Dumbland is billed simply
as “an absurd animated comedy.” While definitely not for all tastes, in
its out-there, tongue-in-cheek indulgence of the infantile it affords
viewers a telling and sometimes amusing glimpse inside the auteur
filmmaker’s mind, one that might be surprising to those that somehow
consider Lynch unapproachably highbrow. This DVD collects all eight of the original, three- to five-minute pay site episodes, and marks their only commercial availability thus far. For the full review, from IGN, click here. To order Dumbland or check out more from Lynch’s site, click here.
Daily Archives: August 18, 2006
Aaron Eckhart’s Conversations with Other Women
“I
don’t want to be a salesperson, I don’t want to convince anyone of
anything,” says Aaron Eckhart, who earlier this year drew rave notices
for doing just that as a smooth-talking tobacco lobbyist in Thank You For Smoking. Eckhart has always
been a reticent demi-celebrity, a chameleonic character actor trapped
in a leading man’s body, and this is reflected in his film choices,
which alternate between big-budget flicks like Paycheck and The Core, slightly more idiosyncratic genre fare like Suspect Zero and frequent collaborator Neil LaBute’s more indie-oriented offerings. His latest is the slyly seductive Conversations with Other Women,
an interpretative adult romance with Helena Bonham Carter that taps
into the same talky, intellectually stimulating vein as Richard
Linklater’s Before Sunset.
Coming off several movies in a row, Eckhart wasn’t looking to work,
but he was wooed by a script that he calls “a beautiful love story
about two people over 35 who can still be fun and sexy, playful and
tempting, and all that sort of stuff.” With little time for rehearsal,
Eckhart threw himself into the two-hander, about a nameless man and
woman whose meeting (reunion?) at a wedding reception ignites a
mysterious attraction for one another. “It’s such a well written
script, with kind of an adult love story that you don’t see too often —
a lot of good dialogue, a lot of chances to act,” he says. “Helena was
[committed to] it before me, and I just like her so much that I had to
do it. I think that we’re such an unlikely couple, that to make that
work would be fun and interesting.”
While full of ample sardonic banter (“Some of these people used to
be my friends, but they aren’t anymore…”) and also allowing plenty of
leeway for one of Eckhart’s best screen traits — his rakish charm — the
film also has an emotional richness that stems from the interplay of
two more mature characters. Shot on digital video, and directed by Hans
Canosa from a script by Gabrielle Zevin, Conversations with Other Women
also features an interesting visual storytelling approach, shot at it
is in a “dual frame” style that keeps both leads on the screen for the
duration of the 84-minute movie — mostly separately with reaches across
into one another’s frames but sometimes merging into a refracted single
shot when the pair stand side by side.
“The
way they filmed it was one camera on Helena and one on me at all
times,” Eckhart explains. “It was no more difficult than the
constraints of a normal (film). In fact, it opened us up and allowed us
to be freer as actors, because… you don’t get lazy. When a camera is on
both of you at all times, you have to play, you have to be there at all
times. So by virtue of the fact that we were on camera all the time, we
were our best at all times. We didn’t have to turn the camera around
and try to create a moment, because they were already there.”
These “moments” also have an accumulated effect, as coy flirtations
deepen into something more substantive, and we come to learn more about
these two characters even as we ultimately don’t learn their names. “I
think my character portrays more of the generalization of man,” opines
Eckhart, “this perpetual youngster-bachelor attitude toward love and
the possession of love and commitment. I think women are, in my
experience, much more rational and able to realize when something is
over and commit to the fact that it’s over. And men are always trying
to hold onto something — to conquer and to keep, but yet not commit.”
Perhaps, but Eckhart’s commitment consistently shines through, both in
general and in Conversations with Other Women, a delightful little curio.
Arrested Development: The Complete Third Season
The third and final season of Fox’s gloriously dense single-camera sitcom Arrested Development
— the comedic equivalent of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, except
entirely less fattening — hits DVD August 29, marking the official end of
its incarnation… on the small screen.
The series revolves
around Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), the proverbial good son and
seemingly only sane adult member of the extended Bluth clan. With his
corner-cutting, approval-withholding father George (Jeffrey Tambor)
perpetually either on the lam or under house arrest awaiting trial,
Michael must run the family construction business and try to keep his
offbeat family — including, among others, his manipulative, icy mother
Lucille (Jessica Walter), self-centered, struggling magician brother
Gob (Will Arnett), self-centered, capricious sister Lindsay (Portia de
Rossi) and sheltered mama’s boy Buster (Tony Hale) — on the up and up,
all at the expense of his own relationship with his 14-year-old son,
George Michael (Michael Cera).
The joke writing on the show is top-notch, but it also mixes and
folds in all manner of humor, from one-liner zings and double entendres
to clever puns and absurdist arcs. What redeems most of the characters’
surface foibles, meanwhile, are a group of actors who understand the
material and give the hyper-realistic setting a real sense of
investment.
While the ensemble cast is spot-on, and each given emotionally
palpable and consistent through arcs, more than any primetime series in
recent history, Arrested Development also makes (I guess I’ll
have to fight through the pain and start using the past tense) smart,
hilarious use of a wild mix of guest stars. This season’s group
includes Scott Baio, Judge Reinhold, Justine Bateman, Dave Thomas and
Charlize Theron, the latter as a mentally handicapped girl with whom
Michael unwittingly strikes up an unlikely relationship. This isn’t
taking into account recurring bit players like Henry Winkler as the
Bluth family’s chronically inept attorney, Ed Begley, Jr. as a
follically-challenged business competitor and Liza Minnelli as a
vertigo-stricken neighbor of Lucille’s.
Spread out over two discs in a regular Amray case with a snap-in tray, Arrested Development: The Complete Third Season
is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, only enhancing its cinema-worthy
compositions, in which sight gags and visual humor lurk in the
backgrounds of frames. (In one especially memorable moment, Michael
returns to the company’s offices and — all while talking on his cell
phone, advancing the A-plot — wanders past a hobbling employee. We then
see a toppled ladder in front of an only partially hung and visible
sign reading “Risky Business.” Finally, in the payoff, another
shrugging employee wanders by, dressed like Tom Cruise’s sock-sliding
character.) The audio is presented in English, Spanish and French
language Dolby digital 2.0 surround sound mixes, with optional
subtitles in the former two tongues.
A nice assortment of deleted and extended scenes kickstart the
supplemental extras. A seven-minute blooper reel includes loads of
obscenity-laced gaffes and flubbed lines that devolve into various
proffered and solicited sexual favors, as well as David Cross surprising
guest star Reinhold with use of the word labia. (“So, welcome to Arrested Development,”
you hear a crew member say off-screen.) Sans only Tambor, there are
three cluttered cast commentary tracks herein, including a slightly
pining entry on the finale, all full of good-natured backbiting. There
are some very funny moments here (pointing out various visual echoes
back to the pilot, assaying Cera’s “headshot pose” in a bedside photo),
but it’s a bit wearying to sift through, to be honest. Finally, there’s
a seven-and-a-half-minute featurette on the show’s last day on location
aboard the Queen Mary, interspersed with more interview footage with
Bateman, though not series creator Mitchell Hurwitz. Mitch, how can we
believe the sly insinuation of an Arrested Development movie that the finale imparts, via narrator Ron Howard’s cameo, if you won’t flirt with us on camera? A+ (Show) A- (Disc)
Accepted
Whatever the institution, college is, as anyone who’s matriculated will attest, almost always as much about the social experience as the educational value. It’s the intermediate weigh station between the silly, insular, sewing-circle politics of high school and the crushing, rat-race actuality of real life, and who hasn’t entertained a prolongation of that experience? Moreover, what if there were no institutional controls in place, and you could while away your time with classes that consisted of skateboarding, daydreaming, rock ’n’ roll posing, “Wingman-ing 101” and girl-watching?, an inveterate dreamer and graduating high-school senior who, after getting rejected by every university to which he applies, creates a fake college to serve as a temporary refuge for him and some friends. Several of B’s friends opt in on his scheme, and together they design a fake Web site for the school and secure a brick-and-mortar location courtesy of a local abandoned mental hospital. Voila! Like that, the South Harmon Institute of Technology is born (and yes, that acronym abbreviation gets a full workout). B’s lifelong best friend, Sherman (<A href=)
Jonah Hill), actually gets into a nearby school as a legacy, but helps his pal by convincing his burnout uncle, Ben (Lewis Black), to pose as the college’s dean in a meet and greet with B’s parents.
In an amusingly capricious twist, though, Sherman has accidentally activated a chirpy “Acceptance is only one click away!” link on the aforementioned Web site, and soon, dozens of other college rejects from out of town show up for classes. Naturally, because there has to be a girl, B falls for Monica (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ Blake Lively), and naturally, because there has to be a villainous dean of a nearby competing college who is angling for a consolidation of space in a land grab, there’s the sneering Dean Van Horne (The Silence of the Lambs’ Anthony Heald). Against considerable odds, B and his friends forge ahead with maintaining a fake but quasi-functional university, one that operates by their own set of liberal rules.
As the co-screenwriter of deeply loved cult comedic baubles Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity, Steve Pink helped locate the unique humor in both violently clashing cultures and slacker ethos, and you’ll see some of that same idiosyncratic stamp of personality on this, his directorial debut. Still, despite Pink’s best efforts, the movie’s narrative track is not a particularly well-oiled one. Adults are generally either sternly hectoring or oblivious (sometimes a scene calls for both), and the character of Uncle Ben never codifies into something more than a one-note counterpoint to these cardboard types.
Still, if audiences turn off their brains, they can have some fun. Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Mark Perez’s script is all synthetic, but what Accepted most has going for it is a few pockets of genuine energy. These are provided chiefly by Long — a gifted young comedic actor who also astutely locates the frustrated rectitude in his character — and Hill, who conveys the antsy anxiety of bottled-up adolescence through a collection of pithy one-liners (“This place is great, because I can finally get hepatitis,” he says of scouting the abandoned mental facility that becomes South Harmon) and constipated physicality. He’s the friend you had in high school that always considered the after-effects of your latest harebrained scheme — a reluctant voice of conscience by virtue of indoctrination. (For an interview with Steve Pink, meanwhile, click here.) (Universal, PG-13, 93 minutes)
Trust the Man
From
Woody Allen to Whit Stillman to Edward Burns, New York-set relationship
dramedies have a long and storied tradition, enough so that they could
almost certainly comprise their own sub-genre at your local video
store. Winsome, wheedling and certain of nothing more than its own
serial ambivalence, Trust the Man represents The Myth of Fingerprints
writer-director Bart Freundlich’s entry into the canon, and if not
quite for all tastes it at least provides a winning showcase for the
underutilized comedic charms of star David Duchovny.
Former
advertising exec Tom (Duchovny) and his actress wife Rebecca (Julianne
Moore) have two kids and a virtually non-existent sex life. Tom’s
serial randiness manifests itself in cajoling, awkward attempts at
sideways seduction. At one point he asks, “Hey, did I tell you I had a
dream about you giving me a blowjob last night?” after they leave from
their once-a-year appointment with a marriage counselor; at another
point he tries to close his eyes and have her narrate the events of a
porno tape. Rebecca’s younger brother and Tom’s best friend Tobey
(Billy Crudup, sporting a pubic tuft of a beard), meanwhile,
perpetually tests the outer limits of his longtime girlfriend Elaine’s
(Maggie Gyllenhaal) patience. After eight years together, she wants to
get married and have a baby, but Tobey is too emotionally arrested (he
has a Sportscenter cell phone ring) and freaked out by the
vague notion that “everyone dies someday” to entertain a serious
conversation period, much less one involving a discussion about
commitment. Both collectively and individually, however, each couples’
status quo is given a jolt when various temptations of infidelity pop
up and ultimatums are issued.
Trust the Man plays as a sort of mainstream-pitched, desperately pitched upbeat companion piece to Freundlich’s previous (and almost wholly unseen) film World Traveler,
which starred Crudup as a reticent man who sets off on a road trip of
indeterminate length and hazy motivation, leaving behind a wife and
small child. If that film was at its core about how intrapersonal
confusion and (in particular, masculine) psychological uneasiness are
never truly defeated, but rather appeased and beaten back into the
recesses of one’s mind, Trust the Man is the more externalized
and optimistic side of that same angst-ridden coin. Househusband Tom is
also a proxy for Freundlich, who in real life is married to Moore
(their two children together are also Tom and Rebecca’s son and
daughter), and in this regard too the movie is an interesting
exploration of subjugated masculinity.
The leading performances here are a breezy delight, but best movies
of this ilk — and, indeed, all comedies — find at least some of their
humor in cracked supporting players and the world at large, and
Freundlich falters a good bit when stepping outside of his main
quartet. James Le Gros is overly broad as a kooky, old
singer-songwriter fling of Rebecca’s, with whom she tries to set Elaine
up during the latter’s break from Tobey, not to mention the fact that
it stretches credulity that any sister would so boldly enable her
brother’s ex in romantic pursuit, no matter how close of friends they
were. Similarly, Eva Mendes is woefully undersketched as a former
college girlfriend of Tobey’s who wanders back into his life. One
minute she’s married and introducing him to her husband, later she’s
nonchalantly waving off their relationship and throwing herself at
Tobey.
Of all of the leads, Duchovny connects the most consistently and
heartily, conveying the depths of panic, disaffection and nervousness
inherent in male maturation without ever sacrificing or shortchanging
the movie’s somewhat broad comedic strokes. Trust the Man’s
wintry snow is fake and its narrative arcs of temptation relatively
predestined, but the film’s idiosyncratic delight is rather real, with
Freundlich finding charm and humor in quotidian struggles. (Fox Searchlight, R, 100 mins.)
The Illusionist
Even
in a world where the flash and razzle-dazzle of CGI has supplanted the
rather pedestrian fascination of magic, first-hand conjuring and
sleight-of-hand still holds a lure because there’s a part of all of us
that wants to believe in something bigger than and beyond “just” us,
even if it’s only a diversionary bafflement. Adapted from a short story
penned by Steven Millhauser, the period-piece drama The Illusionist delves into this world, wrapping its doomed love narrative around a dogged, cat-and-mouse pursuit.
Set
in Vienna at the turn of the 19th century, the film opens with the
public arrest of our populist protagonist, and then flashes back on a
forbidden adolescent love affair between an aristocratic girl and a
cabinetmaker’s son. That peasant, of course, after wandering the Orient
and other areas for 15 years, has grown up to be Eisenheim (Edward Norton), a popular traveling magician who has transformed the negation
and withholding of his adolescence into a rigidly impenetrable
showman’s persona — charismatic but at the same time enigmatic.
in Vienna at the turn of the 19th century, the film opens with the
public arrest of our populist protagonist, and then flashes back on a
forbidden adolescent love affair between an aristocratic girl and a
cabinetmaker’s son. That peasant, of course, after wandering the Orient
and other areas for 15 years, has grown up to be Eisenheim (Edward Norton), a popular traveling magician who has transformed the negation
and withholding of his adolescence into a rigidly impenetrable
showman’s persona — charismatic but at the same time enigmatic.
Put by Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) on Eisenheim’s trail to
expose him as a fraud is Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), a working class
detective who has endeared himself to his ruthlessly ambitious superior
by way of his prudence and kept-boy propriety. Eisenheim, you see,
represents a dual threat to Leopold’s grand and violent political
designs, both in the abstract because he possesses an apparent power
that Leopold cannot invoke and, more immediately, because he seems to
be rekindling an affair with the betrothed Sophie (Jessica Biel), his
childhood flame. When parlor games and play-nice debasement for the
patrician class fail to save Sophie from Leopold’s jealous rage,
Eisenheim sets into motion an elaborate plan of obfuscation and
reprisal, necessitating his arrest by Inspector Uhl. But who truly has
the upper hand?
expose him as a fraud is Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), a working class
detective who has endeared himself to his ruthlessly ambitious superior
by way of his prudence and kept-boy propriety. Eisenheim, you see,
represents a dual threat to Leopold’s grand and violent political
designs, both in the abstract because he possesses an apparent power
that Leopold cannot invoke and, more immediately, because he seems to
be rekindling an affair with the betrothed Sophie (Jessica Biel), his
childhood flame. When parlor games and play-nice debasement for the
patrician class fail to save Sophie from Leopold’s jealous rage,
Eisenheim sets into motion an elaborate plan of obfuscation and
reprisal, necessitating his arrest by Inspector Uhl. But who truly has
the upper hand?
As directed by commercial veteran and sophomore feature filmmaker Neil Burger (Interview with the Assassin), who makes fine use of composer Philip Glass’ score — a tightly dizzying upward spiral — The Illusionist
is made over fairly significantly from its original source material,
with new characters invented wholesale and a more linear plot cooked up
to up the intrigue factor. Burger still pays considerable attention to
the film’s look, though, working in auto-chromatic frames that are
blurred a bit around the edges, lending the movie a certain bedtime
fairy tale feel.
is made over fairly significantly from its original source material,
with new characters invented wholesale and a more linear plot cooked up
to up the intrigue factor. Burger still pays considerable attention to
the film’s look, though, working in auto-chromatic frames that are
blurred a bit around the edges, lending the movie a certain bedtime
fairy tale feel.
If there’s no small amount of slack to the story, the film’s strong
suit is its acting. Norton brings a great certitude to his performance
as Eisenheim, full of cleanly delineated movements and deliberate
pauses and silences that convey as much about the man as anything he
says outright. Giamatti, meanwhile, avoids all the normal clichés of
unctuous, hip-pocket lawmen, imbuing in Uhl the silently conflicted
deportment of a diligent plebian who simultaneously recognizes it’s
rarely what you know but rather whom you know. When Eisenheim,
in a rare, flashpoint moment of anger, asks Uhl if he’s entirely
corrupt, the inspector instinctively spits back, “No, not entirely,
no.” It’s this sequence and others between Norton and Giamatti that
truly sing, such as a scene when Uhl attempts to cajole Eisenheim into
revealing the secret of a particular trick, and later when he summons
the magician to a restaurant to gauge the nature of his relationship to
Sophie. The depth here — the class sympathies and conflict — is
literary in nature, and certainly a welcome infusion to what is
otherwise a fairly trivial story.
suit is its acting. Norton brings a great certitude to his performance
as Eisenheim, full of cleanly delineated movements and deliberate
pauses and silences that convey as much about the man as anything he
says outright. Giamatti, meanwhile, avoids all the normal clichés of
unctuous, hip-pocket lawmen, imbuing in Uhl the silently conflicted
deportment of a diligent plebian who simultaneously recognizes it’s
rarely what you know but rather whom you know. When Eisenheim,
in a rare, flashpoint moment of anger, asks Uhl if he’s entirely
corrupt, the inspector instinctively spits back, “No, not entirely,
no.” It’s this sequence and others between Norton and Giamatti that
truly sing, such as a scene when Uhl attempts to cajole Eisenheim into
revealing the secret of a particular trick, and later when he summons
the magician to a restaurant to gauge the nature of his relationship to
Sophie. The depth here — the class sympathies and conflict — is
literary in nature, and certainly a welcome infusion to what is
otherwise a fairly trivial story.
The Illusionist is ultimately a somewhat light entertainment, the
revelations of its sleight-of-hand finale tipped fairly early on.
Whether that diminishes the to-scale joy of the efforts of Norton and
Giamatti is a matter of personal taste, but the film reminds one that
magic comes in all sorts of filmic packages, big and small. (Yari Film Group, PG-13, 107 minutes)
revelations of its sleight-of-hand finale tipped fairly early on.
Whether that diminishes the to-scale joy of the efforts of Norton and
Giamatti is a matter of personal taste, but the film reminds one that
magic comes in all sorts of filmic packages, big and small. (Yari Film Group, PG-13, 107 minutes)
Happy Birthday, Melinda with No Surname
It’s a happy 23rd birthday to reformed bisexual Melinda from The Real World, whose last name no one really knows. (That would be Stolp, actually.) Thank you — no, seriously — for your hardcore penchant for boy-shorts and steadfast commitment to exhibitionism, but please, pretty please, don’t feel the obligation to become an actress. Just take your great imitation of Julia Roberts’ laugh and air-quote fairy-tale relationship, enjoy some time off, keep toned and tanned, and wait by the phone until the next Real World/Road Rules Challenge…
Jericho
Part of the “Mystery!” series on PBS, Jericho is a good, old-fashioned investigative import. The
first season of the across-the-pond series is comprised of two dark and
gritty mysteries, both of which are included here. At the center of the
series, set in 1950s London, is Chief Inspector Michael Jericho of
Scotland Yard (Horatio Hornblower’s Robert Lindsay), a
respected, uncompromising and forward-thinking detective tasked with
investigating different high-profile murders. A media darling, Jericho
is haunted by memories of his father, a policeman whose murder he
witnessed as a young boy. (Telling, the differences between the
collective American and British psyches that he didn’t then don a cape
and mask as an adult, but rather an inspector’s cloak.)
Set as it is against a fascinating social and historical backdrop,
when London saw an explosion of color, glamour and shifting attitudes
and mores after the end of World War II, Jericho has a certain
keen anthropological detail, with its protagonist constantly surveying
and reevaluating a familiar city changing drastically before his very
eyes. Though alone since his childhood sweetheart left him for another
during the war, Jericho slowly finds himself drawn to his beautiful
French neighbor Juliette (Aurélie Bargème), a prostitute with a
tortured past. Mostly, though, he’s a stiff-upper-lipped working man,
driven by a do-gooder’s desire and aided by his faithful friend and
colleague Sergeant Clive Harvey (David Troughton, of Foyle’s War) and an ambitious young constable, John Caldicott (David Copperfield’s Ciaran McMenamin).
The two feature-length titles included here kick off with A Pair of Ragged Claws,
in which Jericho investigates the murder of a young black man in the
racially divided neighborhood of Notting Hill (Julia Roberts,
blissfully, does not appear). On the same evening as the killing, a
wealthy man is kidnapped and held for ransom, but Jericho susses out an
intriguing connection between the two events. In The Killing of Johnny Swan,
meanwhile, Jericho is assigned to the case of a murdered track champion
and his new bride — initially believed to have been erased by KGB — but
quickly finds out that not all is what it seems. Well sketched
characterizations and briskly paced directing help these period piece
tales seem anything but staid and boring.
Housed in two regular Amray cases in turn stored in a solid cardboard slipcase, the Jericho
mysteries are presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with solid picture
transfers. Like most other WGBH/PSB titles, his release doesn’t pimp
any special features, alas, but you can rest knowing that your purchase
helps support public television, and that’s not at all a bad thing,
right? B (Movies) C- (Disc)