was all all those things, but with an added sweetness that well explains its success this awards season. The King’s Speech is the fictional portrayal of Prince Albert (“Bertie” to his family), the stammering Duke of York who becomes King George VI right before World War II when his brother abdicates the throne in order to be with his love, the twice-divorced American Mrs. Wallis Simpson. In order to be able to make speeches to his people without faltering, Bertie gets unorthodox speech therapy from Lionel Logue, a failed Australian actor, played by the successful Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, after some gentle nudging from his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter).
Colin Firth deserves all the accolades he has been receiving for his portrayal of Bertie. Accents are hard enough, but a speech impediment, in differing severity, is very difficult indeed. Firth sounds like an angry bullfrog when he talks, and a gurgling baby when he doesn’t. He’s angry, fearful of the position, but wants to do right by his duty, which, as a King in 20th century England, is to speak into the wireless to his people. And that is one thing that he cannot do. As his father tells him, “Gone are the days when we used to be able to just sit nobly on a horse.” A King in 1936 cannot levy taxes, make a law, or declare war. But he can speak.
I admit to being fascinated by the trappings and rules of royalty. The scene where Edward VIII abdicates his crown – it’s just a signature on a piece of paper. But because of that signature (and that awful woman Mrs. Simpson, gah), it is Bertie’s face that would be put on coins, and not his brothers. And did you know the proper way to greet the Queen? “Your majesty first, and then ma’am like ham, not like parm,” pertly informs the Queen. Helena Bonham Carter’s early career included many Merchant Ivory period dramas, such as the lovely Room With a View, and it is immensely gratifying to see her playing witty rather than spooky. (Historical fun fact! While doing research for my undergraduate thesis on women smoking in Britain, I came across the Bonham Carter name several times in the society pages. If she seems born to play aristocrats in period pieces, well, she is!).
Historically, the movie is also fascinating. The BBC control room shows labels for all of the UK holdings – Canada, Australia, Nigeria. It must have been so astounding to think of how significant it was for people worldwide to be able to actually hear their monarch. (In this way, this movie is not so different from The Social Network: both are about learning how to communicate in a brave new way.) And the final scenes of people rushing to bomb shelters in London was a nasty reminder of what was yet to come.
The King’s Speech, if I may borrow a term from 2009, is at its heart a fine bromance. Bertie and Lionel learn to trust and respect each other. You can tell that Bertie was not a man born to be a king, but knows it is what he must do, and he does it nobly. There’s a fantastic scene of Lionel looking behind the royal family, waving to crowds from the Buckingham Palace balcony, and there’s a shiver of envy from the failed actor side, the side of the man who got rejected in an audition for Richard III on account of not being regal enough. As the king’s speech therapist, though, Lionel knows better. He has seen firsthand that kings are made, not born.
Cold Mountain I decided to watch because I came across the soundtrack and fell in love. The film takes place in the Civil War-era South, and as a country fan, I was immediately drawn to the stark traditional arrangements. The music in the movie was produced by T. Bone Burnett and features, among others, Jack White (who also co-starred!). It’s easy to see the bridge between the Anglo-Saxon ballads transported from England to our modern country songs today.
The movie itself is incredibly beautiful. Filmed in the mountains of Romania (where my dad is from!), director Anthony Minghella’s shots sweep over mountainous snowy vistas and lush valleys. Even knowing it was filmed elsewhere, you get the sense of how open to possibility America still was, how there really wasn’t a lay of the land to speak of (yet).
Jude Law plays Inman, a Southern man who falls in love with Ada, a preacher’s daughter (played by Nicole Kidman). I’d like to deem him Sad Hipster Jude, as he has a musician’s scraggly beard and mourning, soulful eyes (still a good look for him, though! Jude – bring back the beard!). After fighting for and deserting the Confederates, he must find his way back to Cold Mountain and his love. There’s one epic battle scene in particular that is so bloody, such a pointless loss of life on both sides, that we got to Googling and learned 30% of white Southern men perished during the Civil War. I couldn’t help but be reminded of that line from The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”: “You take what you need and you leave the rest / But they should never have taken the very best.”
Inman’s quest does bring to mind The Odyssey, which reminded me of another modern retelling of Homer with a great soundtrack – O Brother Where Art Thou. Cold Mountain does not have as much of a sense of humor as O Brother, and it certainly doesn’t have as much an interest in words. Inman and Ada’s courtship exists mainly in longing looks and one intense kiss, and the actors are forced to maintain stoic intensity that almost verges on constipation.
The supporting cast is quite strong, though. You’ll recognize Jack White, Natalie Portman, Cillian Murphy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Renee Zellweger in the most plucky role she’s held since Bridget Jones.
Cold Mountain will certainly strike you with its impressive, if glacial, beauty, but the heart of the film was in its music. Check out a video (below). It’s worthwhile viewing and even more essential listening.
Hah!!! Did you think I had graduated into sex advice or something?
No, the roomies and I caught Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). It was made in 1972, back in Allen’s Golden Age. The film is based on an actual sexual guide, but don’t worry, you won’t actually learn anything watching this one.
The movie is a series of vignettes, each answering purportedly answer a question: Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm? What Are Sex Perverts? Do Aphrodisiacs Work? You’ll recognize a lot of the actors, including a strapping Burt Reynolds and a shockingly young Regis Philbin. I was reminded most of Monty Python sketches, both in their absurdity and affinity for male cross-dressing. Every You Always Wanted also riffs on other cinematic tropes – the Shakespearian epic, the mad scientist horror schlock, and, my favorite, Allen as the Felliniesque Italian alpha director (but still neurotic, of course).
I also wonder why there aren’t movies made like this today. Wouldn’t this be a better alternative to the shlock like Valentine’s Day? For all the boasting about living in a post-Sex and the City world, I’d say most mainstream movies have steered firmly away from adult sexual relationships – unless you want to know if sex friends can be best friends.
The internet has kindly provided a sampling of the final, and funniest, segment – What Happens During Ejaculation?
As much as I like country music, there’s no way I’d want my life to mirror a country song. (Related side note: wondering which song fits your life best? Check out Mad’s awesome infographic!! I helped!).There’s a sense of inevitability in country music – you’re never going to find a happy ending to a sad country song.
Crazy Heart is the sad country song of Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, telling the story of a man forced to come to terms with a lifetime of bad decisions. And really, when you make your living composing ballads about rough and rowdy ways, why should a cowboy be expected to settle down?
Bridges won an Oscar for his performance, and Bad’s sins certainly are firmly established in Bridges’ lined face and sagging belly. It’s almost a dark coda to the Dude of the Big Lebowski, if being irresponsible finally caught up to him. Colin Farrell, who suffered through some blockbuster humdingers in the past few years, was a real revelation as Bad’s successful, polished protegee Tommy Sweet. Both actors do their own singing, actually to the benefit of the soundtrack.
The film nicely captures the wideness of the American South while contrasting it with the claustrophobic nature of Bad’s hotel room benders. You see the real beauty in the open road, but its temptations too. Tommy Sweet drinks bottled water and plays sold-out stadiums; Bad chugs whiskey and plays bowling alleys.
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the single mother who trusts Bad too early and almost becomes Mrs. Blake the sixth. The May-December redemptive storyline is a bit pat, even with Gyllenhaal and Bridges playing nicely against each other.
Crazy Heart is not an easy movie to watch. Can a man like Bad Blake change? As Robert Duvall’s character tells Bad, when it comes to doing the right thing, “It’s never too late, son.”
Check out Ryan Bingham, a great country songwriter who produced the soundtrack, sing the theme song, “The Weary Kind”:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIJTU9iY2iA&feature=related]
There are some times that I do want to live in LA or NY, and usually those instances have to do with movie releases. (Apparently we have to wait for Blue Valentine an extra two weeks. C’mon people! The Bay Area needs its post-holiday relationship wallowing, too!).
I’m lucky enough that my mom lives in LA, so I was able to catch a film I had been looking forward to for quite some time: The Illusionist, an animated movie based on a script by Jacques Tati.
The film is directed by Sylvain Chomet, who also directed one of my favorite animated movies, Les Triplettes de Belleville. Chomet’s animation style is more distorted, more grotesque than the smooth-cheeked 2D Disney characters we have grown up with (he actually has many thoughts on 3D vs. 2D which you can read about in an interview with The Playlist).
The Illusionist is not as clamorous; it’s actually a quietly beautiful movie, with lovely backgrounds of 1940s Scotland that are as gentle as watercolors. It follows the story of a French magician (based on Jacques Tati, the man) whose act is falling flat to audiences entranced with t.v. and rock & roll. He travels to a small town in Scotland, where a young(ish) girl sees his act and believes, quite sincerely, that he can practice magic.
I read afterword that this script was Tati’s way of reaching out to an illegitimate daughter that he never got to know. As to the truth of that, I cannot say, but the movie does capture love and loss and growing up…. and in so few words, too! The characters barely speak, partially because they do not speak the same language, and partially because there really is no need.
I can’t recommend this movie enough. My family and I saw it after the holidays, and we were all left the richer for it.
Oh goodness, it’s 2011 already. All my favorite blogs have been doing some hard work summarizing and rating the year, and I’ve listed my favorites here:
Vulture’s compilation of Best of lists (where I found Mark Lisanti’s cryptic best of 2010 movies… can anyone get the last 3?)
Some really great articles published in 2010 listed on Longform.org’s Best of.
The holidays can be a bit of a drag sometimes. With all the pressure to get with your nearest and dearest, it instead highlights feeling of loneliness.
Last Christmas I discovered this Neko Case cover of a Tom Waits song, and it has a special place in my heart. Good for wallowing.
As much as I like country music, there’s no way I’d want my life to mirror a country song. (Related side note: wondering which song fits your life best? Check out 