Greatest movie of all time?

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo Dethrones Citizen Kane as the Greatest Movie of All-Time reads the headline of a story. Much as I enjoyed watching Jimmy Stewart in Anatomy of a murder last weekend, and much as I like Kim Novak (I lo-oh-ve Kim Novack), I don't know about that.

Move over, Orson Welles. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo has been named as the greatest film of all time by more than 800 international film critics and experts. The poll, carried out every 10 years by Sight & Sound, a magazine published by the British Film Institute, picked Hitchcock’s psychological drama as the best film ever made. For the past 50 years, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane held the top spot, but this year, critics picked Hitchcock’s masterpiece over Citizen Kane, which has been relegated to second place.

I'll have to think on it.

BBC News also notes that Vertigo was Hitchcock’s most personal film in which he tackles “one of his recurring themes — love as a fetish that degrades women and deranges men.”

Hitchcock does have a reputation as a sexual bully. Funny how film people, critics and civilians, overlook the foibles (sexual and otherwise) of film makers (A certain Allen, Woody, is whom I am thinking of in this regard).

Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story was named as the third greatest film followed by Jean Renoir’s La Règle Du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) and F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The list of the top 50 greatest films, compiled by Sight & Sound, can be found here.

I saw several Ozu films early last year (From reading The elegance of the hedgehog, I became aware of this Japanese film maker. Luckily, the library where I work owns 3 of Ozu's films on DVD), and I agree that he made great films.

Time has it own 100 greatest films list.

From Hitchcock to Watchmen: See the 50 Greatest Movie Opening Sequences

Anatomy of a murder

1959 film described by a law professor as "probably the finest pure trial movie ever made." (Asimow, Michael. Picturing Justice, film review from a legal perspective, February 1998.)

While I was watching it Laura was watching episodes of "The Good Wife," a television legal drama. I was struck by how similar such programs are to the film, and wondered if the film was a pioneer in such dramas.

Well, it is cited as #4 in The 25 Greatest Legal Movies:1 is To kill a mockinbird; 2 is Twelve angry men; 3 is (surprisingly, at first, not so much on reflection) My cousin Vinny.

a Twitter recommendation

looking through my Twitter feeds today, after 5pm, this one caught my eye:

Carl Bildt ‏@carlbildt

Rereading John Julius Norwich's "A History of Venice" is always a true pleasure. A great history told in a most enjoyable way.

Carl Bildt is Foreign Minister of Sweden since 2006. Before that most other things.

· http://carlbildt.wordpress.com

So, after looking for the book in theOPAC and finding it at  945.31 N, I walked back into the stacks, and got it. I do think this might be the first book recommendation I've gotten via Twitter (without a doubt, the first recommendation from Minister Bildt  —or, almost certainly).

Norwich, John Julius. (1982). A history of Venice. New York : Knopf.

Madness visible

di Giovanni, Janine. (2003). Madness visible: a memoir of war. New York: Knopf.

I saw her on the Charlie Rose show last week, along with three other guests, all discussing Syria. I found each of them smart and interesting. I got this book, opened it, read the first tow paragraphs of her introduction, and got chills: I can not read about war and cruelty so very easily any longer.

Easy A

Stereotyped character, silly story. Mediocre.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is re-imagined as a contemporary high school comedy in this tale of a scheming student who plots to give her popularity a boost by painting herself the easiest lay in school.

Not well done.

The life and times of Hank Greenberg

A few weeks ago a Peninsula patron asked me for a biography of Hank Greenberg. Intrigued, I asked him if he was doing research about the original Hammering Hank; he said it was purely personal interest. I remarked that Greenberg, among many other things, had mentored Ralph Kiner early on in his career. How could that be, the man wondered, as Kiner played in Pittsburgh and Greenberg in Detroit. I said that Greenberg had wound up in Pittsburgh.

That was one of the many details of his life that the film covered. His birth in New York, his Jewish heritage and religion, his prowess on the ballfield of James Monroe High school, in Bronx, NY; the Detroit scout's promise to get young Hank a scholarship to Princeton; the virulent anti-Semitism he had to handle in the majors; his success on the field; his enlistment in the Army (depriving his baseball career of three prime years). All those and many more were covered in great detail.

A wonderful documentary of a genuine American baseball hero (well, great; even he didn't see himself as a hero).

Voice lessons

In a side column in a recent issue of the New Yorker, David Denby wrote: Those who were charmed by The Artist should see the real thing: "Singin' in the Rain," the great American movie musical about the transition from talkies to sound...The movie chronicles Hollywood's misadventures with early recording techniques, but does so with carefree gaiety and confidence — confidence in music and dance and in a specifically American style of impudent wit."

Yes, the American film is still  robust, fun to watch —despite shortcomings such as the mismatches in age between Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor, his two costars, who are supposed to be about the same age. The singing and the dancing is contagious, energizing, and plain fun. Jean Hagen's character, Lina Lamont, still holds up, she with her screechy little voice and street pronunciation (cain't stend it).

The Artist I found difficult to enjoy. It dragged. Contemporary taste is highly favorable for it. Then again, in Rotten Tomatoes Singin' in the rain gets even higher numbers: 100-91 v. 98-90. In the end, I did enjoy it, but Singin' is better. O, and Cyd Charisse.

Suddenly

I cam across this DVD (1954) while looking for Singing in the rain on the PN shelves. Looked it up, and it sounded interesting.


Suddenly is the name of the small town invaded by professional assassin Frank Sinatra and his henchmen. Taking a local family hostage, Sinatra sets up a vigil at the second-story window of the family's home. From here, he intends to kill the President of the United States when the latter makes a whistle-stop visit. The film's tension level is enough to induce goose pimples from first scene to last. Sinatra is outstanding as the disgruntled war vet who hopes to become a "somebody" by killing the president. The parallels between his character and Lee Harvey Oswald's are too close for comfort, so much so that Suddenly was withdrawn from local TV packages for several years after the JFK assassination. Sinatra would claim in later years that he himself engineered the removal of Suddenly from general distribution, though in fact he'd lost whatever rights he'd held on the film when it lapsed into public domain. Be sure and miss the notorious colorized version of this black-and-white thriller, wherein Sinatra is transformed into Ol' Brown Eyes.

Well, they tried. It moves along fine. But to speak of tension is to stretch it. Sinatra tries to inject a touch of psychosis, or some sort of mental instability into his character, and almost makes it. Almost. His partners in crime are rank amateurs (both as criminals, and the actors). The good guys are wooden. Nice try. I can believe that the subject matter became very touchy after November 22, 1963. Still.

French still flock to bookstores

New York Times story: As bookstores in the United States and Britain struggle, a centuries-old reverence for the printed page persists in France, where sales have risen. Above, a book exchange.

Back to the Future

Having seen Michael J. Fox on a PBS program on Parkinson's disease, I immediately decided to see this film again. It holds up fairly well, though some of the jokes are less hysterical now than I remember them being then. Still, it really works well.

The topic of time travel, which has been treated numerous times by varied writers (a Wikipedia article puts it back to the 19th century), is treated with humor. And it works. At one point Doc Brown asks Marty McFly who the president is in 1985; when Marty replies Ronald Reagan, Doc is incredulous, and quips and I suppose Jerry Lewis is VicePresident. The DeLorean is still a nice touch.

Searching for music, I found this book, and while I was not sure if I would read it, I did, and rather enjoyed it.

Kastin, David. (2011. Nica's dream: the life and legend of the jazz baroness.  New York: W. W. Norton.

My cousin Vinny

A good one. In rottentomatoes, 85% from critics, 81% from the audience approved. It has aged fairly well, though the difference in age between Vinny and Mona Lisa is a little obvious now. I don't remember thinking that then.

The film deals with two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama who are put on trial for a murder they did not commit, and the comic attempts of a cousin, Vincent Gambini, a newly minted lawyer, to defend them. Much of the humor comes from the contrasting personalities of the brash Italian-American New Yorkers, Vinny and his fiancée Mona Lisa, and the more laid back Southern townspeople.
Lawyers have praised the comedy's realistic depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy. Pesci and Tomei received critical praise for their performances, and Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

 She was fabulous.

Next stop, Greenwich Village

Just a few days ago, I saw an item on Twitter, from Time.com (I believe), in its 'reading for lunchtime' feature, Wes Anderson's favorite New York films. This is one of those films.

It has a 6.9 rating in IMDb.com: An aspiring Jewish actor moves out of his parents' Brooklyn apartment to seek his fortune in the bohemian life of Greenwich Village in 1953.

Critics give it 80% in Rotten Tomatoes, the audience 66% (there is not accounting for taste, is there?).

Larry Lipinski is a Brooklyn Jew, 22 years old, and is moving out of his parents's home, to grow up, to be with his liberated girlfriend, to pursue acting. (In a voiceover, which I watched a bit of, Paul Mazursky says that Larry is partly him.) It is 1953. The Rosenbergs are on the brink of being executed. Yet Larry and his friends, while politically aware, are more interested in other matters: sex, the meaning of life, whether to go to Mexico or not, and suicide.

Chris Walken plays Robert, a handosme ladies man whose libido is only matched in size by his ego. Jeff Goldblum plays a small but discernible role as a pushy, loud actor. Bill Murray has a small speakign part in a bar. Vincent Schiavelli is a party guest who drinks and laughs.

Shelley Winters overplays the Jewish mother who can't let go of her boy, can't stop meddling, and can't (or won't) see how she is hurting the very ones she loves. Yet, in her overplaying, Winters does super work. Antonio Fargas does nice work as an openly gay black man (remember, the 1976 movie was portraying 1953), and Lou Jacobi shines as the juice bar shopowner where Larry gets a job while he waits for his big break.

Larry and his friends go to a coffeehouse, to hang out and philosophize. I recognized it immediately, or so I thought, though the street outside seemed not to fit. But a shot confirmed that it was Cafe Reggio.

Ebert gave it 3 stars. I liked it, too.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

An oldie, a goodie. Since I saw an episode of Bizarre Foods, in which Andrew Zimmern visited Savannah and spoke with the Lady Chablis, I've wanted to see this film. In Rotten Tomatoes the critics give it a 47% and the public 64%, which goes to show there is no accoutning for taste. I'd give it at least an 80. Kevin Spacey is smooth and wonderful as Jim Williams, a proud nouveau riche; Jude Law, in what must be one of his earliest roles, plays his drunken lover; John Cusak plays a Yankee reporter in town to cover the famous Williams Christmas party and stays to cover the murder trial of Williams (who killed Billy Hanson, in self-defense, he claims). It is simply a good film, based on John Berendt's book.

Ides of March

I first saw note of this film in the 26 Sept 2011 "Movies - Fall Preview" column in the New Yorker. IMDb has the plot summary as "An idealistic staffer for a new presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail." Critics in Rotten Tomatoes give it 85%, the public a lesser 73%. Its summary: The Ides of March takes place during the frantic last days before a heavily contested Ohio presidential primary, when an up-and-coming campaign press secretary (Ryan Gosling) finds himself involved in a political scandal that threatens to upend his candidate's shot at the presidency.

With heartthrobs George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, one might expect that the movie did well at the box office, but its $41 million take is not, in relative terms, very good. Why? The subject matter? Perhaps.

Ironically, one ends up feeling both skeptical and cynical about this movie that wants to have it both ways but, instead, ends up just as deeply cynical and flawed as its characters and the system it seeks to expose.
January 13, 2012 Full Review
This critis has it about right. Anthony Lane in the New Yorker also demurs from singing its praises: The result, slimy with unfeasible plotting, will gratify those who sniff out all politics as a conspiratorial murk. On the other hand, viewers who treasure Clooney, both as actor and director, for the deftness of his comic touch, or who remain alert to the grinding farce of the electoral machine, may prove harder to woo.

I agree. It seemed too cynical, too pat, and lacked spark.

Crazy, stupid, love

A fun film. Originally skeptical that I would be watching another sappy love story (and ready to leave after short interval), I was utterly surprised by the film, and how much I liked it.

Steven Carrel (unpleasant memories of watching a very small bit on an "Office" episode did not come back to me at first, for I was not quite sure it was him playing Cal) plays a husband who is blindsided by his wife while they are pondering what dessert to order; rather than agreeing to split a sweet she says I want a divorce. She (played nicely by Julianne Moore) has decided that, after 25 years of marriage, and hitting her forties, she needs something different. She also announced she has "slept with David Lindhagen" (played with some understatement by Kevin Bacon; that name becomes something of a tagline).

Ryan Gosling plays Jacob, a womanizer who, sick of hearing Cal complain about being cuckolded by David Lindhagen, decides to remake Cal into the man who he might never have been, but should be. Gosling holds back from doing a parody of the Casanova who scores with ease (an interesting aspect of his conquests is that he catches not just white women, but also black women; of course, this being a movie, almost of all of them have gorgeous bodies and are attractive).

Emma Stone plays a woman who is about to become a lawyer, and whom Jacob hits on early on in the film. She rebuffs his advance, and goes back to hoping that the lawyer she's dating will propose marriage to her. Her friend, Liz, tells her to stop playing it safe, to stop going for PG-13, and to loosen up and live.

There are various other characters that work: Cal's 13 year old son, in love with a 17 year old babysitter, who in turn is in love with Cal. And there are twists: the first woman whom Cal hits on and scores with (played with aplomb and plenty of cleavage by Maria Tomei), turns out to be his son's teacher.

The films works, is fun, and I enjoyed it quite very much.

Gideon's daughter

Reading a review of a new film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I chose this film as another Bill Nighy work. Terrific choice. His character, Gideon Warner, is a fixer, a PR man, the one to go to for advice, a power broker. At that he's good. As a father, he is not. He is losing his daughter, who is about to graduate and go to Colombia to do good. Nighy has an understated, less-is-more acting style, and he does wonderful work with this character. The excesses are left to others. As he bumbles along, Gideon meets a couple who wants someone in government to listen to their story of how their child was killed. No one does. Gideon arranges it. Both Gideon and Stella drift toward one another in an adult love story that leaves one wanting more.

Touching the void

Engrossing. At points I felt as if I could not continue to listen to the narrative, but could not bring myself to stop.

The Music Never Stopped

A father who teaches his son all about his own music in the late 1950s is shocked to find his son estranged from what he has been taught: instead of remembering Bing Crosby fondly, he has become a Deadhead, is against the VietNam War, and wants to forgo college to play music. The father forces a confrontation, and is unrepentant when his son leaves home. Nearly twenty years later, for the first time the parents of Gabriel receive a phone call that sends them into a whirlwind of guilt, repentance, and, eventually, reconciliation. Except that Gabe is not well: a tumor has damaged his brain, and he can not remember anything after 1970.

One day, in a library, researching microfilm, the father, Henry, reads about a therapist who uses music to reach patients similarly afflicted to his son. It is she who manages to reach Gabe, especially once she realizes that it is 1960s music, and not the 1940s and 1950s music his father insists on, that touches Gabe deep inside and brings him out.

Nicely done. In Rotten Tomatoes, typically, it gets a higher audience mark than a critical mark: 85% vs 65%. An involving, if sentimental and predictable family drama elevated by J.K. Simmons' sympathetic lead performance. The film is based on a story by Oliver Sacks, The last hippie (which, in an interview accompanying the film, the good doctor says is based on a true case of one of his patients).

The Conspirator

An interesting twist to a Civil War story and the assassination of President Lincoln. The focus is on the conspirators: John Wilkes Booth,John Surratt

RottenTomatoes is not fond of it: The Conspirator is well cast and tells a worthy story, but many viewers will lack the patience for Redford's deliberate, stagebound approach. That might tell more about the audience that the film. It is not off the mark, either: the pace is deliberate, but the acting good. In this telling of the story, the military tribunal and Secretary of War Gideon Wells do not come off smelling too good.

Harvest (2010)

A gem of a film. Three generations gather for the patriarch's last summer: he is dying of cancer, and it is the last chance for all to be together. Well, almost all: one son, who lives locally, is waiting for his father to apologize for some past transgression, and even his approaching death does little to end the anger. The other son is something of a manipulative passive-aggressive jerk, and manipulates his father into changing his will. It is the daughter who cares for their dying father and Alzheimer's riddled mother.

Great acting, really, and something of a gritty camera work make the movie unusual. This review from May 2010 captures it well: In a just world, Harvest would be getting a wide release alongside of, if not necessarily instead of, Thor. Writer-director Marc Meyers's sophomore feature is an astonishingly confident work that avoids nearly all the pitfalls of contemporary independent cinema, flirting with cloying treacle in only the handful of moments the film employs a borderline-cliché alt-rock soundtrack. The rest of the film is sterling, its modest strengths amplified by a finely tuned creative process that never overexerts its ambitions or condescends to its subjects: three generations' worth of family living together during their cancer-stricken patriarch's last summer.

Thurgood

Excellent. Laurence Fishburne embodies Justice Marshall, and the role fits him perfectly.


Video Librarian Reviews Laurence Fishburne might have bombed on C.S.I., but he's at the top of his game in George Stevens Jr.'s play about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In this performance filmed at Washington's Kennedy Center by Stevens's son Michael, Fishburne is literally the whole show, framed as a one-man journey of recollection spoken before an audience of Howard University students. Ambling with a cane onto a stage that's bare except for a long conference table and occasional back projections, the aged jurist greets his listeners directly before launching into a chronological survey of his life. The actor dispenses with the cane as he recounts stories of Marshall's boyhood and unlikely academic career and then adopts a swagger as he continues with the young lawyer's entrance into the embryonic—and often dangerous—Civil Rights movement. Stevens's script is filled with wry observations and rousing anecdotes about key individuals Marshall worked with (such as Martin Luther King, Jr.) and accounts of the landmark legal cases in which Marshall played a prominent role (most notably Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, which ended segregation in public schools), culminating in his appointment to the federal bench and then being named the first African-American Supreme Court Justice by Lyndon Johnson. Fishburne captures Marshall's gregarious personality beautifully, even as he departs from the script momentarily to welcome a couple of latecomers trying to squeeze unnoticed into their front row seats. Highly recommended.

Another interesting detail is that Marshall and Langston Hughes were classmates. And once, perhaps twice, he quotes Hughes. This is acting as art, and Fishburne is magnificent.

How old is she?

In this article, the books written by the candidates for the presidency of Mexico are discussed: Andrés Manuel López Obrador has written two (“Nuevo proyecto de nación: por el renacimiento de México” and "La mafia que se adueñó de México... y el 2012”. In the latter he decrees that 30 people control the country: “… esta minoría rapaz es la principal responsable de la actual tragedia nacional: la pobreza y el desempleo, la inseguridad y la violencia, la falta de democracia y la violación cotidiana de los derechos de los mexicanos”.); Enrique Peña Nieto has (allegedly) written one, “México, la gran esperanza: un estado eficaz para una democracia de resultados” (this from the man who during the recent Guadalajara Book Fair was asked to name three books that had influenced him, and could only name the Bible (maybe he went to the same school as Governor Rick "Oops" Perry, of Texas); Gabriel Quadri de la Torre is said to have written "distintos libros y publicaciones en materia de medio ambiente y desarrollo sustentable" but it is his running under the banner of the party led by Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, presidenta vitalicia del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), a sort of lefty teachers union; Josefina Vazquez Mota, 51, in 1999 wrote "Dios Mío, hazme viuda por favor” (My God, make me a widow, a still-controversial book; Nuestra oportunidad: un México para todos” is her campaign book.

Only the woman has her age given. Huh?

What do women want (to read)?

The Wall Street Journal (March 14, page D1) has an interesting article about what women read when there is no lurid cover on the book to embarrass them.

Electronic readers, and the reading privacy they provide, are fueling a boom in sales of sexy romance novels, or "romantica," as the genre is called in the book industry.
As with romance novels, romantica features an old-fashioned love story and pop-culture references like those found in "chick lit." Plus, there is sex—a lot of it. Yet unlike traditional erotica, romantica always includes what's known as "HEA"—"happily ever after."
Kindles, iPads and Nooks "are the ultimate brown paper wrapper," says Brenda Knight, associate publisher at Cleis Press, of Berkeley, Calif., a publisher of erotica since 1980.
Mainstream publishers are launching digital-only erotic labels to feed demand. At the end of the month, HarperCollins UK will launch Mischief Books, with the tag line "private pleasures with a hand-held device."

Read more about it at:Books Women Read When No One Can See the Cover

South from Granada

From Spanish director Fernando Colomo comes this adaptation of Gerald Brenan's comedic autobiographical book Al sur de Granada. Matthew Goode stars as Brenan, a young Englishman of affluent and noble stock. Motivated by idealism and with a desire to become a great writer, Gerald moves to a small Spanish town to get away from the trappings of his upbringing. There, he befriends Paco, a local man played by Guillermo Toledo, who helps introduce Gerald to the town. Eventually, the beautiful Juliana (Verónica Sánchez) catches Gerald's eye, and he immediately falls for her. From there, it's up to Paco to familiarize Gerald with the local customs so that he can win the heart of Juliana. Consuelo Trujillo and Ángela Molina also star.

Fairly good film. Enjoyable enough.


Brenan is friends with Lytton Strachey and others from the Bloomsbury group, including Dora Carrington, with whom he is portrayed as being in love. In Yegen,a village in the Spanish countryside below Granada, he settles down to clear his head so he can write. However, events and people conspire to otherwise occupy him. In the drama which includes inter-class sex and a Catholic priest who can not help but be in love with a local woman, Brenan falls in love with Julianna, a local woman whom some suspect of being a witch. She is young, and falls in love, eventually, with Brenan. She also tells him she wnats to bear his baby, and is not interested in marriage.

Hereafter

46% of Rotten Tomatoes critics liked it, 40% of the audience. I agree: the film is disjointed, lathargic, and the point it makes is strained and unconvincing. The South Pacific tsunami and the London bombings are connected via the vehicle of an American (Matt Damon) who is reluctant to again use his gift (or, as he sees it, curse) of being able to connect with the departed. Why the two Europeans are teamed up with the Yank is a mystery. The French mumble, and shots of the Eiffel Tower and of extra-marital sex are used as symbols that are so clichéd as to make me wonder who the hell had the idea of including them.

RT: Despite a thought-provoking premise and Clint Eastwood's typical flair as director, Hereafter fails to generate much compelling drama, straddling the line between poignant sentimentality and hokey tedium. There are touches of flair: Damon's character loves Dickens, not Shakespeare, and when he escapes northern California and he goes to London, he winds up taking a tour of Dickens's home and attending a Dickensian lecture by Derek Jacobi. He winds up romantically linked with the French woman, but that linkup is strained; the film wanted to make that connection, and it just does, unconvincingly.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Cute as Rachel MacAdams is, and her cuteness tends to be the feature that films concentrate on, she can not quite make this film work. But this is a far better film that than piece of merde Lord of War.

Lord of War

Drek. Mierda. Shit. Had read about it in a New Yorker article ("Disarming Viktor Bout" by Nichols Schmidle, 5 March 2012 issue), so I tried it: BIG MISTAKE.

Super 8

Fairly good. I had seen coming attractions of it several months back, and had been trying to get the film since then. It wasn't quite what I had remembered, or thought I remembered, but it was fun to watch. Better than much else.

A. O. Scott in the NY Times does not quite like it: Inescapable comparisons to Steven Spielberg (a producer of “Super 8” and something of a mentor to Mr. Abrams) are apt, but they go only so far. Themes of childlike resistance to authority and intergalactic compassion are evident here, as they were in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” The visual and emotional poetry of those films, however, never quite blossoms, despite having been copied out carefully, line by line. But, and here I agree: Still, “not as good as E.T.” is not so bad. (“Better than ‘Thor’ or ‘X-Men: First Class’ ” may be a more relevant judgment at this moment in the history of air-conditioning.)

Sci-fi is not my thing, but this is an enjoyable movie. That is not a bad thing, at all. I mean it as a compliment.

Ernie Pyle's story of G.I. Joe

In the February 13 & 20, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, David Denby wrote a side Critic's Notebook column: Soldiering On, in which he praised this film. He called it "probably the grimmest and most poetic and the least tied to genre clichés." Grim and freee of clichés it is, indeed; poetic I am not sure sure about, but I can understand what he meant.

"Sombre, slightly maddened, fatalistic," it follows a unit to which Ernie Pyle attaches himself, as it fights in North Africa, then Italy. There is little staged heroism, or any other clichéd action. The film catches the cruelty of war in both its random and fatal violence, and its endless boredom. Burgess Meredith seems miscast as Ernie Pyle, and does his best to rescue his effort. Robert Mitchum plays a lieutenant who handles his assignment (which includes sending men to their deaths) with a soft touch. A sergeant in the unit receives a 45rpm recording of his son's voice, but can not find a way to play it. When he finally finds a victrola, it has no needle. His attempt to fashion a replacement is not only futile but maddening: each time he tries to listen to it, the record plays at the wrong speed and his frustration builds and builds.

Interesting film-making. John Wayne stinks.

Everything is illuminated

Wonderful film. Not everyone agrees, of course. In the NYT, AO Scott pans it: Mr. Foer's verbal and imaginative energies brought him close to succeeding. Mr. Schreiber, plucking a single thread of the novel's interwoven narratives, shows himself to be a sincere and serious reader, but his effort at translation does not quite work. Taken on its own, without comparison with its literary source, the movie, Mr. Schreiber's first as writer and director, is thin and soft, whimsical when it should be darkly funny and poignant when it should be devastating.

Roger Ebert liked it: The gift that Schreiber brings to the material is his ability to move us from the broad satire of the early scenes to the solemnity of the final ones. For Grandfather, this is as much a journey of discovery as it is for Jonathan, and the changes that take place within him are all the more profound for never once being referred to in his dialogue. He never discusses his feelings or his memories, but in a way he is the purpose of the whole trip. The conclusion he draws from it is illustrated in an image that, in context, speaks more eloquently than words.  'Everything is Illuminated" is a film that grows in reflection. The first time I saw it, I was hurtling down the tracks of a goofy ethnic comedy when suddenly we entered dark and dangerous territory. I admired the film but did not sufficiently appreciate its arc. I went to see it again at the Toronto Film Festival, feeling that I had missed some notes, had been distracted by Jonathan's eyeglasses and other relative irrelevancements (as Alex might say). The second time, I was more aware of the journey Schreiber was taking us on, and why it is necessary to begin where he begins in order to get where he's going.

Along the way there are some gems, a lot of humor (especially in the early parts), and a lot of beautiful countryside.

They travel, grandfather Alex driving, grandson Alex riding shotgun, Jonathan in the back seat with Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. At one juncture they pass by an old concrete box of a building, many windows broken, seemingly abandoned. Jonathan asks about it.

"Soviet," says Alex.
"What happened?" asks Jonathan.
"Independence."

As they seek out the woman in a faded photograph that Jonathan carries, a memento from his grandmother, showing his grandfather and a woman that grandmother told him saved his grandfather, they are hurtling into the past. When Jonathan remarks that his grandmother told him that Ukrainians were so anti-Semitic, that, at first, Jews thought the Germans might be an improvement, Alex is incredulous. He asks his own grandfather about that, and grandfather Alex says nothing, but his haunted look speaks to something his silence does not. But, what is it? Was he a Nazi collaborator? Or?

In the end, the answer is obvious. I cringed several times at the sight of German soldiers loading bullets into their rifles, Jews lined up mere yards away, about to be massacred. Yet the sounds never appeared; that technique worked beautifully: there is no need to state, let alone overwork, the obvious: Nazis killed Jews. But other things happened, too. The film tells one such story.

Swimming

Very nicely done.

Director Robert J. Siegel handles this delicate material with grace and style. ''Swimming'' conveys the thrill and complexity of an adolescent crush, underscoring Frankie's nuanced character. Yearning for something more than the weekend partying on the boardwalk with piercing-shop proprietor Nicola, the repressiveness of the restaurant, and the condescension of her older brother, Frankie is eager to assume her own identity. The film nicely delivers two different characters into Frankie's world who help her figure out who she is and where her loyalties lie: the dubious but seductive Josee and Heath (Jamie Harrold), a likable drifter who sells T-shirts from his van.

Ambrose delivers an authentic, understated, beautifully etched performance that ranks with classics of the coming-of-age genre, which has been much maligned by Hollywood in recent years. ''Swimming'' is a finely crafted film that is all the more remarkable because it achieves its emotional power and moments of revelation with such delicacy, restraint, and ambiguity.

Boston Globe.

Tea with Mussolini

A oldie, a goodie.

Tuskegee airmen

Rather good, even if a little labored.

Moneyball

On 4 January 2011 I made a calendar entry to be on the lookout for the eponymous film version of Michael Lewis's book. The book was grand reading fun, for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative style, the language and its expert use, and the story. I felt as if it was unnecessary to know baseball to enjoy the story (though, of course, it added a dimension to know the sport). Thus, when I read about the film, I looked forward to seeing it.

Finally, last night I watched it, and I was disappointed. Critics liked it. Manohla Dargis of the NY Times praised it: The hungry heart of “Moneyball,” a movie about baseball in the digital age, is a beautiful hard case named Billy Beane. Coiled yet cool, Billy has the liquid physical grace and bright eyes of a predator. He was built to win. Even his name, with its short syllabic bursts, sounds ready for ESPN exultations. That he’s played by Brad Pittgiving the quintessential Brad Pitt performance just seals the deal.. The LA Times critic also liked it, Pitt and Seymour Hoffman (who returns here, letter-perfect as Oakland Manager Art Howe - I thought he was completely miscast), and Ebert does, too (I walked in knowing what the movie was about, but unprepared for its intelligence and depth.) I wasn't too impressed.

Lincoln Lawyer

Brisk and good legal thriller. Lincoln refers to the car that is his office, this lawyer looking for a big payday, willing to defend anyone who has the cash. Some cops think he's too slick, unprincipled, and dislike him, intensely in cases. His ex-wife (Marisa Tomei, one of the few higher-profile American actresses in her age group (she was born in 1964, five years before Mr. McConaughey) who’s actually allowed to act her age, who conveys intelligence and sexiness, and suggests a life that’s been lived and without a face frozen by filler and fear. She plays a character and not just the love interest. She isn’t the star, of course, but without her and the other exceptionally well-cast supporting players, Mr. McConaughey would have a tougher time making you believe that he was to the sleaze born) is a prosecutor.

The story, and there’s a lot of it, nicely condensed from Mr. Connelly’s page-turner best seller, largely turns on a case that looks like a slam dunk or, as one of Mick’s bail bondsmen, Val (John Leguizamo), insists, a jackpot.


That NY Times review, one of many, sums it up well. A good movie.

Switch

Weak script. Didn't laugh for the first twenty minutes, even though I could tell I'd been prompted to laugh. Finally did laugh, and did enjoy the film, but it was as weak as near-beer. The acting is good. Thomas Robinson, who plays the kid Sebastian, is wonderful. But ...

A woman approaching middle age yet still childless decides to get pregnant by artificial insemination, only to discover that the donor she chose may not be the father of her child in this comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. Wally Mars (Bateman) is a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist. Hopelessly neurotic and unrepentantly narcissistic, he gets no joy out of life except for the time he spends with his best friend Kassie (Jennifer Aniston). However, despite the fact that Wally pines to be more than just friends with Kassie, she isn't convinced they'd make a good couple. When Kassie announces to Wally that she's found the perfect sperm donor, he's crestfallen; as far as he's concerned, the ideal candidate is standing right in front of her. Later, Kassie selects handsome stranger Roland (Patrick Wilson) to provide the seed. Things get complicated when Kassie's best friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis) throws an "insemination party" to commemorate the big event, and Wally intercepts Roland's special delivery, drunkenly replacing it with his own before blacking out. Pregnant and content, Kassie leaves the city for Minnesota, where she gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Flash-forward seven years, and Kassie returns to New York with her son, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson), who shares an uncanny number of physical and psychological traits with embittered bachelor Wally. Before long Wally and Sebastian have become good friends, and Wally becomes convinced that the boy is his biological son. His ideal family is finally within reach, and if he can just figure out a means of breaking the news to Kassie gently, perhaps she'll find it in her heart to forgive him, and recognize that he'll make the perfect father for Sebastian. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In the electric mist

Violent, yes, but a good film. Well told story, good acting, great pace.

Will Rogers: a political life

How can someone so interesting be made so uninteresting?

A gem, a dud

Laura (1944) is a timeless gem. Gene Tierney is the title character, who is presumed to have been murdered – until she shows up. Detective Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) falls for her, her image in the painting in her apartment, and then falls hard for her when she appears. But, who is dead? The zinger is that the body is never seen. Vincent Price is Laura's coy


Critics in Rotten Tomatoes give it 100%, the audience 90%, a rather rare combination of taste. But not everyone likes it. The Village Voice critic: Elevated by studio boss Darryl Zanuck from "B" picture status, Laura opened at the Roxy, became a critical and popular hit, was nominated for five Oscars (winning for cinematography), and launched Preminger's directorial career. Still, alternately sprightly and turgid, if abetted by its haunting, ubiquitous score, it's far from a great movie—most beloved by second-generation surrealists who appreciate it for its time-liquidating dream narrative of l'amour fou. See that movie if you can; for me, Laura is a flavorsome but flawed anticipation of two far more delirious psychosexual cine-obsessions: Vertigo and Blue Velvet.

In contrast stands We own the Night (2007). I didn't like it, or finish it.

The Departed (2006)

Violent. Very violent. Inexplicably, extremely popular. Inexplicable to me: I do not understand why very violent films are so popular, and better films are not so popular.

The Yards

I’d seen a one-column-wide item about it in the 19& 26 December 2011 issue of the New Yorker magazine. Richard Brody wrote that dierctor James Gray “returned to his native Queens” to film “a blend of operatic drama and documentary veracity.” he states there was “an ending imposed on the film by the producers, with grave results for the film and Gray’s career.”

Not sure how far back the ending in question goes, but I can guess that the very last scene might be it.


Wahlberg plays Leo, who has just come out of prison, serving a couple of year for car theft. He got caught, friends of his did not, and he did not give them up. Street credibility plays an important role in their lives. Phoenix is his best friend, Willie, who is having a serious romance with Leo's cousin, Erica (Theron, who looks great in her Goth colors, dark nail polish, heavy black eye makeup, leather wristband). Caan plays Erica's father, a corrupt owner of a subway car repair company, neck deep in payoffs and sweetheart deals. Steve Lawrence play sthe Queens borough president.


Good acting, and a good story well told.

Mother and Child

How three women are affected by adoption. 51 year old Karen (Benning) has never stopped thinking about the child she gave up for adoption, 37 years earlier, when she was 14 years old. That child (Watts), now a successful attorney, lives an empty life, centered around achievement in law, careless sex based on conquest, extreme cynicism about life and people. A black woman (Washington), unable to conceive her own child, desperately hopes that adopting will fill the void in her soul.

Benning allows herself to be seen by the camera as she is, a 53 year old woman who is not trying to hide her age. She need not hide anything; no one should. She is stellar as a woman haunted by her past, caring for her aging mother, unable to connect with people. Into her life enters a fellow physical therapist (Smits), whom she pushes away, afraid of connecting, of feeling emotion. He persists, and they become friends, and, eventually, marry. That marriage is a little forced, and a weak spot of the film. One of few.

Watts is an unsympathetic character, despite what might be a most sympathetic circumstance: she misses not having a mother, not knowing whom her birth mother was, and that haunts her. Yet she turns that hurt and anger into a manipulative cynicism of undue proportions. During a sexual encounter with her new boss (Jackson), she not only controls the entire act, but calls him old man, deliberately wanting to put him in his place (she is already on top, literally).

You may not quite trust “Mother and Child”— its soft spots and fuzzy edges give it away — but you can believe just about everyone in it. A.O. Scott's NYT review.

Washington's character, Lucy, is a layered woman who desperately wants to be a mother. When she and her husband interview with a nun who will arrange the adoption, and then with the mother who is going to give up her baby, Lucy talks incessantly, then upbraids her husband for not stopping her. When the birth mother decides not to give up her baby, Washington launches into a tour de force, an amazingly emotional and hysterical outburst of anger and pain. It is acting at its best.

In the end, all three stories meld into one. Elizabeth, pregnant, abandons her law firm, goes to work with a public interest firm, and insists on giving birth naturally despite a dangerous condition. She sees her brown baby (her boss was indeed the father; she got pregnant despite having tied her tubes at 17 {this scene is weak, and a missed opportunity, though perhaps Elizabeth would not have reflected on it} and decided to have the child), but dies. That baby is given to Lucy, and Lucy agrees to let Karen visit.

Hedy’s folIy

In a front-page review, on Sunday 18 December 2011, John Adams (the composer) writes about The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, by Richard Rhodes. The illustration accompanying the review speaks to her attributes: a startlingly beautiful Vienna-born actress who, although still in her early 20s, had accomplished her own scandal by appearing nude and simulating passionate adulterous sex in a mostly silent movie called “Ecstasy.”

Louis B. Mayer had seen her "Ecstasy" but was ambivalent about her (“You’re lovely, but . . . I don’t like what people would think about a girl who flits bare-assed around the screen.”). Nonetheless, he signed her to a contract, with the proviso that she change her name.

She commanded the screen not so much for her acting, which at best was passably droll and arch, but rather for the perfect beauty of her face, with its colliding sensuality and innocence, and for the subtle irony and sly intelligence that animated her work with screen partners like Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and Charles Boyer.

Under contract to MGM, she worked hard, was generally liked, and although not a diva was scrupulous about fighting for her rights in an era when actors and actresses were “properties” rather than people. She avoided the celebrity party circuit, preferring small gatherings with close friends. At home she set up a drafting table and devoted her downtime to inventions, including a bouillon-like cube that when mixed with water would produce an instant soft drink. It was at a dinner at the home of the actress Janet Gaynor in 1940 that she met George ­Antheil.

Antheil was a composer from Trenton, and had caused a sensation similar to Stravinsky with his Rites of Spring. He went to work in Hollywood, scoring films. He had also written a book, “Every Man His Own Detective: A Study of Glandular Criminology.” He also wrote pieces for Esquire, and Hedy Lamar had read one of those.

According to Antheil’s autobiography, “Bad Boy of Music,” Hedy requested the meeting because she had read one of his Esquire articles about glands. This was Hollywood, and the most beautiful woman in the world was concerned about her breast size.
These were days before implants.

That a glamorous movie star whose day job involved hours of makeup calls and dress fittings would spend her off hours designing sophisticated weapons systems is one of the great curiosities of Hollywood history. Lamarr, however, not only possessed a head for abstract spatial relationships, but she also had been in her former life a fly on the wall during meetings and technical discussions between her ­munitions-manufacturer husband and his clients, some of them Nazi officials.

Slumdog millionaire

Finally saw this 2008 film. A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers. In doing so, the film shows a slice of Indian society. Finely done.

Rent

Fun to see it again. Could not help comparing it to the stage version we saw off-Brodway last week.

Behind the Camera, but Still the Star

Once the red carpet follies were over, the war correspondent Christiane Amanpour introduced the film, calling it “remarkable and courageous” while warning that there was “no way to sugarcoat” the atrocities it portrays. The afterparty, at a nightclub high atop a hip New York hotel in the meatpacking district, complete with the usual supercilious doormen, rotating disco ball and thumping music, was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the human rights group Women for Women International. That was the atmosphere on Monday night at the New York premiere of “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a harrowing look at the fratricidal Bosnian war of the 1990s: an unusual convergence of foreign policy seriousness and Hollywood glamour. But that is the way that Angelina Jolie, who wrote, directed and co-produced the film, operates these days.

Even as big as cynic as I am has to concede that a Hollywood star shining some of her light on important issues is a good thing, but I can not get past the exploitation. Jolie makes a movie about ethnic cleansing, and then they have a fancy party guarded by supercilious doorkeepers. She does the same thing elsewhere: she traveled to Cambodia, I think, for humanitarian reasons (as the catchphrase goes), then has a picture of her in a canoe in a commercial for Louis Vuitton. I mean, c'mon.


As she views it, her celebrity is both blessing and burden. She is on the cover of Newsweek this week and is scheduled to appear on “Charlie Rose” this month, trying in every appearance to get the public interested in her film and the issues it raises, including rape as a war crime and the ethics of international intervention.

Granted, her celebrity lets her get things done that others could not.

But she also noted that “with certain outlets and certain reporters it is an uphill battle” to deflect focus away from her and onto her film and its cast. Indeed, on the red carpet on Monday night, cast members had to field questions about what it was like to work with Ms. Jolie and how much time her children spent on the set. And then there was this: “Angelina has a lot of tattoos. Did you see them?” 

Life by fame, suffer by fame.

A war on punctuation

America’s next president, Newt Gingrich, is also a prolific author of poorly reviewed historical fiction. As it is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it seems as good a time as any to remember Newt’s own book about the subject—a novel that The New York Times called a “war on punctuation.” The first 23 pages are available online

US President? Whoa there, Nellie! if he gets nominated by the Republicans, and that is still a big if, he does an election to contest (and I can only begin to imagine how much Bill Clinton looks forward to that –sparing all the obvious metaphors,too).

Lindbergh

I'd read about Lindbergh in Ed Cray's bio of George Marshall, and was interested in his connection with Hap Arnold. I'd read Berg's bio of Goldwyn, some years back. As it turned out, this bio was written in a similar style to the Goldwyn book, and it simply did not work well. I found it chatty, breezy, and not that good. And yet I read most of it. But, I finally gave up.

Yankee Doodle Dandy - 1942

Corn-pone, but Cagney somehow pulls it off. He portarys George M. Cohan, and the flags never stop waving.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Holds up, mostly, but it could have been edited to be fifteen minutes shorter. Lana Turner was 25, John Garfield 33, and both were believable in their roles. Based on a book by James M. Cain, the same author who wrote Double Indemnity (also made into a film).

Trivia: John O'Hara wrote a poem entitled Lana Turner has collapsed!

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Footloose (1984)

Cute, But, Kevin Bacon was 26 when he played a high school student, Lori Singer 27. (In the 2011 version, not much has changed: both leads are in their 20s)

Descendants

A.O. Scott of the NY Times reviewed it two weeks ago: The emotional trajectory of “The Descendants” is familiar enough. It is about the fracturing and healing that take place within families. Matt needs to bond with his children, make peace with his wife and deal with the pesky politics of entitled cousins. As he works his way through these challenges and others, including a confrontation with his wife’s lover (Matthew Lillard), a lively and complicated mesh of plots and subplots takes shape, but the most striking and satisfying aspects of “The Descendants” are its unhurried pace and loose, wandering structure.

It does move at a leisurely pace, without dragging, not hurrying the action to fit a preconception.

 To call “The Descendants” perfect would be a kind of insult, a betrayal of its commitment to, and celebration of, human imperfection. Its flaws are impossible to distinguish from its pleasures. For example: after what feels as if it should be the final scene, a poignant, quiet tableau of emotional resolution and apt visual beauty, Mr. Payne adds another, a prosaic coda to a flight of poetry. Without saying too much or spoiling the mood, I will say that I was grateful for this extra minute, a small gift at the end of a film that understands, in every way, how hard it can be to say goodbye. 

“The Descendants” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Bad language, impossible situations.


In the New Yorker, Anthony Lane makes a comparison to From here to Eternity, and ends his review with a nice twist of that line, in assessing that closing scene. Death, which has loomed ahead throughout, begins to drift away behind them, and the film completes its journey: from eternity to here. ♦

 From left, George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller in "The Descendants." More Photos »

Fox Searchlight

The young actors did great work. Sid is a stoner, yet has an additional dimension that some people miss: he is not a boyfriend in the romantic sense, but simply a friend who is a boy, a young man; what he shares with Alexandra is a sublime friendship, an abiding loyalty.

Very enjoyable.

Rent

How It Went

Not too well, from the sounds of it. The first paragraph of the review is startling.

Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007, but one gets the sense from Charles J. Shields’s sad, often heartbreaking biography, “And So It Goes,” that he would have been happy to depart this vale of tears sooner. Indeed, he did try to flag down Charon the Ferryman and hitch a ride across the River Styx in 1984 (pills and booze), only to be yanked back to life and his marriage to the photographer Jill Krementz, which, in these dreary pages, reads like a version of hell on earth. But then Vonnegut’s relations with women were vexed from the start. When he was 21, his mother successfully committed suicide — on Mother’s Day.

Oops.

Vonnegut’s masterpiece was “Slaughterhouse-Five,” the novelistic account of being present at the destruction of Dresden by firebombing in 1945. Between that horror (his job as a P.O.W. was to stack and burn the corpses); the mother’s suicide; the early death of a beloved sister, the only woman he seems truly to have loved; serial unhappy marriages; and his resentment that the literary establishment really considered him (just) a writer of juvenile and jokey pulp fiction, Vonnegut certainly earned his status as Man of Sorrows, much as Mark Twain, to whom he is often compared, earned his.

Yikes.

Vonnegut and the other great “comic” (or if you prefer, ironic or tragico-comical-ironic) novelist of World War II, Joseph Heller, are getting their biographical due, almost simultaneously.There are some odd synergies. The two met years after their wars, onstage at a literary festival in 1968, and became great friends and eventually neighbors. Heller’s war was up in the air, as a bombardier in the nose cone of a B-25. Vonnegut’s was at ground level, as an infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge, and ultimately beneath ground level, in the basement of Schlachthof-Fünf during the firebombing. In a detail that struck me as, well, weird, Vonnegut’s breakthrough moment while he was trying to get a handle on how to write his novel came during a visit to a war buddy — in Hellertown, Pa. More ironic is that both World War II novels ended up being Vietnam novels.

Fascinating review. I read Vonnegut. And I saw him once, on the stoop of a townhouse on 48th Street (I think it was), around the corner from 3rd Avenue; he'd come outside, with a little white poodle, I think, smoking a cigarette, and sat on the stoop. He saw me recognize him, and shrugged.