All posts by Brent

Things We Lost in the Fire (Blu-ray)

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Written by Allan Loeb and directed by Susanne Bier, Things We Lost in the Fire centers on Audrey Burke (Halle Berry), who, after her husband Brian (David Duchovny) dies unexpectedly, develops and nurtures a symbiotic relationship of need and guilt with an old childhood friend of Brian’s, a recovering drug addict named Jerry Sunborne (Benico Del Toro).
For reasons even she can’t fully articulate, Audrey invites Jerry to
move out of the flophouse in which he’s staying, and come live with she
and her two children. Still wounded by their dad’s sudden departure,
10-year-old Harper (Alexis Llewellyn) and 6-year-old Dory (Micah Berry)
latch onto Jerry, and he to them. Jerry even gets help and a job offer
from one of Brian’s friends (John  Carroll Lynch), and strikes up a
casual acquaintanceship with a fellow recovering addict (Alison Lohman)
with whom he crosses paths in a 12-step meeting. And then… other
stuff happens — big, yes, but mostly small. That logline suffices,
since Things We Lost in the Fire is chiefly about coming back to life after loss, and the unlikely blooms that develop after fields have been burned low.

It sounds weird, I realize, but one tangential, if esoteric, way to analyze/praise Things We Lost in the Fire is to say that it feels like an adaptation of one of Bier’s superlative Danish films (Family Matters, Open Hearts, Brothers, After the Wedding).
It’s a movie that has the same intimacy and disarming honesty as much
of her previous work, and that’s how easy and form-fitting the union of
material and helmer feels.

The fractured structure of the film
works to its advantage in that we don’t see “user Jerry” early in the
movie; when he inevitably backslides (this is what addicts do, after
all), it’s almost more of a shock than it should be. There’s not much here narratively that’s formally shocking,
though it is intriguing to witness the movie indulge Audrey’s
foregrounded resentment and anger toward Jerry to the hearty degree
that it does. This is a bit of a change-up from the films of weepy,
lean-on-me reconciliation that we’ve come to expect from Hollywood, and
something I appreciated even if I found the character of Audrey still a
bit of a cipher. Chiefly, though, Bier has the great benefit of Del Toro, whose eyes convey the force of an inner turmoil.
There’s a whole other off-screen story in those eyes, and Jerry’s tale,
while an uncomplicated one (a smart guy who dabbled in drugs and
quickly got in over his head), is what gives this movie its pull. We
witness how fragile and slippery the nature of recovery truly is, as
well as how helping others heals ourselves.

Things We Lost in the Fire
comes to Blu-ray presented in superb 1080p high definition, in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen
with a crisp English language
5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio track. Other audio options includes French and
Spanish language 5.1
Dolby digital surround sound tracks; optional English SDH, French,
Spanish and Portuguese subtitles are also included. Imported from its previous DVD release, the bonus material kicks off with a collection of seven deleted scenes, running about nine-and-a-half minutes in total. Most are understandable snips, but one big sequence
feels like it should’ve been left in — a scene where Audrey gives
Jerry a cabinet she was working on before her husband’s death, and
confesses an argument in which she believed him to have stolen money
out of her car. The only other supplemental feature is a 20-minute, thematically-oriented featurette about the movie with interview snippets from all of its principal players,
including Berry, Duchovny, Del Toro and Bier, as well as writer Loeb
and producers Sam Mercer and Sam Mendes. There are plenty of insights
and interesting tidbits herein (Berry talks about trying to find
“different levels of shock” for her character, for instance, which I’d argue that
perhaps she doesn’t fully do), but the Achilles heel of this piece is that
too many clips from the movie — far more than necessary for
illustrative purposes — are interspersed between the interviews,
ruining any delicate sense of flow or momentum. Also included is a high-definition version of the movie’s theatrical trailer, and 12 minutes of previews for other Paramount titles, including Margot at the Wedding, Into the Wild, Beowulf and The Kite Runner. To purchase the Blu-ray via
Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Farrelly Brothers Finally Wrangle Their Stooges

Casting About

After 10 years and three studios, Peter and Bobby Farrelly have finally hammered out the above-line casting for their long-in-gestation Three Stooges flick, according to Variety. Sean Penn has signed to play Larry, and talks are proceeding with Benicio Del Toro to play Moe, and a beefed-up Jim Carrey to play Curly. This all seems about right. I’ve always thought that the Russell Crowe rumors were a bad idea.

Matthew Rhys Talks Dylan Thomas, Artistic Self-Loathing

Interviews

As part of a stacked ensemble cast on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters,
Matthew Rhys plays a character, married gay lawyer Kevin Walker, who
has achieved a measure of stability and happiness in his personal life.
In John Maybury’s The Edge of Love,
Rhys plays much more of a spinning top — carousing Welsh poet Dylan
Thomas. Less a conventional biopic than a love trapezoid set against
the bohemian underworld of World War II-torn London and, later, the
Welsh countryside, the film costars Keira Knightley, Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller (below right). I spoke with
Rhys recently about tackling a national hero, Thomas’ melancholic
yearning for the past, and learning to embrace the “vagabond existence”
of an actor’s life. The conversation is excerpted below:

Brent Simon: Did you have any fear or trepidation in tackling a historical figure like Dylan Thomas?

Matthew Rhys: Oh, enormous! Wales is such a small country anyway that heroes are few and far between, and literary heroes are almost non-existent. There are two, so to take on, in my mind, the biggest was an enormous pressure, really, and compounded by others always saying, “Oh, he’s never been put on screen!” Even my dad said, “Don’t mess this one up.” I was like, “Oh, my God.” What’s ironic is that because there’s relatively little television footage of him, people have their own image or idea of who he is, and that tends to be quite strong and well defined, so in the run-up to the film I had all these people pitching in their takes on who Dylan was.

BS: Did you find that advice was conflicting, or at odds?

MR: Absolutely. [Dylan] was a real rogue, there were elements of him that were quite naughty. And some hold him in that golden hero esteem that he could do no wrong, whereas others said, “You can’t shy away from what he was and what he did.” That came from John Maybury in many senses, because he wanted a true depiction of who Dylan was, and [not] a chocolate box depiction. There were some very real, painful things that went on in his life, and I think we captured that in the film.

BS: What was at the heart of his roguish behavior, as you describe it? Was he truly emotionally troubled, or just living out the grand artistic cliché?

MR: What I learned of Dylan, in the research I did, was that he was an intensely complex man with a lot of demons. He desperately hankered for the golden years of innocence and youth — he writes about it in poems like “Fern Hill.” He always looks back, and he was deeply melancholic for the past, which I think is a Welsh trait — because somehow the past is always better. He was loved beyond belief by his mother, because his mother and father had a pretty bad relationship, so she poured all her love onto Dylan and spoiled him, treated him almost like a child his entire life. Therefore every woman he encountered, I think he wanted that kind of relationship — he wanted them to mother him, and love him unconditionally and intensely. And that’s what led to certain infantile behavior — the way that he regarded women, which was set up by his mother.

BS: The film revolves around a sort of love trapezoid, with no sides seeming quite equal all at once. Naturally, that means a lot of flirting and carousing with your on-screen female costars, so what was it like working with Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley?

MR: We had a tiny bit of time for rehearsal, but I knew both ladies a little socially. I think what helped was that we started our filming in a relatively remote part of Wales, where we were thrown together in a hotel and the early bonding happened there, really, because we had no choice. I think what also helped enormously was that all four of the main actors had a great love of the script and a healthy attitude toward what the film should be, so we were willing to throw ourselves in and pitch in as best we could to make it work.

BS: One of John’s other films, The Jacket, is partially about a veteran dealing with post-traumatic stress. In The Edge of Love, in the relationship between Dylan and William, Cillian’s character, there’s something interesting and not often addressed in movies — the tension between men who have served and seen horrors of war firsthand, and those who haven’t. …Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but do you think there was a lot of shame or self-disgust on Dylan’s part?

MR: That’s an interesting question. I can’t completely answer for Dylan, but I think deep down there may have been that, because he was unfit to join (the Army), he had bad lungs, and he despised machismo, and anything that resembled that. He does have that scene with William where he talks about warriors and says that if he could have his way he’d tell God to bring him back as a warrior because this way, being that sensitive, is too hard. I feel a bit unqualified to answer on his behalf because there are so many different angles. He sort of resented those men under the guise of them being macho, whereas it could have come from somewhere a lot deeper, as you suggest. And there as a longer scene taken out, which I was sad about, where Dylan plagues William with questions about what the war was like, but all the time making light of his serious answers. He almost can’t deal with it.

BS: He obviously has a very strong sense of what he wants visually, yet I don’t think many would describe John Maybury as a visual stylist, per se. How would you describe him as a director?

MR: It’s a perfect marriage, really, because having trained and been a very successful artist himself, his eye for composition is stunning. When he works with (cinematographer) Jonathan Freeman, the two of them feed off of each other’s passion. But he also has an artist’s ability to talk with actors about emotion and through-line, and he gives you everything you want. In my mind he marries both approaches very seamlessly.

BS: Where does Brothers & Sisters stand?

MR: We finish shooting our season finale tomorrow, and then we’re done until July… if we come back. We’ll find that out at the end of May.

BS: Is that ever weird as an actor — that sense of pervasive uncertainty with regards to work, and your next job?

MR: The sooner you embrace that, the easier that is for your sanity. The sooner you accept and learn to love your vagabond existence in life, the easier it is to deal with the randomness of it all.

BS: What first set you on a path to acting?

MR: Funnily enough, the Welsh specifically have these national festivals twice a year that are pretty ancient, and they encourage the youth to participate in folk singing, dancing, poetry recital and a whole host of traditions, so I think as a Welsh child you’re plunked on a stage from an early age, and it was the sort of thing that I became accustomed to. I discovered a love of theater, really, and it went from there — that’s what inspired me to apply for drama college in London.

BS: Wales is famously grey, and windswept. Has California, and specifically what I call our big, dumb sun affected your favorite leisure time activities?

MR: In coming to California, I said to myself, “Well, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.” So I’ve tried to do as much as I can, and enjoy all that the outdoors will offer. I did a dirt bike course in the Mojave not long ago, and went rafting on the Kern River. So that’s what I try to do — take advantage of my time here and do some things I wouldn’t be able to do back home. And if there’s one thing I always seem to enjoy doing, it’s horse riding.

Anne Hathaway Inks for Judy Garland Double Shot

Casting About

From the future Oscar nomination files, per studio email blast yesterday, Anne Hathaway has been attached to star as iconic performer Judy Garland in film and stage adaptations of Gerald Clarke’s 2001 biography Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, both for The Weinstein Company. Based on hundreds of interviews plus Garland’s own unfinished and unpublished autobiography, Get Happy delves into the dramatic highs and lows of the cultural icon’s life — from her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days. “We’re thrilled to have the brilliantly talented Anne Hathaway portray stage and screen legend Judy Garland,” said Harvey Weinstein. “I’ve worked with Anne on projects in the past and have known her for many years, and she will be a true class act in this challenging role. Gerald Clarke’s biography is a fascinating and comprehensive look at Garland’s life, and is particularly outstanding because of its exclusive details from her own writings. Her story is incredible subject matter for both theater and film, and we look forward to bringing it to audiences.” Unstated but understood is that Weinstein also looks forward to the awards campaign for the film, culminating in a Best Actress nomination for Hathaway.

Monday, Bloody Monday: Driving, Sitting, Meeting, Screening

Ephemera

A long, stacked day, beginning with a screener, then three on-site screenings, and, finally, about to be capped with the last two episodes of Breaking Bad, in advance of an interview tomorrow with Aaron Paul. More to follow on those events, but it’s worth at least mentioning in offhand fashion that James Toback’s Mike Tyson documentary, which opens in late April from Sony Pictures Classics, would make a great New Beverly double feature with Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which I called “a fascinating, cathartic, from-the-ground-up reconstruction of an American pariah.” Oh, there are some parallels. As well as plenty of ammunition for nurturists.

It’s a Bloggy Blog World… and That’s Part of the Problem

Irritations, Musings

In quarter-hearted fashion (the entire piece reads like a sigh, frankly, a fact that I dig), Variety‘s Cynthia Littleton takes a stab at the recent flare-up in film blog pissing matches, and concludes it’s cyclical, and wearying. Without waging into the breach myself — because, truly, I care not — I will say that the incidents cited in this piece, and others like them, are exactly why I find so many film blogs kind of tiresome, and it reminds me of two other things:

1) The old saw about the politics of academia — that the squabbles are so nasty because the stakes are so low.

2) My firm belief that “Toldja!” is the scrappy, upwardly-mobile middle class intelligentsia’s equivalent of the rotted celebrity bitch line “Do you know who I am?,” and its unironic deployment, especially in print, is a sign of mental inferiority, tackiness and/or low self-esteem.

Duplicity

Film Reviews

The second film behind the camera from Michael Clayton writer-director Tony Gilroy, Duplicity, would have you believe it’s a spry little battle-of-the-sexes con movie — a two-handed theatrical holdover for the same audiences that have flocked to Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels, until the schedules of its Hollywood heavyweights can be coordinated to crank out another installment. It is not. Not really, not first and foremost. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite, really.

No, instead Duplicity is a subversive high-wire romance, with the MacGuffin, or unknown plot element, serving as a metaphorical placeholder for the surging hormonal attraction, trepidation and uncertainty of love’s bloom. It’s true that Duplicity recalls other con/heist flicks, from obvious benchmarks like Out of Sight and the chatty, erudite Heist to more stylized or colorfully drawn character fare like Lucky Number Slevin and James Foley’s Confidence. But Duplicity is incidentally a con movie. It’s also fun, engaging and pleasurable as all get-out.




The story centers on Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) and Ray Koval (Clive Owen), two spies turned corporate security operatives who work hard and flirt harder. An abbreviated romantic encounter many years ago gives the duo plenty of backstory. That shared history comes bubbling to the surface when they meet again and find themselves on opposite sides of a brewing corporate war between two captains of industry (Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti), bitter enemies who are each out to secure a product that promises a fortune to the company that patents it first.

The major-chord plot is crisply drawn and smartly studded with little mysteries. Mainly, though, the film is about deceit and honesty — the boundaries and limits of the latter, and the freedom it ultimately affords. And it’s here that Roberts and Owen (a man born to wear linen suits) excel, capturing the inner head-games of two smooth, natural-born deceivers who are trying to reconcile their basic mutual attraction and problematic personal lives with the very impulses, namely distrust and doubt, that make them such valuable professional assets. In this regard, Duplicity might be called a romantic procedural, because in the end it’s less about the sizzle-chemistry of its stars than the moods and tones of first falling under love’s sway. All that money? Big stakes, for sure. What the heart wants? Even bigger stakes. For the full review, from H Magazine, click here. (Universal, PG-13, 118 minutes)

I Love You, Man

Film Reviews

He wrote and directed 1998’s Safe Men, which played at the Sundance Film Festival, but it was filmmaker John Hamburg’s rewrite of the 2000 mega-hit Meet the Parents, and subsequent work with Ben Stiller, which brought him fame and industry clout, and his since formed the thematic spine of his work. That same heavy, mostly unleavened affinity for serial masculine debasement has charted the course of Hamburg’s career, and, for better and worse, it’s all over I Love You, Man, his first feature-length film behind the camera since 2004’s Along Came Polly.

I Love You, Man, an unhinged “bromance” about a betrothed young professional who embarks on a wild quest to find a best man for his upcoming nuptials, has the sun-ripened benefit of excellent casting, and the good sense to let its charming players carp and needle one another in loose, lived-in ways. It also feels willfully crude, though, with its relationships defined as broadly as possible, and in ways that don’t allow for a full-bodied exploration of the film’s rich conceit.

After Los Angeles real estate agent Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) proposes to his girlfriend Zooey (Rashida Jones, above right) he’s stung and slightly unnerved to realize that his family’s teasing about him never really having a male best friend is at its core true. Not wanting to come across as overly clingy to Zooey or her friends, Peter tries to extend his social network by going on some “man dates,” several of which are arranged by his gay younger brother Robbie (Andy Samberg). He eventually meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segal), an oafish Venice Beach day-trader who expands Peter’s calendar of activities and allows him to reconnect to an avocational passion for music, even as his coarse manner helps create new problems between Peter and Zooey.

I Love You, Man‘s premise is modern, and brilliant; it could easily be used to delve substantively into the new, post-feminist (evolving? constricting? wounded?) male psyche. But the film eschews anything too complicated or dark, like either Peter not succeeding in his friendship quest, or Sydney turning out to have clingy, Cable Man-esque sociopathic tendencies of his own. The resulting laughs are the difference between pleasant surface engagement and a gratification to which you can return, something that feels built for the long haul, and rooted in reality. The cameo inclusion of Lou Ferrigno — who more or less acquits himself, as a home-selling client of Peter’s — feels forced, and as the movie wears on there’s massive drag in the second and third acts. With its watered-down, Fire in the Belly-type lessons, I Love You, Man is on some level the thirtysomething white dude equivalent of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, expect with a pinch more sex talk.

What most connects in I Love You, Man are the bits that aren’t afraid to not be funny to certain groups of people. Just as The 40-Year-Old Virgin wasn’t afraid to dis Coldplay or bizarrely name-check Kelly Clarkson, Hamburg’s movie summons up Dana Carvey’s decades-old “Church Lady” sketch, has some fun at the expense of The Princess Bride, and features a dog named Anwar Sadat. Of course, it also features a sequence with the projectile vomiting of chili. That’s the sort of lowest-common-denominator Hollywood concession that pays for the conceptual noodling, I guess, but it also makes I Love You, Man at least a bit less easy to love. (DreamWorks, R, 105 minutes)

Bunnytown: Hello Bunnies!

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Bunnytown: Hello Bunnies! is not the sort of “as-seen-on-TV!” title advertised on Comedy Central at 2 a.m. (In other words, no, it’s not these sorts of Bunnies, or any of their brethren.) So it’s not necessarily in my personal wheelhouse. Yet empirical research, in the form of forced viewings with two target-demo kids, confirms that the DVD is a pleasing mix of color and sound for the pre-adolescent mind.

A hit Playhouse Disney series, Bunnytown is a collection of
colorful puppet characters, silly skits and groovy, original music combined
with lessons about sharing, teamwork and perseverance. This DVD compiles four episodes of the show: “Hello Bunnies,” “Bunny-a-Go-Go,” “Bumblin’ Bunnies” and “G’Day Bunnies.” This allows tyke viewers to sail the seas with Pirate Bunnies, watch Super Bunny save the “Crunchy Carrot Festival” from the unibrowed Lil’ Bad Bunny and his Carrot Picker 3.0, and soar through the galaxy with Space Bunny as they go about their musical day. Pleasingly, for both kids as well as parents who might not have the same tolerance for the repeat viewings bound to ensue upon purchase, the musical numbers run the gamut with respect to genre, touching on rock ‘n’ roll, country, bluegrass and even disco music. The puppet characters are fuzzy and appealing and the voicework is all chipper and peppy, which mitigates the telegraphed moralizing of the age-appropriate dialogue. For colorful entertainment with a solid message, Bunnytown: Hello Bunnies! makes the solid Easter gift.

Housed in a regular Amaray plastic case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Bunnytown: Hello Bunnies! is presented in a 1.33:1 full screen aspect ratio, with Dolby digital sound tracks in both English and Spanish. DVD bonus features consist of an interactive ”Bunny Dance” segment, in which residents of Bunnytown and the Bunny Band use silhouetted dance moves to teach viewers how to dance; a multiple-choice-style game, entitled “It’s That Time Again,” which spotlights segments with King Fluffy the Forth and Jester Bunny; and an exclusive sneak peek of the all-new Disney Mickey Mouse Clubhouse movie Mickey’s Adventure in Wonderland. For what it’s worth, there’s also an outside cover sticker good for a free plush bunny (minus only a
$2.49 shipping and handling charge) with the purchase of the DVD. So be ready to surreptitiously remove that notice if you’ve already reached your household limit on stuffed animals. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Show) B- (Disc)

The Edge of Love

Film Reviews

The presence of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas as a carousing lead character gives The Edge of Love some edge and verve to which it otherwise wouldn’t and couldn’t rightly lay claim, but the film overall still never truly sets sail. It’s a gorgeously shot, grand romantic misfire.

Written by Sharman Macdonald and directed by John Maybury, the movie is, at its core, a World War II-set love quadrangle melodrama centering around Thomas (Matthew Rhys), his wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller), Thomas’ childhood pal Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley)
and a soldier, William Killick (Cillian Murphy), who slowly insinuates his way
into Vera’s heart. It opens in the London underground during the air blitz of 1940, where Vera croons torch songs to help steel the resolve of passersby. She and Thomas reconnect, and some hyper-literate flirting over cigarettes ensues; naturally, because he’s a roguish cad, Thomas fails to mention the fact that he’s married, and even has a kid.

Not that it matters, really. Though domesticity and the decisions that it foists upon folks are in theory thematically in play here, since The Edge of Love spans several years, the laxness and intellectual dishonesty with which they’re handled makes for plenty of eye-rolling and awkwardness. When Vera eventually yields to William’s amorous advances — just before he goes off to war — she gets pregnant, which leads to she, Caitlin and Dylan eventually moving back to Wales, where grey-skies moping and infidelity ever-so-predictably follows.

There are bits and pieces of intrigue here, chiefly in what Maybury puts under the
microscope, and most particularly the parallel notion of homefront (i.e., “non-heroic”) men
grappling with returning veterans, who themselves are
grappling with re-entry into society at large. The love stories and all
the romantic friction, though — the vast majority of the movie, both in substance and in terms of what drives the movie’s tone — feels poorly sketched, melodramatic and leaden. I also couldn’t wrap my head around a character
like Caitlin, and why she would permit (and even encourage) an
emotional infidelity between her husband and putative best friend, and then retain any legitimate sense of
shock/betrayal when things got physical. That is one of a couple key incongruities in Macdonald’s screenplay.

I previously branded the film as seemingly spliced together from outtakes of The End of the Affair and Atonement, which actually gives it nominal credit for a scope and grandeur that it doesn’t really achieve. Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamenti provides another characteristically lush and beckoning score, but this isn’t even really a movie for the Danielle Steele set. The Edge of Love is a bit too arty and concerned with quasi-historical detail to catch fire as a romance (doomed or otherwise), and it’s too yawningly familiar in its major chord plotting to set sail as a honest character ensemble. (Capitol Films/BBC, R, 111 minutes)

Elegy

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

A carefully observed autumnal character study loosely in the vein of 2007’s Starting Out in the Evening, Elegy is based on a novel by Philip Roth, and directed by Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me). The film charts the relationship between a celebrated, notably indepedent and emotionally distant college professor, David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley), and Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz),
a gorgeous student who punctures his wry, protective veneer. As their
affair ignites, frays and recommences, Kepesh must come to grips with
the possibility of a deeper love — something with which he’s never felt comfortable.

I initially felt that Elegy, as adapted by The Human Stain screenwriter Nicholas Meyer, with undulating rhythms that alternate between gallop and yawn, wasn’t quite built to cover as much narrative ground as it does, even at 112 minutes. Upon a second viewing, though, the ambition of its narrative roots feels much more firmly anchored and deeply etched; this is an intimate and quietly engaging film, and one perhaps made for the confines of a small, dimly lit den, with a glass of wine. The major leg up that Elegy has on
a lot of thematically similar tales of power-imbalanced romance is that
Kepesh is of course a very literate and self-aware figure, so we enjoy
an articulated sense of inner turmoil, of how one no-strings-attached lover (Patricia
Clarkson) is merely a comfortable point of carnal contact with past
self-confidence, while a similar arrangement with Consuela scares him
so. In fact, despite the fact that he’s had more than 50 lovers to her five, Kepesh becomes preoccupied with her sexual past.

Even as he takes the advice of a fellow ladies man and colleague (Dennis Hopper), and pushes Consuela away, Kepesh can’t locate peace, or centeredness. Part of the reason stems from his estranged
relationship with his married son (Peter Sarsgaard), who feels
compelled to act out in the same ways that his father did years before.
The performances here are committed and quietly engaging
(Cruz does wonders with her eyes), and Coixet, serving as her own camera operator, beautifully captures
the lingering, jangled spaces between all parties, and how even the
most intelligent among us can build up a justification for walls of
isolation.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Elegy comes presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English subtitles that can of course be utilized in conjunction with the disc’s audio commentary track with screenwriter Meyer. Though marked by long passages of silence, Meyer is a smart guy and his commentary showcases his thoughtfulness, especially when he discusses how he picked a title to capture “the movie version of the novel,” and how it grapples with coming to terms with age. Meyer also confesses he’s not typically interested in traditional plot hooks so much as “people trying to figure out which way is up, and how to just live.”

The only other bonus supplement is a five-minute making-of featurette comprised of brief interview clips with Coixet and the stars, with Kingsley solemnly intoning, “Love, loss, age, jealousy — we’re here to define words that get very lazily used.” This is a half-notch above your typical EPK-type featurette, mainly due to the insightfulness of its contributors, but overall there’s still more disc input needed from Kingsley, Cruz and Coixet. Rounding things out are previews for Volver, Breaking Bad, I’ve Loved You So Long, The Lodger, Fragments, What Doesn’t Kill You and other Sony home video titles. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Bolt Director Speaks Out

Amusements, Interviews

In advance of its DVD bow, the director of the show-within-the-show from Bolt speaks out…

Question: Can you tell us exactly what a television director does?

Answer: A director is the top dog on a television show. He’s the person in charge, the person who everyone reports to. He’s also the guy the network comes to when things go wrong with a show.

Q: Sounds like it’s a very important job…

A: Oh, it is. I’m in charge of everything from the look of a show to the casting of actors and animals.

Q: How would you describe your star dog, Bolt, and his TV show?

A: Bolt is the greatest superhero on television. He has amazing super powers including super speed and super strength. He’s always saving a girl called Penny from the evil clutches of Dr. Calico. It’s an amazing show.

Q: There’s a rumor going around that folks from the network have been to see you recently…

A: Really? Who told you that? Have you been snooping around or something? Well, you’re right. Mindy Parker from the network came down to the studio recently. Oh, Mindy. Poor, poor Mindy. I didn’t like her one bit. She didn’t have a clue about the show or the dog.

Q: And what did Mindy say?

A: She told me that 18-35 year-olds weren’t very happy with the show. The network didn’t like the way that we weren’t appealing to that age group, so they asked us to make some changes. They wanted more drama and said the show was predictable. How outrageous!

Q: So you didn’t like her comments?

A: I didn’t like them one bit. How dare she come into my edit suite and talk to me like that! She didn’t know a thing about Bolt. She didn’t even know that he doesn’t even realize he’s in a television show.

Q: What do you mean by that?

A: Bolt thinks his powers are real. He doesn’t know he’s the star of a TV show.We jump through hoops to make sure he believes everything he sees is real. That’s why we don’t miss marks. That’s why we don’t re-shoot. And that’s why we most definitely don’t let the dog see a boom mike, which is something that happened recently. If the dog believes it, the audience believes it. That’s the key to our success.

Q: And did Mindy agree with you?

A: Mindy didn’t care. All she wanted to see were increases in viewing figures and that’s it. Mindy didn’t care for the dog. She just thinks of him as any other animal, but I don’t.

Q: What do you see when you look at Bolt then?

A: I see an animal who believes with every fiber of his being, every fiber, that the girl he loves is in mortal danger. I see a depth of emotion on the face of that canine that has never been seen on the small screen before.

Q: You sound very passionate about the dog, and the show.

A: That’s because I’m the director! I put my heart and soul into this project, and I’ll be damned if a network executive like Mindy Parker is going to ruin my show. I’ll make sure she doesn’t if it’s the last thing I do!

Bolt releases on DVD on March 24. To purchase it via Amazon, click here.

Too-Late Notice on French Heartbreaker Ponette

Irritations, Musings, Screenings

An email from the French Embassy’s Los Angeles Film and TV Office landed in my inbox this morning, with an invitation to a screening of Jacques Doillon’s Ponette… held on March 6. Further ignoring the fact that it was in Valencia, I really wish this invite had arrived, you know, in advance of the actual screening, since Doillon was there in person.

An arresting bereavement drama refracted through the eyes of a little girl, this film is an absolute heartbreaker, and features one of if not the most affecting child performance I’ve ever seen. Victoire Thivisol (look at that face!) plays 4-year-old Ponette, who must come to terms with grief following the death of her mother in a car accident. She gets little sympathy and support from her atheistic father, who just dumps her with her aunt while, wrapped up in his own denial and anger, he goes back to work. Ponette’s aunt and her young friends confuse her with a mixture of religion and fantasy, to the point she ends up believing that her mother will soon be coming back to visit her.

It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie, and though I don’t at all doubt its staying power, I do ponder whether this is a case of actual performance, or just deeply superb, marionette strings manipulation-as-direction. Thivisol won the Best Actress Award at the 1996 Venice Film Festival, but four years old is awfully young, and the movie, largely in the contrast drawn between Ponette and her father, has a lot of substance to say about so-called truths that crumble into uncertainties when adults are called upon to try to explain them to children. It’s for this reason that I would have loved to talk to Doillon.

Wuthering Heights

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

One of the most celebrated 19th century romance novels of all time,
and still a staple of many high school reading curricula, Wuthering Heights — or Withering Heights, as a kid in my class once knew it — is also frequently tackled for adaptation on stage and screen, in ways that often don’t do much justice to the original source material. New to DVD, Masterpiece Theatre’s presentation thankfully gets right Emily Brontë’s classic love story, in ways both large and small.

Starring Tom Hardy (The Virgin Queen, RocknRolla) as Heathcliff and newcomer Charlotte Riley as Cathy, this intense, two-and-a-half-hour production will have romantics swooning. As adapted by Peter Bowker and directed by Coky Giedroyc, it’s a nicely mounted, attractively costumed and photographed production, and the lead performances both adequately capture the all-consuming nature of commingled lust and love. Set against the stark beauty of the English moor, the story, of course, centers around mysterious gypsy boy Heathcliff, who’s adopted by the well-to-do Earnshaw family. There, Heathcliff discovers his soulmate in the form of his stepsister, Cathy. She returns his passion, but Cathy also frets and fears over his future (the modern phrase would be “earnings potential,” I reckon), so much so that she marries another man for his wealth. Unable to have the love of his life, Heathcliff sets out to amass his own fortune, seeking to reclaim Cathy or bring vengeance and misery against anyone who comes between them. His actions eventually drive a heartbroken Cathy to an early grave, only further shattering Heathcliff’s heart.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Wuthering Heights comes to DVD on a region-one disc, presented in anamorphic widescreen. There are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features included here, which is a shame — even a brief, quickly slapped together talking-head-type biographical featurette on Brontë would have further shined a light on the material, and probably helped save at least one little kid out there somewhere from mangling the title. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. To order the DVD directly from WGBH Boston Video, meanwhile, phone (800) 949-8670 or click here. B+ (Movie) D+ (Disc)

Away We Go Trailer Conjures Beautiful Melancholy

Trailer Watch

It looks like John Krasinski’s Jarhead cameo paid off, since he’s starring opposite Maya Rudolph in Sam Mendes’ next film, Away We Go, the trailer of which is now online. It’s melancholic summer counter-programming (Focus Features, June 5, platforming), and talk about being of a piece with the depressed times — the movie tells the story of two expectant thirtysomethings trying to establish some sense of rootedness as they get ready to bring a kid into the world despite being gripped by ennui and panic at all the examples of stability, interpersonal and otherwise, around them. I’m sure bittersweet and quiet, to-scale uplift are the target, but there’s palpable pain here, and it seems like a match with the current zeitgeist. The trailer feels like the filmic equivalent of Bedlam’s “Harvest Moon,” something “true” and unfussy and muted, like Garden State and All the Real Girls, or like Junebug and The Great New Wonderful wanted to be.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Happy-Go-Lucky, from writer-director Mike Leigh, unfolds in the British director’s signature improvisational style, whereby the script is whittled down into naturalistic shape via several weeks of intensive rehearsal, and collaboration between the actors and filmmaker. For some of Leigh’s movies that works well (Secrets and Lies), for others (Topsy-Turvy) not so much. Happy-Go-Lucky, thankfully, is much more a case of the former. An effervescent comedy that finds delightful friction in its indulgence of polar opposite personalities, the movie serves as a star-making vehicle for Sally Hawkins, who earned a Best Actress Golden Globe
Award for her joyful star turn as Poppy, a peppy,
irrepressibly free-spirited teacher with an infectious laugh and an
unshakably positive outlook on life.

Leigh’s Oscar-nominated screenplay centers around London school teacher Poppy, who approaches every day with an optimism and bubbly, rib-nudging joy that is absolutely unshakable… and also can be a bit annoying. When the bicycle she commutes to work on is stolen, Poppy simply signs up for driving lessons. Her squat, East End-bred teacher, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is a fuming, uptight cynic whose swallowed anger and simmering exasperation comes to a boil in a series of clench-jawed tutorials and hilariously inappropriate episodes of road rage. They are a terrible match, in every sense of the word, and the divide only deepens when Scott comes to bitterly regard a potential suitor in Poppy’s life. Is solemness a requisite for emotional maturation, a necessary component of functional adulthood? Poppy’s disdainful, pregnant sister seems to think so, but neither she, Scott, a fiery flamenco instructor nor a classroom bully can seemingly change this happy-go-lucky gal’s glass-half-full worldview.

While Poppy perhaps skirts the edge of annoyance as a character that we would want a part of our everyday lives in the real world, she’s also entirely recognizable, and real — her behavior stems and flows from rooted emotions, and makes sense scene to scene. In that regard, it doesn’t matter whether one really “likes” Poppy, only that they recognize in her struggles the very personal and proactive application of joy as a weapon — something to keep the weight of negative emotions at bay — as well as something that keeps her in a state of arrested development. As counterbalance, Marsan gives good, sputtering rage. And, thankfully, Leigh doesn’t push down hard on the life-affirming stuff. Joy may not be able to be contrived, but at the same time it’s true that mood influences surroundings, and Happy-Go-Lucky winningly showcases both maxims.

Housed on a single disc in a regular plastic Amaray case, Happy-Go-Lucky is presented in 2:35:1 widescreen with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. The DVD’s bonus features are anchored by a feature-length audio commentary track from Leigh, who is amiable and chatty, but not a prisoner to over-explanation. The vast majority of his thoughts are confined to the world of the film rather than its production, but Leigh also isn’t afraid to take a knee and let some silence speak for him, or simply pose questions as to possible different meanings/motivations of what’s unfolding on screen. Those who know and appreciate the filmmaker’s work will especially find reward in this track.

Running roughly 30 minutes, “Happy in Character” charts the making of the movie in more explicitly anecdotal, nuts-and-bolts fashion, with Leigh and the cast discussing the characters and story, and creation and winnowing process of the film; Leigh is his usual hyper-articulate self, and Hawkins especially comes off as a charmer here. There’s also a shorter, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the film’s “studio on wheels,” since so many of Happy-Go-Lucky‘s crucial scenes take place in a car, and in actual London traffic. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; for an interview with Leigh, meanwhile, click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Aero Hosts Advance Adventureland Screening

Screenings

Just in advance of its nationwide theatrical bow, the Aero Theatre will host a special advance screening of Superbad director Greg Mottola’s Adventureland — a coming-of-age film drawn from his own young adult experiences — on Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. Set in the summer of 1987, the film centers around recent college grad James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg, above left), who’s forced to take a lowly job at a local amusement park to make ends meet. Luckily for James, what should have been his worst summer ever turns into quite an adventure as he discovers love with his captivating co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart), and learns to loosen up.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for this movie, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM. For more information on Adventureland, which opens March 27 from Miramax, visit its web site by clicking here.

Miss March

Film Reviews

Those figuring that they’d seen every possible screen-featured mangled male genital sight-gag receive quite the surprise in Miss March, the co-directorial debut of multi-hyphenates Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, co-founders of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know, and its same-named IFC television show.

Basically a teen sex road comedy recasting of Dumb & Dumber, the film centers around two high school friends — sensible, sensitive good guy Eugene Bell (Cregger) and his crass, wild-eyed pal Tucker Cleigh (Moore, above left). His older brother’s life having been ruined in exaggerated fashion by premarital sex, Eugene has taken a pledge of abstinence until marriage. His girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi, above center), however, is getting a bit antsy, so Eugene promises that on prom night they’ll do the deed. Before he can seal the deal, however, Eugene takes a tumble down a staircase and ends up in a coma.

Cut to four years later. Tucker, who has since hooked up with Candace (Molly Stanton), an epileptic high school classmate who previously wouldn’t give him the time of day, wakes up Eugene with a baseball bat to the head, and shortly thereafter discovers that the previously virginal Cindi is a Playmate. Seeking “closure” and/or sex for his pal, Tucker convinces Eugene that a drive across the country to the Playboy Mansion is a good idea, so off they go. For help in gaining access to Hugh Hefner’s pad, Tucker turns to a former high school classmate turned superstar rapper (Craig Robinson, above right) who insistently goes by the moniker Horsedick.MPEG, a phrase I’m more than a bit leery of Googling. After all sorts of zany misadventures, and being chased by Candace’s murderously vengeful fireman brother (don’t ask), the fellas end up in Beverly Hills, reconnecting with Cindi and discovering a bit about themselves in the process.

Following on the heels of The House Bunny, Miss March is the second movie in the past year to which Playboy magnate Hefner has lent his image and branded lifestyle, and it’s easily the lesser of the two projects, I’m afraid — and not only because of the fact that you can clearly see him reading cue cards during a long monologue in his cameo as a mentor to Tucker. The comedy here is overwhelmingly of the willfully crude male-fantasy variety, with Horsedick.MPEG’s party bus shenanigans and misogynistic rap anthems, and super-horny lesbians picking up the hitchhiking guys, explaining that they need someone to drive their car so that they can suck and fuck each other in the back seat without losing any travel time. This would work a bit better if it were more smoothly integrated as ironic counterpoint, but the movie’s female characters are all so wholly underdeveloped that it brings a few scenes to a screeching halt.

Miss March‘s anarchic tone and wholehearted embrace of straight-faced obliviousness — especially by Moore, who employs a hairstyle that looks like it belongs at a medieval-themed restaurant, and righteously channels early-era Jim Carrey — recalls Dumb & Dumber, as mentioned. In this sense, the movie works as a fairly harmless, double-f rental laffer for its wheelhouse demographic. But, having refashioned the script from a story idea credited to Dennis Haggerty, Ryan Homchick and Thomas Mimms, Cregger and Moore’s directorial chops aren’t slick enough to mask either limited production means and/or scenes that are open-ended, and not self-contained. Additionally, there isn’t a rigorous enough application of the movie’s own interior logic: At first Eugene, his muscles atrophied, can’t walk or even control his bowels (yes, explosive defecation gets the comedic-rule-of-three treatment), but later he’s more or less fine. Playing this stumble-bum physical malady for laughs is perfectly legitimate within the context of the outrageous premise, but doing so only partially, until it’s convenient to discard, undercuts the rest of the wild tone of heightened absurdity.

Oh, and the genital joke? Well, far be it from me to ruin things, but, in the tradition of There’s Something About Mary and the recent Step Brothers, it involves a prosthetic. And a straw. If your curiosity is irreversibly piqued, then Miss March might indeed be for you. (Fox Searchlight, R, 89 minutes)

The Last House on the Left

Film Reviews

A commercially streamlined remake of horror magnate Wes Craven’s nasty,
low-budget 1972 original, The Last House on the Left can’t decide
whether it wants to play it straight and grim, or dash headlong into
over-the-top cathartic vigilantism. The moderately executed result
holds sway for half its running time before plot potholes and clashing
tonalities cause the movie to come grinding to a halt.

Buoyed by a stronger pedigree and easily graspable vengeful hook, The Last House on the Left has more ably defined marketing muscle than a similarly brutish box office misfire like Captivity. Almost three years ago to the day, another remake of a Craven property, The Hills Have Eyes, opened to $15.7 million en route to a $69 million worldwide gross. Last year The Strangers, another horror film of rural besiegement, rung up over $81 million worldwide, including a robust $52.6 million Stateside. The Last House on the Left should track somewhere in between, translating smoothly to international genre audiences and also yielding significant pay-cable and DVD earnings.

The story finds 17-year-old Mari Collingwood (Sara Paxton) and her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac) joining shaggy-haired stranger and fellow teen Justin (Spencer Treat Clark) back at his hotel room for some premium-grade pot. Innocent fun quickly turns dark and terrifying when Justin’s father Krug (Garret Dillahunt), sprung from police custody by his girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome) and brother Francis (Aaron Paul), returns unexpectedly, and decides that Mari and Paige can’t be counted on for silence. A trek through the woods and an abortive escape attempt follow; Mari is eventually raped, shot and left to drown, but not before extracting a physical toll. As a howling storm approaches, Krug and his crew unwittingly seek refuge with the Collingwoods. When Mari finally crawls back home, her parents, John and Emma (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter), piece together the truth and take retribution.

Horror films of this sort — rooted in deplorable but recognizably human characters, not bionic killing machines — must locate and trade in polarities, and Greek director Dennis Iliadas (Hardcore), in his English-language debut, has no trouble capturing depravity. In fact, the movie’s opening showcases a desperate hurriedness to prove its degenerate bona fides — not content to merely kill him, Krug taunts a dying cop by showing the man a picture of his family as he strangles him.

But it’s not enough to simply contrast the outwardly idyllic and the nasty. There has to be a collision of latent yet deep-seated moralities, and as the film wears on the script lets Iliadas down. The bad characters all seem sketched by type — the quietly menacing ringleader, the psychopathic henchman, the reluctant innocent and a woman, the latter grouping much more intriguingly handled in The Strangers — and an unlikely brood outside of this monstrous set-up. The lack of care and depth granted the characters means the plot exists only to get us to the set-up for domestic blood-letting. Accordingly, The Last House on the Left feels caught between grim reality — as captured in its unflinching rape sequence — and the gory celebration of exaggerated vengeance, especially since the film extends the parameters of parental retribution present in Craven’s original. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Universal, R, 110 minutes)