Movies Kick Ass Blog

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee **1/2

2009-11-27T22:45:00.004-06:00

Director: Rebecca Miller
Cast: Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin
Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Julianne Moore, Monica Bellucci
Ryan McDonald, Zoe Kazan, Mike Binder, Maria Bello
Robin Weigert, Shirley Knight

How do you engage an audience and make them become interested in a character? First you have them believe said character has qualities we want to discover.
Pippa Lee (Wright Penn) is "a mystery, an enigma..." says one of her friends (Binder) minutes into the film.
So check, we have something to unravel.
Then you go and try to solve said mystery by putting together pieces of a puzzle. Therefore we go back in time as Pippa narrates her life to make us understand where she is now.
And since we don't really know what it is exactly we're trying to discover we let the characters engage us.
We learn how Pippa (played by Lively as a younger version) ran away from home, escaping her lunatic mom (Bello) and passive dad (Tim Guinee). She ends up living with her lesbian aunt (Weigert) and her girlfriend (Moore) only to end up becoming addicted to pills and falling in love with-and marrying-a publishing editor (Arkin) who's thirty years her senior.
And this is where we first meet her, she's just moved in with her husband to a retirement community trying to find something new to do, while learning that she might be going insane.
Written and directed by Miller (who also wrote the book the film is based on) "The Lives of Pippa Lee" is obviously its creator's lovechild and as such Miller has trouble knowing what to tell, what to conceal and she doesn't want to give us a bad impression about the people she so devotedly wrote, re-wrote and directed.
Therefore the characters are actually very interesting, even if sometimes they're stuck with ridiculous dialogues and selfconscious quips, but there is absolutely no real plot to follow.
She just keeps inserting new elements (even if they're old because they're Dickensian flashbacks) to make her heroine more appealing.
One of those elements includes new neighbor Chris (Reeves) who more than not turns out to be an excuse for Miller to pull all her deus ex machina moves.
But even with all her tricks and stylistic juxtapositions Miller can never really justify what she's doing and the "many" lives of Pippa Lee are reduced to her being single and then married.
Working with Wright Penn as top accomplice ("to be perfectly honest I've had enough of being an enigma" she teases) they make an event out of what turns out to be a not quite fascinating life.
The actress is at her best, she's tender and loving with Arkin, she's motherhood personified with the actors who play her kids (Kazan and McDonald) and she does her best Marcia Cross when she has to share scenes with her neurotic friend (Ryder).
Underneath her undeniable sexiness and appeal Wright Penn is above all bewitching. Try to take your eyes away from her and you won't be able to.
If only the movie had something else to say (we often wonder why do we need to know about this woman's life) instead of settling for facile resolutions and awkward quirk, then we would have been in for a real treat.
Because as it is, the movie comes, goes and Pippa is still as much of a mystery to us when the movie ends. "I feel like this is just the beginning" she says in the last scene, but perhaps only Miller is willing to go on this journey with her.

2009-11-26T00:14:00.000-06:00

Funny People **1/2

2009-11-25T19:17:00.007-06:00

Director: Judd Apatow
Cast: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann
Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Aubrey Plaza, Eric Bana

"Comedy usually is for funny people" says George Simmons (Sandler) and the usually in that quote is the keyword to best describe the mood of this film.
Judd Apatow's third film as a director takes an inside look at Hollywood, filtered through a comedian's eyes.
Simmons is a comedy superstar, in the vein of Sandler, who made a name for himself starring in raunchy adolescent oriented comedies and crass stand up routines.
He's a millionaire but lives a pretty lonely life. Things change for him when he learns he has a terminal disease and he tries to make things right.
Not in a Frank Capra way, but right by his own standards; therefore he hires a down on his luck comedian named Ira (Rogen) to be his assistant and also tries to rekindle his love with old flame Laura (Mann) who has a husband (Bana) and children.
Sandler, who rarely gets enough credit as an actor (because of his career choices mostly) makes George someone we have a hard time liking.
He's the kind of conceited superstar who thinks the world asks too much of him-he even sings it-and only reaches down from his Olympus when he needs something.
But Sandler also gives him a soul. He doesn't turn him into a fable character ready for a big change; even when the screenplay tries to make us see him with both pity and disdain, the actor makes George someone who won't give a damn about how we perceive him, until he needs an audience to turn his next movie into a blockbuster.
It's a brave performance because he's never afraid of showing his ugly side, which is most of it.
Apatow as usual gives the supporting cast great moments and Mann once again shines as the complicated Laura. Her kind of down to earth sexiness is incredibly appealing and this time around she plays someone we'd have no trouble believing existed.
Some of her choices are ridiculous, but Mann plays them out like a grown up (perhaps the only real adult in the movie). Rogen once again plays the sweet, slightly awkward sidekick and he's good at it, while Hill bores with his umpteenth take on the potty mouthed nerd.
Bana was a real surprise, he plays an Australian and when the movie wants us to hate him (he's the only character who isn't in show business and has a corporate job) we simply can't, because the actor makes us realize that even something a Hollywood star can find boring, can be dignified.
His comedic timing is ace and the dislikeability factor the screenplay attributes him comes only looking as a manifestation of how he represents people like Simmon's worst nightmares, both in and outside the movie.
He's very handsome, while the other guys often make jokes about their average looks, he's successful and he gets the girl they wanted.
And as an actor Bana is proving that you don't have to say "fart" and "cock" to make people laugh; his sarcasm might just steal more laughs than Sandler's funny voice shticks.
With him the movie reveals its weakest link because Apatow never stops to ask what it means to be funny, he has forgotten that comedy isn't a universal language.
He takes for granted that by thinking of funny we must be the kind of people who laugh at his' and Sandler's jokes.
With this unintentionally arrogant move he assumes that he is a fine comedian.
And he can be; but his kind of comedy has only gained importance during this decade and "Funny People" is an egocentric-slightly self critical- ode to himself and his newly founded reign.

The Limits of Control *1/2

2009-11-25T00:39:00.006-06:00

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Isaach de Bankolé, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton
Gael García Bernal, Hiam Abbass, John Hurt, Paz de la Huerta

Watching "The Limits of Control" two questions come to mind: does Isaach de Bankolé ever smile and what the hell was Jim Jarmusch thinking when he made this movie?
The stone faced de Bankolé stars as a hitman on some sort of a mission that has him traveling across Spain where he meets with strange characters that give him matchboxes.
Somewhere in between conversations about molecules, Rita Hayworth, bohemians and old guitars Jarmusch expects us to have an epiphany about existence.
What he fails to see is that he's the one who's going through an existential crisis and a plot-less movie will not help him solve it.
The movie plays out like a really bad dream (if Jarmusch was trying to pay homage to David Lynch he never reaches the fascinating creepiness and surprising universality of Lynch's stream-of-consciousness movies) with selfindulgent cinematography by Christopher Doyle who does capture beautiful images, that play like awkward Renault commercials.
The saddest thing is that Jarmusch is probably aware of how empty his movie is and often tries to justify himself in the silliest ways.
When a gangster (played by Murray) asks de Bankolé "how did you get here?" he answers "I used my imagination". This response plays more like "The Matrix" by way of "Sesame Street" than as a spark to make us reflect on how the whole thing might be a dream within a dream.
During the film's only interesting scene Swinton appears as a blond (Jarmusch references tons of film noirs here) with a movie obsession.
She tells de Bankolé that she likes movies where you don't know if you're having a dream or watching a film.
Jarmusch should've learned that sometimes dreams, like films, should be kept all to oneself.

I Want Magic...

2009-11-24T12:55:00.004-06:00

Dan Kois profiles Cate Blanchett and Liv Ullmann for "New York Magazine" (read article here) as they bring their production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" to the United States.
If there was a play I would kill to see it definitely would be this one, so I thoroughly enjoyed how Kois interprets the magnificent actresses involved in this production.
"One might call Ullmann an archaeologist and Blanchett an architect" he says as he explains Cate's flawless embodiment through imitation skills and Liv's introspective, quiet performances in Ingmar Bergman films.
I hear that tickets for "Streetcar" are practically impossible to get, but those of you in NYC, try as hard as you can so I can live vicariously through you.
Tickets and information here.

You, the Living ***1/2

2009-11-24T00:51:00.006-06:00

Director: Roy Andersson
Cast: Jessika Lundberg, Elisabeth Helander, Kemal Sener
Eric Bäckman, Jessica Nilsson, Leif Larsson

Set somewhere between comedy and tragedy, Roy Andersson's "You, the Living" is the second film, of a planned trilogy, where the director explores human emotions through a set of vignettes.
There's not much of a plot to follow; the film is made out of fifty individual scenes (mostly shot in one take) where different characters complain about their lives.
An angry barber shaves an arrogant costumer, an elderly man laments how his bank treated him while a large woman rides him and an alcoholic woman cries while she asks her mother why is she serving non-alcoholic beer.
All of them are fascinating to watch as they contain entire lifetimes and reflect them in a few seconds. Andersson doesn't need to come up with extended dialogues for them to convey what they are going through.
We can see it in their eyes, in their posture, even in their surroundings.
The movie makes us wonder where does it take place, not only because of its claustrophobic-but-fablesque sets (most of it is done inside a studio) but of the actual population Andersson thinks is going through things like these.
Nobody in the movie is happy and yet we find ourselves laughing at their misery. This can work in two ways, as the director makes us forget our own troubles while he entertain us or by making us realize how selfish most of our problems are.
How can we go on and complain, like the people in the movie, when there's a million people complaining at the same time?
The film's greatest scene has a young woman (Lundberg) at a bar upset because she failed to make an impression with the rock musician she has a crush on (Bäckman).
She pauses and then tells us how she dreamed they were married.
Unlike the other characters in the movie who tell us their dreams, the girl's isn't filled with bizarre trials, apocalyptic crescendos and electric chair deaths, but with music, romance and hope.
This scene with its light Buñuel oneirism makes for such a hauntingly beautiful impression that the Dr. Strangelove-ish finale won't be what leaves the theater with you.

Be, Less, Italian...

2009-11-23T17:31:00.009-06:00

OK, if there was an Oscar category for Best Poster design "Nine" wouldn't be getting in.
On its second poster released today we get a more cinematic feel and people who saw it without knowing what the hell it was about, would actually begin to understand the whole "oh they're movie people" thing.
However, cursed by the worst Photoshoppers in the history of the world, the Weinstein Co. artistic department came up with a preposterous, incoherent design.
For starters, who the hell would pose for the paparazzi like Marion, Nicole, Penélope and Kate are?
We get that the graphic designers were too lazy to look for any other images of the actors (they're exactly the same ones they used for the other poster) and don't get me wrong, they all look great (LOVE the Mastroiani feel of Daniel Day Lewis' hunch)...just not as a group.

This is never as evident as with the cast's gazes. Where the hell are all of them looking at? Marion apparently spotted something in Daniel's head and is doing flirty eyes at it.
Daniel is looking at Penélope's feet, while she smells her own armpit and falls down (judging from that too slanted position) and Nicole is straight out of her Chanel No. 5 ad looking for Baz.
Just look at how weird Penélope's position is. Not only do we have to wonder who can stand up like that and stay still, but what the heck did they do to her figure?
She's certainly beautiful and curvy, but by no means is she made out of plastic.

Last, but not least, there's the paparazzi. If you had those five together in the same spot, you'd want to take their picture right?
But look at the photographers in red, their eyes and their cameras? What on Earth are they taking pictures of?
It pains me that "Nine" is doing those wonderful trailers and gives no damn about posters. The whole production seems to be cursed with really, really bad Photoshopping.
Remember that "Vogue" cover?

I was appalled to learn that, contrary to what the final result looks like, the women were actually photographed together! (Watch video for proof)
As much as Italian society appreciates the extremes at which some women can take their appearance. Just look at everything Berlusconi dates or appoints to Congress.
There's still a limit to how retouched actresses should appear. Was there anything more breathtaking than Claudia Cardinale's and Anouk Aimee's natural look in Fellini's "8 1/2"?
Rob Marshall should definitely approach these designers with care, ask them to put down the airbrushing tools and pray not to be blurred or stretched in some Mac.

Be, More, Italian!

2009-11-23T14:06:00.004-06:00

The idea behind the new poster for "Nine" is kinda cute. The whole poster within a poster thing has been done in the past to great effect (remember "Notting Hill"?)
But something about this poster is too damn selfconscious.
It is too damn crowded, there's too much going on and you don't really know where the hell you should be looking at first.
Wouldn't it have been superb if the poster featuring the women had been done in the style of the era: with illustrations a la Anita Ekberg in "La Dolce Vita"?
At least this one's better than the Korean version.

2009-11-22T17:52:00.000-06:00

My One and Only **

2009-11-22T15:30:00.008-06:00

Director: Richard Loncraine
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Kevin Bacon
Mark Rendall, Nick Stahl, Chris Noth, Eric McCormack
J.C. MacKenzie, Robin Weigert, Steven Weber, Troy Garity

The life of actor George Hamilton gets Hollywood-ized in this biopic starring Lerman as a young George and Zellweger as his mother Anne Deveraux.
The film begins when Anne leaves her husband (a sympathetic Bacon) and takes George and half brother Robbie (Rendall whose gay character is forced to deliver cringe worthy one liners) across the country while she looks for a new husband to take care of them.
Deveraux who thinks she's "too good to work" often ends in awkward situations and her beaus include playboys, insane paint moguls and crazy military types.
But Zellweger grounds the movie with a performance that could've gone borderline, but stays on a sane, actually moving limit.
Several characters are forced to remind George that his mother loves him above everything else and truth is Zellweger embodies this beautifully.
Whether she's being mistaken for a prostitute or fighting her conservative sister (Weigert), the actress remains true to her character and never dares to judge Anne's reasons to do what she does.
And if she doesn't, how can we?

Food, Inc. **1/2

2009-11-21T01:19:00.004-06:00

Director: Robert Kenner

Corporations are so evil they even got seeds patented. That might be one of the many messages found in Robert Kenner's revealing documentary about what people eat.
The movie examines large scale food production in the United States and how every little thing people end up putting in their mouths, has been processed and tampered with to its very last ounce.
The film is divided in chapters of sorts where we learn about several horrors corporations are doing. They get chickens so fat they can't even walk! They sue people who use their soy bean formula! They sue people who think beef sucks!
And the film doesn't even try to turn us into vegetarians, cause we learn even those are polluted.
Kenner gives the film a fresh pace that keeps the information coming in an interactive way (we might find ourselves thinking about how to change our habits during the film).
Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser provide wistful narration that informs and persuades by using some emotional elements.
And while we learn more the film reaches an ultimately frustrating point, because it tells us about the problem, but the solutions seem out of our reach (especially for those outside the States).
It reaches a storytelling dead end that makes us wonder: should we become anorexic if we can't get organic?

Valentino: The Last Emperor ***

2009-11-20T14:04:00.000-06:00

Director: Matt Tyrnauer

It feels entirely appropriate that this documentary about iconic fashion designer Valentino is musicalized with melancholic Nino Rota pieces from Fellini films; because you don't need to know a thing about fashion to identify with the film's ultimate message.
That is, the passing of time and the loss of values our society once held dear. But this isn't as reactionary as it sounds; because those "values" being substituted are completely subjective and have to be interpreted by the watcher according to their own system of beliefs.
Set between the years 2005-07, as Valentino Garabani created one of his most successful recent collections and culminating with the celebration of his 45th anniversary in the business, the film takes a deep look at his creative process and his relationship with Giancarlo Giammetti, his life and work companion.
It also shows how Valentino must stand up for his beliefs when his design house is bought by multimillionaire Matteo Marzotto, who intends to branch out into accessories and fragrances, ending with what was then the last real couture house.
For some this documentary will prove to be a love song to frivolity and excess as they will question what values can people like these have when the entire world is going through harsh economic times.
The truth is such points of view are completely valid and director Tyrnauer allows us to question his film's purpose without ever parodying Valentino.
On the other hand the movie is a sad account of decay and the end of "la dolce vita". Valentino not only represents glamor and money, but also the last icon of an era that was populated by the likes of Audrey, Jackie and Elizabeth.
They might never have been our friends but the idea we created of them sum up what Valentino calls "beauty". And boy do we need doses of that lately.

The Passion of Ingrid Bergman.

2009-11-20T11:04:00.000-06:00

Given how "Europa '51" is Roberto Rossellini's attempt to bring Francis of Assisi to neorealist life, it makes total sense that he would ask cinematographer Aldo Tonti to light and shoot Ingrid Bergman like a saint huh?

But not any saint, the film's light plan seems to be drawn straight out of C.T Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc".

Bergman, has rarely looked as tremulous and ethereal.

WWJCD?

2009-11-20T06:37:00.008-06:00

Lately I've been very into Joan Crawford. I still am surprised at how I always forget how much she suffered in her movies, as opposed to what a bitch I think she was whenever I randomly think of her.
Is there any other actress that causes this reaction? The moment I think of her eyebrows I get goosebumps and imagine her catfights with Bette Davis.
But the minute she opens up her mouth and that sweet voice comes out, all the notions of Faye Dunaway going hysterical simply vanish.
With that in mind I've found myself wondering a lot: what would Joan Crawford do? Because exactly out of this ambiguity found in her persona, you never know what solution she might present to everyday problems.
For case number one: If the man you are obsessed with refuses to fall for you. What would Joan Crawford do? Like she did in "Possessed", she married the next best thing and went insane trying to get her man.
While insanity might not be something all of us want to go for, Crawford earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for this.
And what can get you laid and dating more than an Oscar nod? OK don't answer that...

Freaky as ****!

2009-11-19T17:41:00.000-06:00

Julie and Julia ***

2009-11-19T00:40:00.005-06:00

Director: Nora Ephron
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams
Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Jane Lynch, Erin Dilly
Mary Kay Place, Linda Emond

Meryl Streep is to acting, what Julia Child was to cooking: a master of the craft, who never forgets to enjoy her work.
This is why it's no coincidence that Streep was chosen to play Child (this and than the fact that she's the greatest imitator ever and even seems to grow a few inches to play this part) but because watching Streep act, like watching Child cook, is a delight.
You might not learn how to cook and you might not learn how to act, but your day sure will seem richer after being with them.
Streep plays Child during her stay in Paris after WWII, where she moved with her diplomat husband Paul (Tucci), enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu and began writing what would become her masterpiece "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".
Fast forward fifty something years to New York City where aspiring novelist Julie Powell (Adams) comes up with the idea to write a blog detailing how she masters Julia Child's book in one year.
From this basis, Ephron shapes a charming story that often draws parallels between the women (think "The Hours" light, very light) to show us how inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of sources.
Graciously paced and crafted, the film evokes the charming, harmless spectacles of classic Hollywood that intended only to give pleasure to its audience.
In this film the pleasure is mostly owed to the performers. Adams, who's impossible to hate, even when playing a self pronounced "bitch", brings her kind of innocence to a part that would've been damaged from being played like the cynical idea we have of NY writers.
Her part of the story might be the least appealing, but with Chris Messina who plays her husband, they do enough justice to portraying our generation's need of fulfillment.
With Tucci and Streep however; you never can get just enough. Their chemistry is magnificent-rarely do movie marriages seem so convincing, loving and natural-and Tucci is a natural scene stealer, even if he's forced by the screenplay to subject to his wife's desires.
And how could he not? Streep is literally larger than life as Child. She nails the elongated vowels, the accent and most amazingly the spirit of the cooking icon.
Even when Ephron tries to give her as little dramatic conflict as possible (her biggest problems include learning to chop onions) Streep is always ahead of the game and gives Julia little things that transform her into an actual human being.
She might've constructed the performance from videos and recordings, but Streep gives her a something extra.
Remarkably though, she also is able to deliver a meta performance of sorts. By now, she knows people will have a hard time getting over the fact that it's another Meryl Streep performance and the genius actress draws on the primordial concept behind this to turn out the sort of performance that sums up the entire movie's spirit.
"There's nothing wrong with her, she's perfect" says Powell of Child, to which her husband replies "the Julia Child in your head".
And this is exactly what Streep is playing, watch how she gives us enough internal conflict with her eyes, but stops just in time to take us back to Powell.
Someone refers to her as Julie's imaginary friend and this might be all she's actually playing, like a Harvey we can see perhaps...
Streep isn't only playing someone who lived, she's playing her version of what she thinks Amy Adams' version of Julie Powell thinks she is.
In the very same way both women are figured out by the written word. For Powell (and Adams playing Powell) people judge her based on her blog (which is based on a book...and you get the idea).
With this Ephron has something very interesting to say about how our society decodes celebrity and the places they can take in our lives.
But other than this semi-existential conundrum, nothing ever goes seriously wrong in "Julie and Julia". Sure stews get burnt and McCarthyism threatens to spoil the fun at Julia's sister wedding, but other than that there is zero conflict, therefore the movie feels like enjoying a soufflé; where we seldom have the time or desire to learn how the hell the chef avoided deflation. We just savor it and for a second or two have no cares in the world.

2009-11-18T16:33:00.000-06:00

2012 *

2009-11-17T20:56:00.008-06:00

Director: Roland Emmerich
Cast: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Thandie Newton, Thomas McCarthy, Oliver Platt, Morgan Lily
Liam James, Johann Urb, Zlatko Buric, Beatrice Rosen
Danny Glover, George Segal, Woody Harrelson

If the law of attraction had scientific validity, then Roland Emmerich would be held responsible for the apocalypse.
Throughout his career he has destroyed the planet by way of aliens, natural cataclysms, giant reptiles and meteors; this time he goes the conquistador's way and exploits the Mayan by stating that according to their calendar the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012.
And just as they predicted, when the date arrives the planets align, the sun emits radiation that causes "the Earth's core to destabilize" and the disasters begin.
Los Angeles succumbs to a massive plate movement, Yellowstone Park becomes the Earth's largest volcano and a Tsunami covers the Himalayas.
Fortunately there's a backup plan; as G8 members have been working on the construction of massive arks to help preserve art, animals and for a billion-Euros-a-seat, the planet's finest people.
But Emmerich can't let the world go down in this corrupt hedonism and for every dirty politician like the US President's Chief of Staff, Carl Anheuser (a slimier than usual Platt) there's someone whose spirit is nothing but saintly like the President played by Glover, or the film's leads.
On one side we have Jackson Curtis (Cusack), a failed sci-fi author, working as a limo driver, who discovers about the disaster from a loon in the woods (who else but Harrelson?) and runs to save his two kids (the lovely Lily and James), his ex-wife (Peet) and her new man (McCarthy).
We also have heart-o'-gold scientist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor), one of the first people to discover the Mayans were right and becomes advisor to the U.S. President, only to discover that the people behind the arks don't really care about humanity (gasp!).
The predictable plot will unite their stories at one point, but before that we are subjected to two hours of terrible acting, ridiculous dialogue and more CGI than you'll ever want to see in your life.
One of the film's major problems is its need to be so big about everything; therefore Emmerich has to steal from any other major disaster movie you can think of.
There's a mini Poseidon drama (where poor Segal is relegated as a stock player), "Earthquake" like moments of cheesy tragedy, Ejiofor and Cusack trying their best to be Paul Newman and Steve McQueen from "The Towering Inferno" and even a nod to "Titanic" as the life saving arks find themselves in peril.
What this movie fails to do is connect us to the people in the midst of the tragedies. Watching Cusack's character most of the time feels as if it's taking the fun out of watching the preposterous ways in which the director can think of destroying historical monuments, especially because the whole thing might even be a manifestation of his regret about losing his family.
So Emmerich removes the morbid fun out of watching the world collapse, by preaching to us why it should be saved, through characters that never really justify their need for salvation, besides the billing of course.
What's more, for all Emmerich has to say about what makes the world such a wonderful place, he constantly does his best to remind us about our worst.
One of his plotlines includes the death of a French art curator (think "The DaVinci Code" with Thandie Newton) who is killed in a car accident in a familiar looking Parisian tunnel.
That the director chooses to kill a man in the place where Princess Diana died, isn't what's disgustingly tacky, but the fact that he states it as something "curious" is a repulsive nod to tabloid lovers everywhere.
Another moment has him getting rid of almost every Russian character in the plot; because why would a new Earth need mobsters and Russian brides he asks.
And then, in one of the film's most cringe worthy scenes he seems to suggest that reality television will not die with the apocalypse, but will become a way of bonding and learning.
Perhaps Emmerich believes his movies to be just entertainment, but deep within their plots there often lie ideas that glorify the Western world and squeeze even the last cliché out of everyone else.
The world will not come to its end because of prophecies ancient civilizations made, but because of a humanity that has the technology and resources to exalt the beautiful things we can create, yet chooses only to glorify the very worst in our nature.

Bellissimo.

2009-11-16T23:13:00.004-06:00

The "sleek" with Nicole!
The spread with Penélope!
The "Vogue" with Kate!
Someone give this to me now!

Crush of the Week.

2009-11-16T23:01:00.002-06:00

...choosing Penélope would've been too easy.

Homer as Hathaway...

2009-11-16T13:45:00.001-06:00

...tres genius!

"I hope so. I really fucking hope so."

2009-11-15T23:06:00.003-06:00

Away We Go ***

2009-11-15T18:52:00.007-06:00

Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph
Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan
Carmen Ejogo, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton
Chris Messina, Melanie Lynskey, Paul Schneider

Leaving behind his sterile formalism and working in a very relaxed style, Sam Mendes directs his first movie that feels refreshingly un-directed.
For someone that has specialized in the deconstruction of characters surrounded by pristine art direction and/or obvious camera moves, this tale of two people looking for a home, comes as a delightful surprise.
Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) are a couple in their mid-thirties who are expecting their first child. They live in a cottage in the middle of nowhere where they indulge in practices they have carried on from their college days.
But this won't do for their baby. With that in mind they set on a journey across North America to find the perfect place to settle.
First they go to Burt's parents (played splendidly by O'Hara and Daniels) who reveal they are moving to Antwerp and are just starting to live the lives people in their twenties desire.
Then it's off to Phoenix where they are greeted by Verona's former boss Lily (Janney) and her husband (Gaffigan). Lily calls herself a nutcase and insists that her little daughter is a dyke while her husband listens tolerantly.
After their awkward meeting they take a detour to see Verona's little sister (Ejogo) in Tucson with whom the film takes a turn for the purely bittersweet as the sisters remember their deceased parents.
After this they go to Madison to see Burt's childhood friend Ellen (a loopier, and oddly sexier, than ever Gyllenhaal), a college professor, who with her husband Rod (Hamilton), has taken to New Age-y parental practices that include them having sex in front of the kids.
They run away from this all the way to Montreal where they encounter college friends Tom (Messina) and Munch (Lynksey) who seem to have the perfect married life, but actually have deep pain.
Last, but not least, they go to Miami to see Burt's brother Courtney (Schneider, great as usual) whose wife recently abandoned him, leaving him alone to raise his young daughter (Isabelle Moon Alexander).
After life shows them all the possible people they can become, conveniently arranged in cinematic moral hierarchy, they have to decide where to move and who they most want to resemble.
As if they'd forgotten to decide the destination of their journey before leaving, they might always end up finding themselves where they began.
Luckily for such an aimless road trip, Krasinski and Rudolph keep the movie grounded and fascinating at every moment.
Even if the supporting characters are comprised of archetypes, weirdos and plain indie quirky clichés, they make Burt and Verona real people.
More than that, they make them people who are genuinely in love with each other ("I will love you even if I can't find your vagina" says Burt in a way that sounds breathtaking), for whom the problems of finding "the one" are done and over with.
When most movies settle for making the discovery of love the ultimate goal of life, this movie reminds us there's more than that and that life is a process.
"We're not fuck ups" they say at the beginning of the movie and they spend the rest of it showing us people who might as well be.
This comparison isn't condescending because truth is anyone watching the movie will try to empathize with them and see that after all they are not that bad.
In a lovely scene Burt proposes to Verona for the umpteenth time (she doesn't think marriage is necessary). She rejects him once more, but to ease his fear she ends up making promises from a list Burt comes up with spontaneously.
Mendes' delicate direction here isn't intrusive, but we know we are witnessing a making of vows more significant than anything we'd see at a wedding.
This is the film's best thing, not the big scenes with lots of characters, but the small intimate moments when we see Burt and Verona cuddle and lie quietly next to each other.
When they have to travel by train, they lie awake in their bunk beds, Ellen Kuras' spare cinematography suggests a void, and before long Burt has moved down to be with his girl.
Musicalized with Alexi Murdoch's lovely songs and with art direction that feels lived in more than anything, "Away We Go" is the kind of movie that indie filmmakers would die to produce, but has none of the pretentious resolutions we find in them more and more.
Perhaps a strike of good luck, or mere exhaustion (as the film was shot during a break Mendes took from "Revolutionary Road") we might leave not knowing if Burt and Verona found what they seeked.
But Mendes has finally achieved maturity.

And Justice to Bacall.

2009-11-15T15:50:00.001-06:00

It was about damn time!

The Countess *1/2

2009-11-14T23:22:00.000-06:00

Director: Julie Delpy
Cast: Julie Delpy, William Hurt, Daniel Brühl
Anamaria Marinca, Andy Gatjen, Sebastian Blomberg

You gotta give it to Julie Delpy; few actors who direct themselves, would choose to play a deranged, blood thirsty noblewoman who's not always lit in the best way.
Then again, it makes total sense that she would choose to play someone who can be called monstrous, as opposed to a heroine, because of the challenge they would represent to act and direct.
Delpy plays Countess Erzebet Bathory, who lived in the 17th century, she's the most powerful woman in the empire (even the king owes her money).
When her husband dies, she falls madly in love with Istvan Thurzo (Brühl) a man two decades younger than her. He's the son of Gyorgyo Thurzo (Hurt), a rich man Erzebet refused to marry and who's after her fortune.
Infuriated by the fact that she spoiled his strategic allegiance, more than his male pride, he stops the affair and makes Erzebet believe Istvan is no longer in love with her.
Heartbroken she believes he dumped her because she looks old and decides the best way to regain her youthful looks is to kill virgin girls and bathe in their freshly squeezed blood.
The real life Bathory allegedly inspired the creation of Dracula and her deeds have haunted the imagination for centuries. Delpy seemingly wanted to capture the complexities of this woman and prevent her story from becoming a folktale.
But as movies go, they really don't come as stale and incoherent as this one. Despite the quality of the cast, they all move and talk as if they were rehearsing for a high school Renaissance fair.
Their affected speeches are funnier than powerful and when they are made to utter lines like "there is beauty in letting time do its duty" what should come out as elegant, becomes camp potential.
The main inconsistency in the film is Delpy's narrative device and how it ends up contradicting everything Bathory thinks about herself and everything the filmmaker wants us to think about her.
The movie is narrated by Istvan, which in itself makes for a digested version of whatever the "truth" is. This feels wrong mostly because when the film begins we are told that Erzebet never felt she was inferior to males.
In fact, a splendid scene, has her demean a Catholic bishop by comparing his jewels and garments to those of a luxurious noblewoman. With this she takes an aim at men and Catholics, two of the things she felt she had no need to fear.
Later in the movie we have her saying that she only kills women because "god created [boys] in his image".
Where is the woman we met at the beginning who even intimidated the king?
The logical thing would be to think she lost her mind out of love and now has assumed the biases given to her sex (witches were constantly being burnt at the stake during these days).
But she has moments of lucidity where she sends a powerful feminist message and questions the morals and values of her society.
"Your fable will keep the populace occupied for a very long time, they will be terrified of the blood thirsty myth you have made of me and forget about evils that are indeed very real" she says condemning those who judge her.
Delpy tries to make Countess Bathory both a romantic figure and a Gothic avenger, with results that don't make justice to either point of view.
Even if it tries to be profound about something that deals with the superficial, "The Countess" is ironically nothing more than a vanity project.