MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON. L'amour? Not sure!

Usually the purpose of a love story is the empathetic pleasure derived from the natural melting of boundaries between the audience and the lovers, in that we are encouraged to feel everything that the characters are feeling, and it makes us feel good.
Here, in this dreary little French film (that's sold as a modern day BRIEF ENCOUNTER), it’s actively discouraged. In fact, virtually all embellishment of emotions seems frowned on. It’s like a 70 year old stern nun with a stick up her arse directed this, and it’s as emotionally cold as a High Definition porn flick.
Yes, it’s clear that the creative choices of the director were to simply observe - a dispassionate static camera throughout - like a security camera that happened to catch pieces of information accidentally, and then pretended it wasn’t actually interested. The lovers say very little to each other – he’s an illiterate builder, she’s a chilly children’s teacher unable to set down roots anywhere, or even acknowlegde her emotions. When they’re together, they have minimal conversation, and it’s always about irrelevant surface level shit – like which CD you like listening to, and it leads to nothing meaningful. I wanted to jump into the screen and pull their underwear down, and force them to touch each other's naughty bits. It was THAT frustrating.
However, the aesthetic of the film IS frustration, so to deny my frustration might be selling it short. It reminded me a lot of Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR – a film about John Keats and poetry and romance, that was SO unromantic and dispassionate, it was like watching two insects slowly die of suffocation in a glass jar. The strange thing about this French flick was the definite 'style' of not lighting the characters in the scene – so you kind of have to find them every time. They are enmeshed in their surroundings – unable to escape. They blend in with the drab wallpapers, grey walls, and cluttered kitchens, unable to wrestle out a unique identity that might separate them from their environment. In a Hollywood movie, they would be so backlit, they would seem to walk on air, radiant like the Virgin Mary or some other airborne fantasy. And the camera would have definitely zoomed right in on the kiss (with a deafening violin surge) – but not here – we’re virtually excluded from it, in bizarre silence. It's almost embarassing. Ugh!
In fact, there’s no musical soundtrack to ‘steer’ the emotions in this film at all.
Creatively, the net effect of a film like this is curiosity. I was impressed with the audacity of the creative choices, though sometimes wondered if it was directorial laziness or extraordinary restraint. But ultimately these choices didn’t become greater than the sum of their parts – the movie feels hollow, undernourished and unsubstantial. In a porno, if you don’t get aroused, it’s a failure. In a love story, if you don’t feel emotionally transported, you’re just standing at the station, watching a train disappear into the distance, with your ticket in your hand. And that’s annoying.

INCEPTION

What can I say about this movie outside of the trillions of websites that will inevitably spring up trying to make sense of it? This movie will spawn its own religion.

And you know something – it’s a REALLY GOOD MOVIE. It has some flaws, but it’s meaty and makes you think for days afterward. Non-stop.

If you like your movies linear like a good Sherlock Holmes plot, turn around, and walk away, girlfriend! This movie is big, splashy, showy and all over the place. It feels like an abstract jigsaw puzzle carelessly strewn across a table - yet, at any given ‘sudden lockdown’ moment, this movie knows exactly where all the parts are, and how they relate to each other (though only repeated viewings will prove this to be true).

It’s reminiscent of THE MATRIX in lots of ways. A device to enter dreams must be physically present, and people must be plugged into it. Yet, once Nolan has the rules established, he entirely goes to town with them. I honestly had no idea what was going on for about 40-50% of the time, but if you stick with it and work HARD, it starts to answer questions you had about 15-20 minutes ago, while you’re busy processing the asteroids of new information hurtling at you, constantly. The net effect is like a two and a half hour rigorous enema – utterly exhausting, but not without its definite charms.

Nolan is back to his obsessive themes again – dealing with unfulfilled romantic love in an environment of unreliable memory, and the effects of ‘father-loss’. The entire movie is about Leo trying to get home and be a father again – yet his own father issues are complex and austere, and impinge upon his efficacy as a ‘successful’ grown up man.

Both women in this movie are wild cards – and yet the men are very clearly defined. The Ellen Page character while interesting, ultimately has no gravitas – it’s like she’s simply there for the cool ride, and for satisfying that box-office demographic. And when she tries to become an authority in Leo’s ‘marriage’, she makes no sense – like what does she know that can possibly help?? While we all love Ellen Page (who doesn’t?), it feels like much of her part in the film has already ended up on the cutting room floor to make the movie shorter, and so her motivations in scenes are sometimes unclear, and ultimately unsatisfying. And by the way, who is Tom Hardy? And where have they been hiding him? The most magnetic performance from a breathtakingly handsome man. WOW! Move over Daniel Craig - your number is up.

But, don’t resist - this movie is the MUST SEE of the summer. And please don’t criticize it because you don’t fully understand it the first time. Because YOU’RE NOT MEANT TO.

This film is aimed squarely at the video game generation, who relish the concept of being lost in something far greater than themselves, knowing in faith, that everything will make sense in the end. They want to be challenged. They want to have to see it again and again to gauge how clever they were the previous time. And Warner Brothers is totally depending on that!

IT'S COMPLICATED. So, that's what you call it!

If you're dying to see a movie about the filthy rich in Southern California (Santa Barbara, to be exact) encountering self-absorbed, self-induced 'problems' of self-perception, then this is THE movie for you. Actually, it's not that complicated - in fact, it's less complicated than High School Musical. However, it does have its pleasures. And a few good laughs too. This is probably a good movie to watch on an airplane.

And here's another foxy actress in her 60's (move over, Sigourney). Meryl Streep is in close up all the time, and quite a few body shots (no naughty bits) - looking still firmly in the dating game. Sexy.

And paired with a very naughty, utterly amoral Alec Baldwin, their scenes together are by far the best in the movie.

However, do we really care?

Here's Meryl with her Bakery empire, money is in constant unending supply like the gas pipe from Alaska, and she never hurts. Until one day, her harpie coffee-morning friends stick it to her that she may have everything but she doesn't have a man. Thereby starting the decline of a successful independent intelligent woman to a quivering self-doubting mess.

The movie posits that you're not 'really there' until you're successfully paired. There's always something that is impeding your true happiness.

At the start of the movie, she's experiencing empty-nest syndrome, and instead of scaling downwards like most normal people would (especially having put your kid through NYU.....hello!), she's building a Xanadu of new kitchens onto her sprawling hacienda, entirely for herself. That's a simple example of what's wrong with this movie. All of the people in it have this bizarre sense of entitlement, and the movie keeps on giving, without question. A visit to New York must have the entire family staying at the New York Regent. Why? Because it's so nice. Mere 'simple' parties at people's houses must be catered like Oscar nights, and nobody stops to notice HOW FUCKING PRIVILEGED THEY ARE, and the mexicans who work in the background are never seen. These poeple can't enjoy a life like this without the support of immigrant slavery - but here, everybody walks on air and there's no visible support. The smugness of the noblese oblige eventually creates distance (because they are SO protected from the great unwashed out there), and that distance makes us care less and less and less and less. They never get their shoes dirty, and if they did, the movie would immediately give them new clean shoes without question. Why spoil the mirth?

The movie deals with Meryl's dangeous liaisons with Alec Baldwin, her ex-husband currently married to Agnes, who stole him away in the first place. And it's less about her moral quandry in the act of adultery, than her worry about becoming vulnerable. In fact, when she breaks the news of her adultery to her man-hating, self-piteous, open-wound-licking divorced harpie friends, the pious moral outrage that they have ravenously fed on through the years (at being abandoned for younger women), suddenly flips into Hellelujah chorus of revenge, rendering their abhorence of adultery irrelevant. I guess when you're selfish, anything works that FEELS right.

It sounds complicated. But it's not really.

Why does everyone hate NINE?

I've seen it twice, so far.

Yes, Guido Contini is a self-obsessed asshole, and he doesn't deserve happiness. He pretty much abuses everyone who enters into his toxic orbit. But he's a child, lost in an adult world, and he needs to find is way home again. That's it - nothing more, nothing less. And it's a musical. Not the Koran.

I wasn't a huge fan of the universally adored CHICAGO. I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it. I felt there was nobody I liked in it. It would be very easy to label NINE the same way, but NINE has a heart. Granted, that heart is shattered into bits and stomped on throughout the movie. But it's still there, softly beating.

Guido as a nine-year old child is the unifying force of the movie, and this kid (Giuseppi Spitaleri) is magnificent - breezy, natural, naughty and cute as a button. And knowing this child - he appears through the movie in flashbacks, we can excuse the older Guido (Daniel Day-Lewis in a winning 'mannered' performance) because he's still that child. The movie isn't so much a narrative plot-driven movie as a series of solo songs by famous actresses, well staged. There's very little else going on.

However, each and every song is GREAT! And the very best thing about this flick, is that during each of the solo songs, the movie cuts out of the song many times to a parallel narative about that girl and how she got mixed up with Guido in the first place. It's a great device, and stops the 'solo thing' from being visually tedious. Marion Cotillard's soulful song "My Husband Makes Movies" is the best thing in it - Judi Dench camps it up very well in Franglais with "Follies Berger" - Penelope Cruz sparkles throughout, better than any Almodovar movie she's been in - and the surprise is Kate Hudson, who finally shows that she has Goldie's blood in her and delivers gold! Sophia Loren looks alternately graceful and beautiful, though there are times she looks like drugged out 100 year-old leather-queen at the Eagle.

Italy (and especially Rome) in the 60's is well recreated and the scenery and the people are gorgeous. What's not to like?

Can we talk about AVATAR?

Ok - finally got to see the latest movie from the King of the World. Well, apparently, this world was never quite big enough for his ego, so he's moved on to the galaxy, and it looks like he's pretty much exhausting that too.
I have not been so bored in a movie in years.
I was literally squirming in my seat, looking at my watch every 10-15 minutes or so, wondering if it would/could ever end soon. This is a ScreenSaver turned into a two and a half hour movie. It's big, splashy, hugely over-produced, and if you're a fan of video games, you'll be right at home. However, effects alone do not a good movie make - as we all know. The story is frightfully one-dimensional. It makes Disney's Pocahontas look like Proust. It's probably terrific if you're stoned. I wasn't. The only really amazing thing about AVATAR is that the ever foxy tight-bodied Sigourney Weaver is 60, and she kills poeple like a 40 year old!! No special effects necessary there, and she's the best thing in it. There! Spoken like a real gay man!

Christmas in Los Angeles

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y'ALL.
Over the next few days I'll be posting all sorts of crap, mostly short reviews of the Oscar runners which are in the cinemas right now.





NEED I SAY ANYMORE?

The Reader

Saw THE READER tonight at a BAFTA screening at the LANDMARK.

Stephen Daldry the director was there for Q&A afterwards.

The reviews are all over the board about this. It's easy to be cynical about YET another Holocaust movie. But this is less about the actual war wrongdoings, than more about the after effects and the numbing of a second generation unable to broach the subject with the former generation. Screenplay by David Hare - sparse, practical, elusive - leaves the actors with a lot of work to do, and a lot of unanswered questions and raggy dilemmas. Which of course is the way that Germans felt/feel about WW2. The film is never anything less than fully engrossing - Winslett is great once you get over the "Ve Have Vays of making you talk" accent. The clever thing is that they have cast predominantly German actors speaking English throughout, so she slips right in after the first few minutes. The central dramatic core of the file is riveting, troubling, and I was completely hooked. It's uncomfortable to extend empathy to a Nazi worker who worked openly in the death camps - but you do. And that troubling feeling is why you see this very good movie. There is a plot point later in the film that needed far more fleshing out than it got (and it's the pivotal moment of the film) - when Michael makes a strange choice that has a life changing effect on Hanna - however, the movie's point of view never fully supports or hints at an explanation for that decision - and it's problematic to the overall reading of the film. I feel they could have solved it very easily with an extra plot point or two.  Interesting that Winslett has chosen two deeply flawed and tragic characters this Oscar season (Revolutionary Road is the other one), and I suspect both will cancel each other out when it comes to the handing out of awards.

Ratings out of 10: Screenplay - 8; overall - 7