Movies

2011 in Movies: most fun at the movies

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Brendan Gleeson in THE GUARD

 

1.  Seeing The Guard with the Wife.  We howled.

2.  My mad dash with my friend Kiefer to see five movies in 42 hours – in five theaters in four cities.  It’s described in The Movie Gourmet hits the all-you-can-eat buffet.

3.  A solo sprint to see five movies in 44 hours – in three theaters in two cities:  Another five movie weekend for the Movie Gourmet.

4.  I didn’t see this as a highpoint at the time, but it was FAILING to get a rush ticket at the SFIF for Le Quattro Volte.  In retrospect, this delayed being subjected to the coughing goatherd for a precious three-and-a-half months.

5.  Listening to writer/director Kyle Smith tell my film club about the making of Turkey Bowl.

6.  Finding the 1980 Werner Herzog documentary God’s Angry Man on a Dr. Gene Scott fan site.

7.  Attending a preview of Cars 2 at the Pixar studio.

My Week with Marilyn: a dazzling Michele Williams

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Not only is Michele Williams one of our finest film actors (Wendy and Lucy, Blue Valentine, Brokeback Mountain),  but she has the courage to play that icon Marilyn Monroe.  And she does so in a dazzling performance.  Williams so inhabits the persona of Marilyn that we suspend recognition of the physical differences between the two.

My Week with Marilyn is about a young man observing the encounter between Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) during the making of the 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl.  That movie starred and was directed by Olivier, who expected a high level of craft, promptness and professionalism from all actors.  Naturally, Marilyn, with all of her neediness, professional unreliabilty and reliance on The Method, was a bad fit.

Williams perfectly tunes in each frequency of the Marilyn dial, from the terrified, insecure actress to the confident sex symbol.  There’s a great moment – after we’ve already seen her as troubled, flirtatious, needy, mischievous and, above all, lonely  – where she announces that she will become “Her”; she flips an inner switch and becomes the Marilyn sex symbol persona, delighting a crowd of regular folks.

The underrated Zoe Wanamaker has a great turn as Marilyn’s Method acting coach. Judi Dench is perfect as a kind veteran actress.  Emma Watson (so good as Hermione in the Harry Potter films) has an unfortunately tiny role as a non-wizard young adult.  Dougray Scott, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormand and Toby Jones fill out the great cast.  Wanamaker, Scott and Jones play American characters flawlessly.

Shame: sex all the time without any fun

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Michael Fassbender plays a fit, handsome guy who has a way with women, a well-paying job and a Manhattan apartment with a glorious view.  He is also a sex addict – someone who is compelled to think about sex and to have sex constantly.  His life is filled with masturbation, Internet porn, magazine porn, live sex chats, hookers and the odd quickie.   At home, at the office and out on the town.  He doesn’t seem to enjoy any of it.

For the rest of us, sex is the expression of passion and/or the satisfaction of lust.  For this guy, it is just something that he is driven to do, like some people chain smoke.  When he tells a woman that his longest relationship was four months long, you just know that it was really four days.  It’s very telling that the one time he can have sex resulting from a normal attraction, his plumbing fails him.

His sister, played by Carey Mulligan, moves in uninvited.  She is an emotional basket case, with a history of self-cutting, suicide attempts, hospitalizations and a trail of too easy sex and loser boyfriends.  For some reason not made explicit, this brother and sister are quite damaged.

Shame is a remarkable portrait of a sick, sick guy, and is centered on a brave and able performance by Fassbender.  Still this portrait is only a snapshot.  We are left wondering how he got this way and how will he navigate the rest of his life?

Outrage: a hardass gangster movie for the Holidays

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If you’re looking for a hardass gangster movie with deliciously bad people doing acts of extreme violence upon each other, Outrage (Autoreiji) is the film for you.  Like any good Yakuza film, there are lots of full body tattoos and severed fingers.

But what makes Outrage stand out is the pace and stylishness of all the nastiness, as if Quentin Tarantino had made Goodfellas (only without all the extra dialogue about foot rubs and the Royale with cheese).

Director Takeshi Kitano also stars, credited as Beat Takeshi.  Takeshi, much like Charles Bronson, has the worn and rough face of a man who has seen too much disappointment and brutality.

Outrage is just filmed too brightly to qualify as a film noir, but the story has all the tragedy of a classic noir.  You’re rooting for the characters to survive, but you know that they probably won’t – and they know it, too.

There is also a crime boss so cynical and duplicitous that he puts the Sopranos to shame.

Outrage is not a great movie, but is plenty entertaining if you’re in the mood.

Warning: The Wife’s girlfriends hated Like Crazy

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I thought that there are things about Like Crazy to admire:  two appealing leads, an intelligent and authentic story, a realistic beginning to the relationship, and a fine falling-in-love montage.

But my wife and her gal pals loathed it.  Why?  Primarily because they didn’t care about any of the characters.  Of course that makes sense, because if you don’t relate to the characters, you’ll never buy into the story.  The key to the story is an impulsive and stupid decision by the female lead that leads to the separation of the lovers; if you don’t care about the couple when this happens, then she’s just stupid.

The gals also pointed out that the extremely talented Jennifer Lawrence didn’t have much to do in this film other than get dumped twice by the same guy.  On reflection, they have a good point there.

DVD of the Week: Sarah’s Key

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Kristin Scott Thomas stars in another French film, this time as a journalist tracking the story of a girl during the WWII roundup of Jews in France.  Her probe of events almost sixty years in the past becomes more and more personal, and profoundly entangles more and more people.  It’s a compelling story, and no actor can portray intensity and doggedness better than Scott Thomas.  Co-stars Niels Arestrup (A Prophet) and Aidan Quinn.

DVD of the Week: The Debt

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What is the cost of truth?  And of untruth?

A team of three Mossad agents are charged with kidnapping a Nazi war criminal out of 1964’s East Berlin.  One aspect of the mission remains incomplete, and the three must address it 30 years later.   It’s a ripping yarn with some serious comments on the costs of both truth and untruth.  Helen Mirren is brilliant as one of the team, as is Jessica Chastain, playing her younger self.  Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love).

DVD of the Week: Super 8

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Super 8 is a wonderful coming of age story embedded in a sci fi action thriller.  A group of small town kids in the 1970s are making their own horror movie when a spectacular train crash unleashes a space alien threat government disinformation.  The real achievement in this film is the story of the kids – their speech, actions, fears and hopes are written to be utterly authentic.  I can’t think of a movie that does a better job of depicting American 11 to 13-year-olds.

The special effects are top-rate, especially the train wreck and the alien creature.  But the adult characters who propel the sci fi story are shallow and two-dimensional.

Nevertheless, director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield) has created a very special coming of age film.  I liked it.

Upcoming Oscar bait

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I recently updated  Movies I’m Looking Forward To, where you can see descriptions and trailers of upcoming films.  I’ve included some Oscar bait coming out just before the end of 2011, including:

A Dangerous Method:  David Cronenberg’s tale of Freud and Jung  with Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbinder, Vincent Cassel and Keira Knightly.

The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.

Coriolanus:  Ralph Fiennes’ contemporary version of the Shakespeare play.

Carnage:  Roman Polanski’s dark comedy with John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Christoph Walz and Kate Winslet.

Here’s the trailer for The Iron Lady.