Up in the Air flies high

Finally caught up with UP IN THE AIR, and with this film and THE FANTASTIC MR FOX George Clooney has been having quite a good year. This is his best yet, as his smooth, sarcastic, likable delivery really hits the mark. He plays a big time frequent flyer executive who travels around the country firing employees in corporations that are afraid to do it themselves. He tries to distance himself from the sadness and anger these fired people have toward their company, their job, and him by becoming non-caring and zombie-like in his relations to other people, until he meets someone nearly as unsensitized as he, and at the same time has to train a young executive who has a hard time becoming distanced from her job. The film, directed by Jason Reitman who also directed Thank You for Smoking, and Juno, is easy to watch, low-key in it's comedy and hits a lot of societal buttons ie. unemployment, air travel issues, loneliness, etc. My only criticism--the big twist near the end seemed pretty obvious to me--I'd been waiting for that moment an hour earlier. Still, it's a quality film with fine actors including over two dozen actual laid-off/fired workers being interviewed that adds a sense of poignancy and pathos to the story. There's something quite satisfying about a glib, high powered exec getting his comeuppance even if he's the likable George Clooney.

Cinematic Holiday Treats

IT'S COMPLICATED is the perfect holiday bubble of a film--delightful to watch, providing many laughs, but when it's over it nearly evaporates. It is not a perfect film, in fact rather predictable, except that Meryl Streep (see also The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Julie and Julia) is on hand to distract us from the sketchy and illogical plot. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She has no obvious accent this time, but just jitters and flutters and giggles in a cloying manner, and as she proved in Momma Mia, she knows how to have a good time on screen and has chemistry to spare with her co-stars. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are very likable, and John Krasinski manages to steal his few scenes as well. Like a chocolate covered cherry, it's lovely to look at, sweet and gooey to eat, then you feel slightly guilty for enjoying it, and realize there's not much nutritional value afterwards.
A big noisy likable film, the new SHERLOCK HOLMES is very entertaining, in spite of some lapses. The film makers want to have it both ways, trying to be faithful to the original text, and yet including state-of-the-arts technology with big special effects and chases and explosions. By the end they do come back to earth to explain everything in logical and time-appropriate measures. It's a bit messy and bombastic at times, but I enjoyed the chemistry of Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes, and Jude Law as Dr. Watson, and the music by Hans Zimmer is very unusual and distinctive, and the sets and costumes are a knock-out. My nearly 80 year old parents seemed to really enjoy the cleverness of the script and direction, but were complaining of being rather exhausted by the end. I know how they felt.
The Masterpiece Theatre-like production of YOUNG VICTORIA is a pleasant blend of good actors (Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Miranda Richardson et.al), strong production values, sumptuous costumes and sets, lush music and cinematography. What it doesn't have is a punch of an ending. It really just sort of stops, which is a disappointing way to end a perfectly acceptable version of Queen Victoria's early years.
A dvd choice this week was ELF (2003) with Will Farrell, because it was a Christmas themed film, and we were desperate, although ELF does have many fans. I want to like it more than I do. It's heart is in the right place, and there are many enjoyable and amusing scenes (it's your basic fish out of water story, where Santa's overgrown -and very human- elf spends a week before Christmas in New York City disrupting the lives of his long lost father and the Santa room at Gimbals department store). The film seems rather lame and lazy to me at other times--but go ahead and see it with low expectations.
The TCM (Turner Classic Movies) choices this week included back to back screenings of two Humphrey Bogart / Lauren Bacall movies, THE BIG SLEEP and DARK PASSAGE. (TCM has NO commercial breaks.) I've seen THE BIG SLEEP(1946) several times, and always enjoy the complicated maneuverings of a detective being deceived on nearly all sides while the body count climbs and the bullets fly. Every time I see it I think I'm going to follow it so closely that I will be able to make sense of the complex plot, but always to no avail. It's all clever lines and moody,smoking chemistry. A pleasant surprise is DARK PASSAGE(1947) where Bogart hides out in Bacall's apartment during recovery of a face change operation--he's an escaped con trying to prove his innocence and she's an old friend who always believed he was innocent. The plot is a bit awkward in the set-up--you don't see Bogart's face for the first half until the bandages come off--and some of the action is arbitrary, but there is that tension that is developed by the personal interactions of the stars (and a delicious bit by Agnes Moorehead), and that, along with the ubiquitous Meryl Streep, accounts for a lot these days.

Avatar a Heavenly Vision in 3D

AVATAR in 3D is worth the $15.50 per ticket that Seattle theatres are charging, and the 3D process is very smooth and advanced. During the screening I caught, when the credits first appear it looks like the name is suspended in the center of the theatre, and the audience oohed and aahhhhed and many held up their hands as if to touch the suspended title, like a heavenly vision. Plot wise, AVATAR borrows heavily from Dances With Wolves and others where a stranger is immersed in another culture to learn about it and then change or destroy it, but ends up going "native" and stays to help that culture survive the advances of the "white man." This time the setting is in outer space, and the creatures of this beautiful and mysterious planet are in tune with nature, friendly and intelligent, and as usual it's the United States military machine that is the stubborn, willful aggressor that wants to mine a valuable mineral out of the soil that the creatures live on top of. Director James Cameron knows how to tell an effective and exciting story (Terminator 1 and 2, Titanic), the music is smooth and subtle, the actors are appropriate and the action is edited tightly. The special effects are seamless. So when you figure that this is the best 3D film technique ever, and it places you in a completely unique world, and it is totally engrossing, then that $15.50 can be justified. I'd rather pay a lot to see something of quality than $10.50 to see a POS (piece of s***).
My dvd library rental this week was a curious telling of H.Rider Haggard's novel, KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1936) with Roland Young, Cedric Hardwicke, and the great Paul Robeson, who in spite of his subservient role, actually gets to belt out about 4 spiritual-like hymns, and ends up king of a lost tribe. He has a great, rich baritone/bass voice and manages to steal the movie from his co stars. It's your basic adventure story of the quest for the lost and forbidden treasures of King Solomon's mine---a story that has been used again and again, notably in most of the INDIANA JONES movies, with obviously better special effects. Apparently the filming was on South African locales, and there's a cast of thousands of actual Zulu warriors. It's not bad and very watchable for an older film.

Bad Billy Wilder, Good Disney Frog, and Watch out for Meryl

I've often thought to myself, "there's not a single Billy Wilder movie that I dislike." Even the lessor known films I've really loved, like THE SECRET LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, BUDDY BUDDY, LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, AVANTI, and ONE TWO THREE. This director has created some of my favorite films---SOME LIKE IT HOT, STALAG 17, SUNSET BOULEVARD, THE APARTMENT, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, SEVEN YEAR ITCH, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, etc.... So it is with some dismay that I have to declare that I really disliked a Billy Wilder movie called KISS ME STUPID(1964), even though it was written w/ I.A.L Diamond, has songs by George and Ira Gershwin, and features the normally talented Kim Novak, Ray Walston and Dean Martin (!) The movie made me wince, again, and again. It was smarmy, silly without much wit, and nearly unbelievable. Somewhere down there was a clever idea, but it was played so broadly that it made me want to turn it off.....
Fortunately, the good film of the week is Disney's newest THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, which was delightful in many ways, especially because the lead character is BLACK! although you might not know it from looking at the ads in the paper. And unfortunately, she is turned into a green frog for more than half the movie. Still, small steps are better than no steps (leaps?).
This week I also saw some clunkers that will open in January (the worst being WHEN IN ROME, and also EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES--better, but...) so will write more (or less) about them when they open. Fortunately, they were offset with the funny but flawed new Meryl Streep film IT'S COMPLICATED which opens on Christmas Day! Can Meryl do no wrong? Thankfully not.

It's a Wonderful Movie, still

This week the dvd selections were all good and diverse and all in glorious black and white. First up I watched SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING(1960) with Albert Finney and Rachel Roberts. It was Finney's first big role and what a blast off for his career (see also Tom Jones, Two for the Road and Scrooge from 1970). He plays an angry young man who works hard all week long in the factory, then blows it all off on the weekend with his two girlfriends (one an older married woman) and lots of booze. At times it was a bit grim, but the actors keep it real, and even though some of the plot seemed predictable, it was very watchable.
Every year I watch at least two or three Hitchcock films, and this week was YOUNG AND INNOCENT(1937) which I hadn't seen for over 20 years. It has the typical Hitchcock theme where a young man is accused of a murder he didn't commit, then must elude police while trying to figure out who really did do the murder. He is assisted by the pretty young daughter of the police chief, who falls in love with him. The mood is light and humorous and the film is entertaining (if forgettable), but there are a couple of very interesting scenes. One works like an action film when a car is falling down a crevasse in an abandoned mine and the three people in it are trying to save themselves and each other. The other is a long dolly crane shot that lasts nearly 2 minutes, as the camera starts high, then swoops down through the crowd of dancers in a hotel ballroom to finally move into a closeup of the killer's face and eyes--a remarkable shot for its time. YOUNG AND INNOCENT has been reconstructed and cleaned up in a beautiful, newly struck print that looks pristine in the new (last year) collection called "Alfred Hitchcock--Premiere Collection" which features newly struck prints of The Lodger, Sabotage, The Paradine Case, Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound and Notorious--all looking like they just came out of the can the year they were first shown in theatres. Well worth looking at.
To kick off the holiday season, movie wise, I watched IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE(1946) with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, which I hadn't seen for at least six years when I made my then 14 year old niece watch it when I was baby-sitting her siblings one night before Christmas. She was a bit annoyed with the first scenes, but ended up really liking it. This film, I think, gets better with age. It still has that annoying first five minutes of corn where it looks like two twinkling stars (representing angels) talk to each other--enough to put off anyone--but once the story kicks in, there's enough cynical, sarcastic realism to combat the sentimentality of the piece. And Jimmy Stewart is incredible. In no other film does he scream, cry, swoon, woo, and despair so effectively. The rest of the cast is equally memorable. If you haven't seen it in a while, you'll be amazed at how dense the plot and characterizations are, and if you've never seen it, what a treat you have in store for you. One of my favorite scenes ever--Stewart and Reed are both cheek to cheek on the same phone call from a mutual obnoxious friend, and in spite of their anger and annoyance with each other, the attraction is there. Stewart drops the phone and screams that he is never getting married, he's not staying in Bedford Falls, he's quitting the Savings and Loan, you can't make him, and all the while he's shaking Reed violently, and then they tussle and kiss and hug---- violently..... It's still the BEST CHRISTMAS themed film, ever.

Brothers and Fantastic Mr Fox top films this week

Chronologically, I started the week (Sunday 29 November) with a repeat viewing of what I think will be one the the year's best films, PRECIOUS, and I'm happy to say it lived up to a second view....it's still strong, startling and very well made and acted. After a late lunch at The Deluxe on Broadway, the three of us went to see THE FANTASTIC MR FOX with voices by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray, and it is one of the damnedest "kids" movie ever--in fact, I don't think that kids would really get it or appreciate it, but the adults sure were laughing. Roald Dahl wrote the book and Wes Anderson directed it (along with his previous winners RUSHMORE, THE LIFE AQUATIC with STEVE ZISSOU, and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS)in a sardonic and ironic style, which adds to it's charm. If you like your 2D cartoons with creatures who act like animals, smoke and drink and thieve, and say witty things, then you'll enjoy FMF.
THE MAID played at SIFF last May and even though I was not bored, I found the film rather pedantic. Fortunately, the lead actress is gung-ho as a domestic who is beloved by her employer family, yet due to some physical (or mental) illness, becomes increasingly paranoid about her position, and when a succession of new help is hired to assist her, she drives them off with petty and exasperating hi jinks. Fun to watch, but not very cinematically adventurous.
EVERYBODY'S FINE is a remake of an Italian Marcello Mastroianni film from several years ago, remade to fit Robert De Niro, as a father who feels neglected when his four adult kids all cancel for a family reunion dinner, so he sets out around the country to visit them all one by one. There are obviously some big secrets that are uncovered, and some fences that need mending, and to its credit, the film has a lovely finale that is quite emotional, but getting to that point, it's bland and slow. It's also predictable. If his kids weren't such liars in the first place there'd be no film. I wish that were true. If you are desperate for a teary eyed film that ends at a Christmas reunion, then you might enjoy it. Otherwise, forget it.
The best new film this week turned out to be BROTHERS, another remake of a Danish film from a few years ago that has one brother (the "good" one) played by Tobey (Spiderman) Mcguire, going off to war in Afghanistan and leaving behind his loving wife Natalie (V for Vendetta)Portman, and his "bad" brother just back from prison, played by Jake (Brokeback Mountain) Gyllenhaal. The good and the bad get mighty blurred by the end. The TV spots for this film would have you believe this is a tale of infidelity, sexual jealousy and revenge. In reality it is a very intense and honest portrayal of the horrors of war, the pain of separation, the loss of loved ones during war-time, and the difficulty of readjustment to civilian life for returning soldiers. It is a fine and important film, possibly one the year's top films.
My library dvd find of the week is NINELIVES (2004)--basically 9 short films, all about women in transitional or climactic dramatic peaks in their lives, and each story shot in one 10-14 minute take (no cutting or editing). There is a large and dynamic cast which includes Aidan Quinn, Sissy Spacek, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Holly Hunter, and others. Sometimes it is hard to invest emotionally in so many different characters and stories, but each is quite different and unique and each strikes a different dramatic punch. I especially liked the first one with Elpidia Carrillo as an inmate who has a breakdown when a technicality denies her a visit from her child, a middle one where two ex-lovers (Jason Isaacs and Robin Wright Penn) meet in a grocery store and try or not to pick up where they left off several years earlier, and the last one with Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning as a mother and daughter who spend an afternoon picnic at the grave site of --well, let's save that shock for the viewer to discover.