Fair Game: Grade A

A

Fair Game (2010)

Sean Penn, Naomi Watts. Director Doug Liman.

I give this movie high marks because I am a sucker for political thrillers, and this one is not bad, although somewhat disappointing. Penn is Joe Wilson, the ex-ambassador to African countries who investigated the White House claim that Saddam Hussein was buying uranium from Niger. Wilson found that not to be true, but George W. Bush went ahead and gave it as a justification for invading Iraq, in his State of the Union of 2001.

Outraged by the lie, Wilson wrote an op-ed in the NY Times explaining what he had NOT found in Niger. In retaliation, the White House “outed” his wife, undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame (Watts), in clear violation of the law. Her career was ruined, their lives were ruined, and the marriage went on the rocks. Should they fight back? How can you fight the White house?

The film clings closely to documentary form, careful to show actual television broadcasts featuring Bush, Cheney, Rice, and “Scooter” Libby, all hewing to party line and basically lying through their teeth. A sub-drama is that when Plame is fired, her operation of rescuing informants in Baghdad is abandoned, leaving all her personal promises to those people broken and their lives in peril. Just another hardball day at the CIA.

Watts gives a scintillating performance; best I’ve ever seen her, and the movie is worth watching for that alone. Plus, she looks a lot like Valerie Plame, which adds realism. Penn has a few moments, but the brilliant actor we know he is, cannot be seen. I gather he was interested in putting his name and reputation behind this polemical movie, but not much interested in acting. He’s good: He’s Sean Penn, after all, but he is mostly a placeholder here. This is a Watts vehicle and she fills it.

The directing and overall storytelling are slightly disappointing. The movie sticks to the historical facts, but unless you are well informed on American political infighting, it will not come across as a suspenseful tale. There is little personal peril, and little drama, as there was in All The President’s Men, for example, or in the fictional Absolute Power. The story is strictly focused on political machinations. The relationship between Wilson and Plame is mildly interesting, but mundane, and clearly secondary to the political story. For me, the political story was gut-wrenching, and it was very unpleasant to re-live the nightmare of that time. But I think for most people, the story will seem flat, not a “thriller” at all.

Jack Goes Boating: Grade A

A

Jack Goes Boating (2010)

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, Daphne Rubin-Vega, John Ortiz; Director Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Jack (Hoffman) and Clyde (Ortiz) are a couple of 40 year old limo drivers in New York City who like reggae music. Clyde fixes Jack up with Connie (Ryan), a woman who works as a telemarketer with his wife, Lucy (Rubin-Vega). The date goes well, a relationship evolves, and Jack makes two promises, to take Connie boating next summer, and to cook a dinner next month at Clyde’s apartment (because Jack lives in his parents’ basement and has only a hotplate). Jack learns how to cook, and also how to swim, in preparation. The dinner party goes well at first, then turns to disaster when the food is burned and a fierce argument erupts between Clyde and Lucy. Jack and Connie make a hasty retreat and presumably will go boating next summer. That’s it. Eighty four minutes.

Now, why isn’t that the most boring movie you've ever heard of? One reason is the excellent writing. The dialog is completely original, interesting, witty, natural, and flows from the wellsprings of the human condition. (The story is from an off-Broadway play by Robert Glaudini that Hoffman starred in.) Add to that, remarkable, riveting, heartfelt acting, especially by Hoffman and Ryan. Hoffman never ceases to amaze me with his courage. He can do embarrassed vulnerability like no other actor. Ryan does vulnerability almost as well, but her character is more psychologically complex, so she adds a touch of fearful paranoia, which works extremely well. Ortiz and Rubin-Vega (also from the original stage performance) give fine performances, if not quite as nuanced. Ortiz’s voice and diction sound so much like Denzel Washington that it is distracting at first.

Then you have to consider the excellent directing, by Hoffman also. It is his directorial debut and clearly he has the knack. The overall feel is kind of stagey and a bit claustrophobic, but so are the characters’ lives, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The tone is Woody-Allenesque – nothing terribly original there, but the way Hoffman gets the camera right into the faces of his performers, including himself, is just as courageous as his own acting is. Finally, add in a first rate job on other elements of the movie, from the infectious reggae and Bill Evans soundtrack to pitch-perfect costumes and sets. It all adds up to a tour de force and a mesmerizing adult relationship drama that has not a minute of slack.

Welcome to the Rileys: Grade A

A

Welcome to the Rileys (2010)

James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, Melissa Leo; Director Jake Scott.

I never saw The Sopranos series, so I don’t have Gandolfini typecast in my mind. That’s a good thing, because in this movie he is completely believable as a middle-aged plumbing supply merchant from Indianapolis. He and his wife of thirty years (Stewart, who strongly reminds me of Patricia Clarkson, in look, acting style, and talent), are distant from each other because they lost a 15 year old daughter in a car crash. The wife blames herself because she was following the girl, and the husband tacitly agrees to that by letting her blame herself. She is traumatized and never leaves the house. At a conference in New Orleans, he calls home and says he is not coming back “for a while.”

In New Orleans, he meets a 16 year old stripper/prostitute (Leo), and informally adopts her, fixing up her derelict flat and giving fatherly advice. He claims he does not know why he is doing this but the viewer can see he is trying to resurrect his daughter. Eventually, his wife joins him in there, “mothers” the girl but has the sense to realize the situation is unhealthy. The girl finally runs from them, claiming “It is way too late for me to be anybody’s little girl.”

The writing is very strong (Ken Hixon) and true. Every line of dialog is on target. The acting is superior, especially by Gandolfini and Stewart. Stewart’s character takes a while to get going because there’s only so much acting you can do as a stunned, near-catatonic recluse. But late in the film she shows real depth. Leo has a stereotype character, really just a foil for the adults to work out their relationship, but there are several scenes in which it is clear that she has serious talent.

There are technical problems with the cinematography. Many scenes are so dark and muddy, it is impossible to make out what is going on. Sure, they are nominally night scenes, but still, memo to the cinematographer: photography requires light! In one scene, the picture actually drops in brightness by 50% as if there had been a power failure, but it is just a technical goof-up. The director pulled some terrific performances out of these players, but there are far too many “dead zone” scenes of people driving or sleeping. Seriously, how interesting is it to watch somebody sleep?

The story itself is not very original (grief over a lost child), but the main characters are so well developed and their acting is so outstanding, that despite its flaws, the movie is highly watchable anyway.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger: Grade A

A

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas; Writer-Director Woody Allen.

An elderly married couple breaks up (Hopkins-Jones) when he realizes that his wife “has let herself get old.” He hits the gym and takes up with a young, beautiful, airhead, gold digger prostitute. Meanwhile their daughter (Watts) breaks up with her husband (Brolin), a failed writer. Each of the four is soon attracted to other potential mates. Everyone is haunted by failed relationships and struggles to start a new life.

It took me a while to get into this movie. It starts out with dreadful acting, a stilted script, noticeably mechanical directing, and a dreadful, intrusive narrator. I thought, "This is aggressively bad!" About halfway through, some real acting begins to show, although the characters never do become well developed. Finally I realized what Allen was trying to do. He did not want us to get involved with these characters. They are symbols, or archetypes for the lives in our culture, not real people we should care about. That’s why the plot line is practically nonexistent, the romantic relationships stereotypes, and the acting hollow. None of that matters. He is forcing us beyond the particular characters into universals. We are being shown the archetypes of modern, Western, sophisticated urban life, so that we might reflect on its meaning, or lack of same. Ultimately this is an existential movie that says, your life has no meaning, despite today’s passions and angst that seem so gripping. That is the human condition.

What makes this approach work is the superlative film making, especially the sets and costumes. Every detail, and I mean every one, is absolutely perfect. Colors, camera angles, framing, lighting, movement, rhythm, jewelry, hairstyle, buttons, every tiny detail is done to loving perfection, and the movie is worth seeing just for that exercise of craft. But as a bonus, you get the subtle existential message, and the pleasure of seeing some familiar faces on the big screen. You could watch this movie as a mildly interesting romantic comedy/drama, but you’d be missing the point. It is so much more if you look a little deeper.

For Colored Girls: Grade B

B

For Colored Girls (2010)

Kimberly Elise, Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Tessa Thompson; Writer and Director Tyler Perry.

These are vignettes from the lives of nine black women living in New York. Some of the lives intersect as the movie develops. There is not much dramatic tension, either in each life-story, or overall in the movie; it is strictly a “slice of life” approach. The stories are loose representations of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 set of poems and dances, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf. The original had only seven characters, whereas this movie has nine, making the movie confusing and hard to keep track of. Passages of Shange’s work are read by actors in several scenes and their lyrical beauty leaps out at you. It is a harsh transition back to Perry’s mundane script after those segments.

Overall, the message of the movie is simple: Men (black men anyway) are immature, lying, cheating, disease-ridden, alcoholic, thieving rapists who want only one thing. They smile and sweet talk women while betraying them, murdering their children, ruining their lives. Black women, on the other hand, are gentle, sensitive, caring souls who seek love and understanding, and tragically, that need is so great it causes them to spread their legs when they shouldn’t, and blindly trust their lives to the aforementioned male ratbastards. The thematic content of the movie is so exaggerated that it verges on tragicomedy despite all the maudlin tears. And at well over two hours, repetition soon becomes boring.

But you should watch the movie anyway. Why? For the stunning acting. Most of these women give performances of Shakespearean proportions. Thandi Newton, Kerry Washington, and Kimberly Elise – wow! It’s acting like you haven’t seen in one place before. Janet Jackson acquits herself, but she’s had so much bizarre cosmetic surgery that she looks like Michael, and that’s all I could think about. Whoopi is the weakest character but she had to be included because of her role in The Color Purple. Kudos go to Perry’s directing and writing. I did not know he had this kind of thing in him, judging from his other broad, farcical, slapstick movies. This was a revelation in that regard. Good cinematography, good music, tight editing. Despite the melodrama, it’s worth seeing.

The Town: Grade B

B
The Town (2010)

Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, John Hamm; Co-writer and director Ben Affleck.

This is a tour de force for Affleck, who plays a sensitive gangster in Charlestown, the tough Bunker Hill district of Boston. He is the mastermind of a group of crooks who have done a string of successful bank and armored car holdups. The gang includes a childhood friend, now psychopath (Renner) with themes borrowed from 2003's Mystic River to suggest that they are sociological victims, trapped in Charlestown.

Affleck’s character starts a relationship with a woman the gang briefly abducted from a bank holdup (Hall), and eventually she learns the truth about his criminal ways. The dramatic question is, will she still love him anyway? The relationship story is strong, even though there is no natural chemistry between Affleck and Hall. That part of the story is well-written and both actors are extremely good.

I haven’t seen Hall since her outstanding performance in 2008’s Christina Vicky Barcelona, where she played memorably alongside Scarlett Johansson, who she slightly resembles. In this movie she delivers an authentic, convincing performance.

Affleck is a fine actor too, despite his mumbling, but his character in this movie is not believable: a career criminal who is intelligent, has a steady job and a jailbird father, but can’t resist the life of crime; a cold-blooded, violent thief and murderer who has an emotional, intuitive, sensitive relationship. It doesn’t add up and when his character does several things that seem “out of character,” you realize, you don’t really know the character.

Renner steals every scene he is in with his labile intensity. The plot is basic cops and robbers, with a sappy manufactured ending. Directing is very attuned to the actors’ talents but there are at least two long, slack segments that should have been edited out, fallout from trying to mix an action shoot-em-up with a tender relationship movie. But the plusses far outweigh the minuses for this enjoyable crime drama.

Fraulein: Grade A

A

Fraulein (2006)
Mirjana Karanovic, Marija Skaricic; Director Andrea Staka. (Serbian & German, subtitled).

A young woman (Karanovic) who lived through the Bosnian war, makes her way from Sarajevo to Zurich to seek her fortune. She gets a job at a tiny restaurant/cafeteria run by an older woman(Skaricic) who migrated from Belgrade. The young, happy-go-lucky woman gradually softens the gruff and unemotional older one until they eventually form a close friendship. There is a tragic theme that brings sharp drama to the story, but basically it is about the friendship, set against the background of the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia and the fact that technically, the two women were on opposing sides of one of the nastier struggles. But you don’t really have to know that history to appreciate how beautifully and lovingly this film portrays these characters and their friendship.

Shrink: Grade C

C
Shrink (2009)

Kevin Spacey, Keke Palmer, Mark Webber; Director Jonas Pate.

Spacey is an L.A. psychiatrist to celebrities, but he is suffering from depression, possible alcoholism, and, it seems, drug addiction, although we only see him smoking marijuana, which does not make you depressed, and we only see him drinking occasional wine and beer, so the addiction story is not convincing. His real problem is that he is grieving over the recent suicide of his wife, although we do not see him go through much actual grieving. Mainly he just stares into space as if depressed, and makes angry, sarcastic remarks to everyone, which is not consistent with depression. So it is not clear what is up with him except he is burned out on life in a monumentally self-centered way.

One of his clients is a high school student (Palmer) who is also grieving, over her mother’s suicide. We never learn much about that situation, but over the course of the movie, each character yields enough self-defensive anger to become sort-of friends in a way reminiscent of Good Will Hunting. (Actually, Robin Williams appears as an alcoholic patient in an uncredited role, and Spacey’s dope dealer looks like Matt Damon – probably not accidents).

There is no story really, it is just various characters adrift, confused by life, searching for something. In the end, everybody conveniently finds some kind of salvation to wrap it up on a relatively happy note. Without a story and without believable characters, there is really nothing going on in this movie, but Spacey is always a joy to watch, and Keke Palmer is extremely interesting. I wanted to see a lot more of her character, and a lot less of the other deadbeat characters.

Photography has some noticeably good moments but sets and scenes are nondescript or clichéd. Music is appallingly bad, designed to evoke sentimental feelings, but had me reaching for the mute button. Directing is obtrusively trite. The script is terrible. No therapist could survive a week in business with the skills of Spacey’s character. So all you have left is some enjoyable acting, especially by Spacey and Palmer.

Julie & Julia: Grade B

B
Julie & Julia (2009)

Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina; Co-writer and director Nora Ephron.

Streep is Julia Child, the famous cookbook author and prominent television chef over several decades. In postwar Paris she is drifting without purpose to be with her diplomatic attaché husband (Tucci). She takes the Cordon Bleu course, and after many years of effort manages to get her book published, the iconic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The television show hardly features in the movie.

This is not a very interesting story but Meryl Streep is mesmerizing. Her impersonation of Child is perfect, not just the falsetto voice, but the gait, gestures, attitudes, diction: all perfect. Channeling counts as acting, and even if you don’t know Julia Child, you would find the character interesting and its expression masterful. However, as a biography, there isn’t much content there. It’s all about the acting.

Meanwhile, Adams is Julie Powell, a depressed young cubicle worker in modern New York, living in a flat over a pizza place in Queens. Like Child’s character in Paris of 60 years ago, she takes up cooking just for something to do, and she decides, for no obvious reason, to cook every recipe in Child’s book within a year, and blog about that experience. She does that, with predictable tribulations. The scene of putting live lobsters into boiling water is unashamedly lifted right from Annie Hall, and most of the other cooking, serving, and eating scenes are equally unimaginative. This character is not very interesting and neither is her story. However, Amy Adams is brilliant, even within this restricted role. As with Streep, even though you don’t care about her character, you do care about her superb acting.

So those two stories alternate in time slices and that’s it. Julia and Julie never meet, but they both accomplish their goals. As a piece of storytelling, you are left with the thought, “Who cares?” But the acting by the principals makes the film worthwhile. The cinematography is also above average – extremely sensual pictures of food. The movie will make you hungry for sure. The directing is expert but pointed at sentimentality over psychological or narrative substance, which for my taste, is a defect.

Yonkers Joe: Grade B

B
Yonkers Joe (2008)
Chaz Palminteri, Christine Lahti, Tom Guiry; Writer-Director Robert Celestino.

I am a longtime fan of Chaz Palminteri so I may be overrating this movie, but I enjoyed it despite its often sagging pace. Joe is an old gambler and hustler, an expert in cheating at cards and at dice. He bets the ponies compulsively, apparently with mixed results, and practices palming dice to relax. His comfortable life in Yonkers with his girlfriend (Lahti) is disturbed when a facility caring for his retarded son (Guiry) expels the teenager for aggressiveness. The old con man is panicked, at a loss about what to do with the child, but his girlfriend responds better to the challenge. The retarded character is extremely annoying and was a significant negative for me. It was some kind of implausible synthesis of Down Syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, nonspecific cognitive deficit, and most annoying, a sensorimotor problem that had the young man hold his jaw off to one side and speak as if he had CP. The picture is so wrong I winced every time I saw him on screen. Perhaps those less familiar with developmental disorders could accept the stereotype.

Joe must come up with a pile of money to pay for a group home to get the kid out of his house and off his back, so he decides to run a dice scam in Los Vegas, even though his buddies tell him it is impossible to beat Vegas security. But he has a plan that makes a great plot, with lots of interesting moves and good internal tension. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is increasingly ticked off at him for not stepping up to his fatherly duties with his son.The two stories come together when Joe does finally establish an emotional connection with his son just as the dice scam reaches its conclusion.

It is a sensitively written movie, part grifter-thriller, and part adult relationship drama. The relationship theme was too slow, too predictable, and not drawn sharply enough, so it always was a maddening diversion from the gambling plot, which was far more interesting. The relationship side of the story didn’t have anything to say. Many dramatic possibilities were overlooked.

Palminteri acts better than I have ever seen him, the venerable gangster stereotype even doing “sensitive” relationship scenes convincingly. Supporting characters are very strong. Directing is strong, especially in small details and gestures. Sets are perfect. It is hard to say why this independent project does not come alive on both levels, but it’s got enough going for it to be worth a look.

Another Woman: Grade A

A
Another Woman (1988)
Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, Ian Holm, Blythe Danner, Gene Hackman, Sandy Dennis, Martha Plimpton, John Housman. Writer & Director Woody Allen

Despairing the quality of summer releases, I went to the stacks and pulled out this gem from 20 years ago. Better acting in an adult relationship film you will not find. Gena Rowlands is an eminent college professor who overhears a conversation between a young woman (Farrow) and her psychiatrist concerning love, relationships, self esteem. This gets the professor thinking about her own life and relationships. Later we see that her relationship with her husband (Holm) is perfunctory, and although she still seeks a flame of romance, he has long since shut her out with clever words. She meets an old friend (Dennis) and discovers that relationship is not what she thought it was. She sees her husband with another woman. And on and on. Nothing happens. There are no gunfights, explosions, car chases or even much laughter. But the story does goes to the heart of modern adult relationships. Sets and costumes are deliciously perfect in the Woody Allen trademark style of wealthy New Yorkers. Every detail is perfect. Cinematography (Sven Nyquist) is stylish and perfect as always. And the acting! Gene Hackman was flat, but the others were memorable, especially Sandy Dennis. This is a movie that rewards another look.

Don't Move: Grade D

D
Don’t Move (2004)
Penelope Cruz, Sergio Castellito; Director Sergio Castellito. (Italian, subtitled)

This was Cruz’s breakthrough to stardom and it is worth watching just to see what she looks like without makeup and before her face work. Her performance is good, as is Castellito’s but the story is weak and I never believed in the relationship between the two main characters. A married surgeon from the city has a car breakdown in the country. He meets Cruz and asks to use her phone but then rapes her. Great way to start a relationship. Weeks later he returns to apologize but ends up having sex with her again. She submits passively and unenthusiastically for reasons unknown. He doesn’t even bother to take off his pants when he does her. Actually there is very little nudity in the film. Similar episodes are repeated several times until they are in a sort of default “relationship.” Few words are ever spoken between them. Meanwhile, his daughter is injured in a traffic accident and he is upset by that. Finally, both women get pregnant, his wife and his country lover. You would think that as a doctor he would have some clue about how such things work. Everybody is thrown into crisis and the ending is somewhere between despairing and tragic. The cinematography is good, scenery is good. It is a very slow movie since only about three events happen in the whole 90 minutes. It is billed as “erotic” but I found it to be anything but. You can see the spark of life in Cruz however that eventually made her into a big star.

Last Chance Harvey: Grade C

C
Last Chance Harvey (2008)
Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson. Writer-director Joel Hopkins.

Hoffman is an American businessman in London for the wedding of his estranged daughter. Just before going there, he was put on probation by his boss, so he is doubly upset when he learns that he is only tolerated, not really welcome at the wedding. We have no explanation why he is in trouble at work or why he is not welcome at the wedding, but Hoffman does his hurt and bewildered Willy Loman act to great effect. He misses his flight back to New York and is fired. Depressed, he meets Thompson in an airport restaurant and strikes up a conversation. It is just barely plausible that they find an immediate friendship which develops quickly thereafter into affection. Her character is a lonely single in her forties (Thomson is actually 50), and we might believe she would be open to friendship with a 70 year old American she just met and knows nothing about. For him, the motivation is completely opaque. Implausibly, he convinces her to attend the reception after the wedding, where they bond, and eventually, the two of them walk off into the sunset hand in hand.

The story starts well, with scenes from Hoffman’s life intercut with parallel scenes from Thompson’s. Both actors demonstrate why they are truly great in these opening scenes. After the restaurant meeting however, the story switches from existential angst and humor to sentimental claptrap and by the time they go to the wedding reception, the script has degenerated to adolescent melodrama, from which it never recovers. Likewise direction starts out crisply but then degenerates to cliché montages indicating “romance.” Music begins with an interesting piano tune based on a Satie groove, but quickly mutates into loud, noxious, relentless orchestration. Overall, the fine acting in the first half makes the movie worth seeing, but the last half could be skipped entirely.

The Wrestler: Grade A

A
The Wrestler (2008)
Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood; Director Darren Aronofsky.

Rourke is “Randy the Ram,” a washed-up wrestler (theatrical wrestling, not the real sport). He looks great with his chiseled, beat-up face, long blond hair and muscular though sagging body. He speaks in a deep mumbling monotone like Stallone, that gives the sense of a large, dangerous, but confused animal.

He has a heart attack and must quit wrestling. Completely lost, he confides in his only friend, a middle-aged pole dancer (Tomei) at a sleazy club. The similar yet different lives of the flesh these characters lead are parallel. Each of them knows they are too old to be meat-based performers, but neither knows what to do. While much has been made of Rourke’s seemingly autobiographical performance (and it is tremendous) the best moment of the movie is Tomei wiggling around the pole and coming to an epiphany, shown by her facial expressions alone, “What the hell am I doing?” It is a truly memorable moment of film acting.

The relationship between Rourke and his estranged daughter (Wood) is a small subtheme that gives him a chance to display his tender side, but even there the interaction feels genuine and Wood delivers a fine performance. The story is extremely well written, so the parallel between Rourke’s and Tomei’s desperate lives is well defined. In the end, each character takes their drifting life into their own hands, each in their own way. The directing is exceptionally good as well. You get a real olfactory sense of those locker rooms, gymnasiums, and that strip club. A moving film, worthy of its many award nominations.

Elegy: Grade B

B
Elegy (2008)
Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard, Dennis Hopper. Director Isabel Coixet.

How could a sensitive relationship movie with these stars be boring? You wouldn’t think it possible, but that’s what is achieved. A sixty year old college professor (Kingsley) is sexually attracted to a thirty year old former student (Cruz). That is believable, men being the animals that we are, but it is less clear why a gorgeous young woman would be attracted to a crusty old guy with a big nose. Her psyche is not revealed. There is a suggestion that the professor is motivated not simply by lust by also by an irrational, only partially conscious attempt to deny death by possessing a young woman. As the movie progresses, there is a hint that he really cares for her, maybe, so some character development is vaguely suggested. Cruz remains a cipher until the last act when she returns to him for solace. But since we never knew why she was with him before, it seems arbitrary that she would come back, so neither character adds up psychologically. There is no plot, so without characters, there is nothing, and that's a tragedy, because the themes of ageing, sexuality, and intimacy are rich veins of gold.

What makes this movie worth watching however is brilliant acting, especially by Kingsley and Cruz, but also by Clarkson. These are master players and you can’t take your eyes off them. Every moment of every scene is compelling, even if nothing is going on. Cruz shows her breasts, which was surprising. A case could be made that it was to demonstrate the old guy’s view of her as a body rather than a person, although with better writing that would not have been necessary. Photography is stunning. There are a lot of tight, intimate shots of conversations, with strong lighting and interesting camera angles. It’s a beautiful-looking picture. You could enjoy it with the sound off. Technical triumph in acting, directing, and cinematography cannot overcome lack of narrative content, but almost does in this film.

The Edge of Heaven: Grade A

A
The Edge of Heaven (2008)
Nurgül Yesilçay, Tuncel Kurtiz, Hanna Schygulla, Nursel Köse; Writer-director Fatih Akin. (German and Turkish; subtitled).

Turkish-born German director Akin tells of three families whose lives intersect in random ways, per the now formulaic Crash template. Much of the action and dialog takes place in Istanbul and in northeastern (Kurdish) Turkey. An old Turkish man (Kurtiz) in Germany invites a Turkish prostitute (Yesilcay) to quit the business and move in with him. His son is a German professor of Turkish studies, who goes to Turkey to search for the woman’s adult daughter. Meanwhile, the daughter (Kose), a Kurdish activist hunted by police, goes to Bremen to search for her mother. Those two characters cross paths but never meet, though we badly want them to. The daughter befriends a female college student in Bremen and they become lovers. When tragedy befalls them, the student’s mother (Schygulla) travels to Turkey. There her path crosses that of the now-deported old Turk who had befriended the prostitute, but they never meet. The story just ends when the time is up. There is no resolution and it is frustrating, until you realize that in real life, no bell rings to mark “resolution.” We each live in a bubble, trying to make sense of our own lives. As the viewer we have an omniscient, God’s – eye view of how these six lives interact over time, culture, and geography, yet we are forced to settle for the tunnel vision of a mere mortal. It is a contradiction.

The cinematographer prefers high contrast lighting with bright, contrasting colors, especially red and white. It’s a sharp look, very pleasing even in scenes of urban squalor. Acting is marvelous, especially by Köse, who dominates the screen. Apparently she is a big star in Turkey but unknown (until now) outside the country. Schygulla has a smaller role but she still has the magic of her youth. Just asking for a cup of coffee, she rivets your attention. The directing does not draw attention to itself but the writing does. For supposedly ordinary people living ordinary lives, too many low probability events occur and when those tales are not concluded, we wonder what the point was. So in the end, the movie is not quite satisfying, but the beautiful pictures, fine acting, and fascinating languages and cultures more than make up for any deficit in story.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Grade B

B
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
Jason Segel, Kristin Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, with Jonah Hill. Director Nicholas Stoller.

A Hollywood musician (Segel) is dumped by his TV star girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Bell) and decides to go to Hawaii to forget his grief. There he meets hotel clerk Kunis, but alas, his ex is also at the same hotel with her new boyfriend, a British pop star (Brand). Comedy ensues as Segel tries to get over Sarah and establish a relationship with Kunis, while being jealous of Bell and Brand.

The greatest flaw in this movie is its three hour length, which is inexcusable and unnecessary. Whole characters could have been eliminated without loss, such as Segel’s brother, and the sexually dysfunctional Mormon couple, just to name a few. There is no real story, just endless situations setting up sexual and relationship gags, so there would seem to be no constraint on what could be edited. The second problem is that the characters are all two-dimensional stereotypes and it is hard to care about any of them.

However the acting is just terrific, from all characters except Segel, who is fairly wooden, (not including his penis, which is shown several times). The other three principals are entrancing and kept me glued to the screen. Brand does a terrific over the top, self-obsessed character with inherently funny diction and good physical acting. Kunis is also mesmerizing, despite a lip job that makes her look like Michelle Pfeiffer. The dialog is quite witty and keeps you strung along even though the characters themselves are unimaginative. These virtues overcome the film’s length, languid pace and boring story.

Talk To Her: Grade A

A
Talk To Her (2002). (Spanish, subtitled)
Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti, Lenore Watling, Rosario Flores. Director Pedro Almodovar.

In this ingenious story, a male nurse (Camara) attends to a beautiful woman (Watling) who has been in a coma for four years. He washes her hair, applies lotions to her body, and massages all her muscles every day. It is not difficult to imagine how that relationship might develop. He talks to her as if she were fully present, reading to her, telling her about his day, confessing his secrets. That approach is cheerful and charming at first but soon you realize that he actually prefers a woman who is no more than a beautiful body, the ultimate dehumanization of woman into a male sex object.

In a parallel relationship, another man (Grandinetti) is emotionally attached to a woman he only recently met (Flores) but she had an injury and goes into a coma at the same hospital as the first pair. Camara urges Grandinetti to talk to his comatose woman the way he does to his, but Grandinetti thinks that is too weird. The men nevertheless develop a friendship around their concern for their women. Grandinetti’s relationship with his woman is sentimental. He is in love with the memory of who she was, not the corpse she is now. The two men form an emotional relationship that might be more grounded in reality than their relationship with their women.

The pace is slow (as European films are for Americans), but the filmmaking is enjoyable, with lots of clever symbolism and dark humor. Acting is strong, and the music is outstanding, ranging from Carlos Jobim to K.D. Laing, to Henry Purcell. Cinematography is a treat for the eyes. Almodovar’s well-known misogyny is evident, but his exploration of sexual feelings, emotions, urges, and relationships goes beyond simple categories.

Breaking and Entering: Grade B

B
Breaking and Entering (2006)

Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone. Director Anthony Minghella.

Where were the editors on this one? It is a very slow moving 2-hour tale of a London architect (Law) in a strained relationship with his wife (Penn) and her hyperactive daughter. Why is the relationship strained? The story unconvincingly pins it on her chronic depression but it is clear that Law’s character is an insensitive, workaholic, psychopathic jerk. There are several misogynous themes like that. Penn excels at emotionally scrambled characters and she is in her element here with a fine performance. Law is the best I’ve ever seen him, but that’s not up to the level of Penn, Binoche, and Farmiga. He barks his lines, perhaps hoping fine diction will compensate for stiff acting. While watching his office at night for another attempted break-in, Law encounters Farmiga as a brazen and witty hooker. They strike up a friendship of sorts. It is a small part but Farmiga plays it to the hilt in an enjoyable and memorable performance. Binoche is a Serbian refugee whose son did the break-ins at Law’s firm. Law tracks the kid but when he meets the mother, he inexplicably falls in love with her and neglects to call the police. Binoche gives a subtle and rich performance, with a perfect accent. It is a pleasure to watch such excellent acting, but the endless scenes of domestic banality in this movie are just dead weight. Photography is noticeably good. The ending is Hollywood happy, not the least bit believable.