It’s not just the phone connection for our interview — Kate Beckinsale speaks quite softly, perhaps a result of her prim-and-proper London upbringing, and study of literature at Oxford University. No matter. Beckinsale has two big-stick 2008 performances, the first in David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels, from earlier in the year, and the second in writer-director Rod Lurie’s Nothing But the Truth, in which she plays a reporter whose life — professional and personal alike — begins to fray after she’s imprisoned for refusing to reveal a source in an after-the-fact story about a drummed-up case for war. Just in advance of the release of the latter, ripped-from-the-headlines film, I spoke with Beckinsale about the challenges of not playing New York Times reporter Judith Miller, how Lurie is like Martin Scorese, and how black leather made her famous. For the Q&A feature, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here. For more on the method behind her “schizophrenic” filmography and the insight she’s gained into the interview process after now having played a reporter, jump forward in time by clicking here.
Since his memorably shirtless introduction to the broader filmgoing public in 1991’s Thelma & Louise, Brad Pitt has alternately run from (Twelve Monkeys) and embraced (Troy) his status as a heartthrob pin-up. It’s ironically fitting, then, that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button re-teams Pitt with filmmaker David Fincher, his Seven and Fight Club director, as a man who mysteriously ages in reverse.
Born an arthritic, wrinkled mass in 1918 New Orleans (he could be kin to the baby from Eraserhead), Benjamin is abandoned by his birth father (Jason Flemyng), and raised in doting fashion by Queenie (Taraji Henson), an African-American nursing home attendant. Though not originally given long to live, Benjamin grows up and fits in amidst these aged folk, his tottering facilities and simple interests matching theirs. It’s here that he meets Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a precocious adolescent who eventually blossoms into a world-class ballerina.
As Benjamin undergoes a physical de-maturation, a sense of wanderlust develops. He gets work on a tugboat, which in turn takes him to ports around the world. Tangentially, in this manner he sees service during World War II. In the spring of 1962, though, Benjamin and Daisy reconnect for good, their biological ages converging. In love, they move into a duplex together back in New Orleans. When Daisy eventually announces that she’s pregnant, though, Benjamin is forced to grapple with their diverging futures.
Truth told, there isn’t much fault to be found in the film with the direction of Fincher, who marshals an impressive array of detailed, enveloping production design and mostly convincing effects work. No, the movie’s sins are of the first-trimester variety, story flaws that set the narrative off on the wrong, wobbly path. Benjamin Button is a curious film in many respects, including as a vehicle for Pitt, who has to play a placid, reactive character. Forrest Gump will strike many as an obvious comparison — another central figure blithely bobbing through history, with both films penned by screenwriter Eric Roth, to boot. But simpleton Forrest still acted in ways that indicated a self-interest, whereas Benjamin is in one sense a hostage to circumstance, but also little more than a blank slate upon which an audience is meant to project their own wistful pasts, and trapped or uncertain futures.
Because of this, wide swatches of the movie’s first two acts — time at the nursing home, time at sea and a foreign-set love affair with the wife (Tilda Swinton) of an English diplomat — seem like time injudiciously spent. In all honesty, an expansion of the film’s final half hour would have made for a much more interesting and dramatically wrought experience. But Roth and Fincher duck the hard, heavy questions.
Most damningly, there’s also a puzzling incuriousity about the central conceit, Benjamin’s affliction. All the characters around him, to the extent that they acknowledge his condition at all, just shrug and marvel, and we never see Benjamin seek medical opinion as an adult, which seems baffling, especially when he opts for a life ordered of domesticity with Daisy. I understand that this isn’t necessarily in keeping with the more esoteric, emotionally-based ruminations about mortality for which the film is aiming, but it further underscores Benjamin’s problematic passivity as a character, and it renders the movie little more than an ornate bauble.
Finally, the film’s modern day framing device, with Hurricane Katrina bearing down on a deathbed-stricken Daisy while her adult daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormand), holds vigil, has a doubly distinct disadvantage. First, it doesn’t pay off with any true catharsis. Furthermore, it again sets Benjamin apart, since Caroline reads from a diary that we’ve never seen him keep. It’s yet another gauzy scrim of separation between the audience and this fascinating but oblique, unknowable protagonist, another way for us to observe and hear him but not feel the depth or clarity of any of his emotions. (Paramount, PG-13, 167 minutes)
In celebration of its 70th anniversary, Laemmle Theatres is pleased to present “70/70,” a special series of 70mm film screenings ceremonializing its notable longevity in the exhibition business. All screenings will take place at the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles and benefit the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic, the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Diabetes Association and AIDS Walk Los Angeles.
Screening today, Friday, December 19, are The Remains of the Day at 5:15 p.m., 1975’s Tommy at 8 p.m. and Pink Floyd: The Wall at 11 p.m. Saturday, December 20 is a James Cameron triple feature; The Abyss screens at 4 p.m., the Oscar-winning Titanic at 7 p.m. and Aliens at 11 p.m. Screening on Sunday, December 21, are Top Gun at 1 p.m., Gremlins at 4 p.m. (with actor William Schallert in person),Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at 7 p.m. and The Untouchables at 10 p.m. The line-up for Monday, December 22, consists of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at 5:15 p.m. and 1979’s Alien at 8 o’clock. On Tuesday, December 23, Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey screens at 5:15 p.m., followed by The Hunt for Red October at 8 p.m. The Royal Theatre is located at 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., in West Los Angeles. For more information, click here.
The trailer for I Love You, Man — a “bromance” in which Paul Rudd, lacking in the substantive male friendship department, seeks out the perfect best man (Jason Segal) following his engagement to the lovely Rashida Jones — is online, and I’ve decided it’s a winner.
All the dog crap stuff is a push — supposedly revelatory character humor forced into a box of test audience-approved crassness — but the rapport between all the major players here seems great. Segal’s schlubby vibe is a good fit, seemingly, for this sort of role (the edgy new pal), and Rudd scores with the same sort of smart, tone-appropriate yet still slightly canted delivery (as with “Deep — in my mouth” after Thomas Lennon’s kiss, and “C’mon!” after the walk-by belch) that’s been a hallmark of his comedic screen performances dating all the way back to 1995’s Clueless.
Commercial prospects will be partially determined by rating, but the R-rated Role Models has done $64 million and counting, so things look good for a mid-sized spring hit. Directed by John Hamburg, from a script by Hamburg and Larry Levin, I Love You, Man is currently slated for release on March 20, from DreamWorks/Paramount. It will also open the South by Southwest Festival on March 13, in Austin, Texas.
It’s a happy birthday to erstwhile Who’s the Boss? tyke Alyssa Milano, who — all growed up, indeed — turns 36 today, and celebrates by trying to find a major league pitcher she hasn’t dated, and probably not reconnecting with former childhood beau Corey Haim.
Would that there was more to report… I was to have recently reviewed Milano’s Wisegals, which streeted on DVD on December 2, but that fell apart. I can report, however, that Milano is an entirely serviceable tennis player, since she used to live near me, and strike balls every once in a while.
Queen Latifah came of age, as an actress, in 2002’s Oscar-winning Chicago, a $306 million worldwide earner, and the following spring’s Bringing Down the House, a $162 million global hit. From her earliest days, though — whether on her platinum-selling rap albums or in something like 1996’s ensemble bank heist tale Set it Off — Latifah’s strengths have been her brassiness, sassiness and volume. The bigger, the better: she’s always been able to locate and articulate a recognizable point-of-view amid so much swirling craziness.
So it’s strange to endure a film like Last Holiday, which
makes its Blu-ray debut just after Christmas, since it so clearly
represents a wan attempt to dampen down so much of what makes its star
special. Alternately forced-cute and painfully obvious, it proves a
weird, shot-on-location, multicultural mash-up — imagine a jumble of Under the Tuscan Sun and How Stella Got Her Groove Back — with a
declamatory litany of costume changes and falsely empowering imparted
life lessons.
Last Holiday opened to just under $13 million on the second weekend of January in 2006 — good enough to take third place behind Hoodwinked and Glory Road in a tight
debut frame — and went on to gross just over $38 million domestically, a figure in line with Latifah’s two previous headline outings,
the Barber Shop spin-off Beauty Shop and Taxi, her ill-fated action-comedy
pairing with Jimmy Fallon. But Last Holiday isn’t a film that anyone but the hardest of hardcore Latifah fans will appreciate, given the degree to which it relies on contrivance and emotional gimmickry.
A shy cookware department store clerk, Georgia Byrd (Latifah) lives a
modest and demure life, singing in her church choir and eschewing risk
in favor of simplicity. Once she’s told that she has but a few weeks
to live — and is rejected by her healthcare provider for treatment
reimbursement — she cuts loose, cashing in her life’s savings and
leaving New Orleans for a dream vacation in Europe. She ends up at the posh Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic,
“blossoming” by trading in her sensible outfits for high-end fashion and
indulging in all manner of culinary indulgences.
Newly uninhibited, she also befriends the hotel’s venerated chef,
Didier (Gerard Depardieu), and teaches lessons to unscrupulous
businessman Matthew Kragen (Timothy Hutton), conveniently also her up-the-ladder boss, who’s convinced by Georgia’s blithe manner that she’s actually a
shrewd business rival. Finally, sensitive co-worker Sean Matthews (LL
Cool J) enters and the requisite love affair ensues, feeling more like a dictated necessity than an artful
or even florid indulgence. In the end, Georgia learns of her
misdiagnosis, something one could surmise from Jeffrey Price and Peter
Seaman’s problematic script, which has trouble balancing disparate
tones throughout.
Director Wayne Wang, who burst onto the scene in earnest with 1993’s The Joy Luck Club, has impressed most with a string of esoteric and
sometimes impressionistic character pieces, including Smoke, Blue In
The Face and The Center of the World. He previously segued into
mainstream fare with the serviceable Anywhere But Here, but Last
Holiday feels more of a piece with the joyless and anonymous Maid in
Manhattan. There’s little of note to the direction, and nothing beyond
the promise of a sizeable studio paycheck to particularly suggest his interest or
psychological investment in the project. Giancarlo Esposito is underutilized in a small supporting role.
Latifah, meanwhile, generally acquits herself, but this tepid outing
proves that her talents are best suited to projects where she shies
away from such early forced timidity.
Bowing on Blu-ray on December 30, Last Holiday is presented in 1080p high definition. Though there’s not much need for action crispness (apart from a cringe-inducing ski sequence) or special effects/small object detail, the picture in the film’s
Blu-ray release is, as advertised, solid, and a noticeable step up from regular DVD quality. Audio is
anchored by a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, with French
and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital mixes and optional English, French
and Spanish subtitles as well. Special features include a high-definition version of the movie’s original theatrical trailer and, imported from its original DVD release, a pair of deleted scenes and three behind-the-secnes featurettes which chart the movie’s pre-production history, location shooting and filming style. To purchase the film on Blu-ray, click here. C- (Movie) B+ (Disc)
