Ceremony

All that’s needed is a sexy R&B tune and you have a perfect romantic scene.

(2010) Comedy (Magnolia) Uma Thurman, Michael Angarano, Lee Pace, Reece Thompson, Rebecca Mader, Jake Johnson, Brooke Bloom, Harper Dill, Nathalie Love, Charlie Moss, Lisby Larson, Paul Amodeo, Philip Carlson, Catherine Russell, Jack Koenig, Jerrin Holt, Von Jeff. Directed by Max Winkler

Love is tricky. It is the ultimate expression of selflessness – putting the needs of someone else ahead of your own. It is also the ultimate expression of selfishness – we fall in love because of the way we feel, not because of the way we make someone else feel.

Sam Davis (Angarano) is an author of children’s books who, let’s face it, isn’t very good at what he does. His books are unnecessarily violent and profane and when he gives readings, only his pal Marshall (Thompson) is apt to show up and even that isn’t a given. Sam and Marshall have been squabbling of late and Sam decides to take Marshall out to a nice home out in the Hamptons to get away for awhile.

Marshall should have known that Sam was up to something. His ex Zoe (Thurman) is getting married to the egocentric and insufferable documentary filmmaker Whit Coutell (Pace) whose home it is they are going to and Sam intends to crash the wedding and win Zoe back. Marshall kind of goes along with this and Zoe certainly seems to be against the whole idea but Sam is nothing if not persistent.

Somewhat unbelievably, Sam is invited to stick around by the pompous Whit and sets out to win his girl back, despite the fact that on the surface they are far from suited for each other; Zoe towers over Sam, for example and is old enough to be his mom. However that’s just surface fluff; love goes much deeper than that and Sam is confident that Zoe will come around.

Different story for the rest of us. Winkler’s full-length feature film debut is unsatisfying on a lot of different levels. For one thing the characters here seem to be more of a collection of quirks and one-note characteristics – he’s suicidal, she’s a slut and so on and so on – and less genuine human beings who you would meet and want to hang out with. These are more like people who exist to advance a plot, or to provide elements of humor. Think of a film populated with sketch characters from the late-80s SNL and you get the idea.

Angarano has shown promise in movies like Almost Famous and more recently in The Forbidden Kingdom but hasn’t really fulfilled it yet. Like many young actors in Hollywood he is looking for that right role that will define him and push him up to the next level but to date he hasn’t found it yet. His character can be a bit overbearing and tends to pontificate and speechify more than speak. He’d be one of those cats you would never take on a road trip because you’d end up leaving him stranded at a truck stop or something.

Thurman seems to be slumming here. She’s a terrific actress who has come a long way since being know mainly for being beautiful (and she still is) but she’s acting in a different movie than everyone else here. I wish I’d been watching her movie; it seems far more interesting than this one.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t completely devoid of charm and there are some moments that are genuinely funny but not enough of them. I think Winkler was going for quirky in  a Wes Anderson kind of way and wound up being quirky in a Lars von Trier kind of way. The way that makes an audience stare longingly at the exit.

Winkler seems capable enough a director and visually this is a good looking film. I think he has some good films inside him but the Hollywood learning curve can be brutal. I hope he gets a chance to make those good films coz I’d hate for this to be his cinematic legacy.

WHY RENT THIS: Some funny moments.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Characters tend to be one-note caricatures instead of three-dimensional human beings. Sam is annoying and borderline creepy.

FAMILY VALUES: There are a few curse words here and there, some sexuality and a bit of drug usage.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Winkler is the son of actor Henry Winkler, better known as the Fonz.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: A faux documentary by Whit is one of the features here.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $22,270 on an unreported production budget; it’s extremely unlikely that the film was profitable during its theatrical run.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Made of Honor

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: The Croods

Lincoln

The pressures of being President encapsulated.

(2012) Biographical Drama (DreamWorks) Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Peter McRobbie, Gloria Reuben. Directed by Steven Spielberg

 

Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, author of the Gettysburg Address and for all intents and purposes, Savior of a Nation, is revered beyond any President this nation has ever known. He is considered by many to be the greatest President in the history of our nation; his face is one of four that adorns Mt. Rushmore and along with Washington is a literal icon of American history.

But with all the praise heaped upon him, the hero worship accorded him, the legendary status given him, we sometimes forget – in fact more than sometimes – that he was a man. In this latest film from Steven Spielberg nearly a dozen years in the making, we are presented with not only President Lincoln but with Abraham Lincoln – father, husband, raconteur, wily politician, lawyer and human being.

We pick up the story as Lincoln (Day-Lewis) is trying to get the13th Amendment passed. This constitutional amendment would ban slavery. The war is in its waning days and he is concerned that his Emancipation Proclamation wouldn’t stand legal challenge which would surely come with the South rejoining the union which is what is expected will happen. He is concerned that will put the country back into the same position twenty years hence and a second civil war would surely destroy the Union utterly forever.

His Secretary of State William Seward (Strathairn) is in agreement and knows that once the South sues for peace which could happen at any time, the Amendment will never pass the fractious House of Representatives (the Amendment had already passed the Senate) and is 20 votes shy of the two thirds majority that is required. The time to get those votes is now; the House is in a lame duck situation with plenty of Democrats being shown the door in recent elections; not having to worry about re-election they could vote their conscience or on a baser level, these men would soon be needing jobs and could be persuaded to see reason with the right offer.

To that end Seward has employed William Bilbo (Spader), a lobbyist from New York whose chicanery is legendary. In the meantime, Lincoln is preparing for his inauguration and welcoming his son Robert (Gordon-Levitt) home from college. Robert is keen on joining the military and doing his duty to his country which Lincoln’s wife Mary (Field) is utterly against; she has already lost one son (in childhood to typhus) and will not lose another. Losing the first one drove her to the point of madness.

Opposing the bill are crafty politician George Pendleton (McRobbie) and firebrand orator Fernando Wood (Pace) from the Democratic side. Thaddeus Stevens (Jones) of Pennsylvania supports it, and is the target of the Democrats who wish the bill to fail. In the meantime, Francis Preston Blair (Holbrook) who founded the Republican party and whose influence can insure all the Republican representatives toe the line, is eager to go down to Richmond and negotiate a peace. Lincoln gives him permission to do so in return for his support.

Blair is in fact successful, getting the Confederacy to send a trio of peace negotiators led by Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens (Haley) but Lincoln orders them kept out of Washington in order to allow the Amendment to pass which it would not if the Congressmen knew that peace negotiations were underway. The clock is ticking and nothing less than the future of the Union is at stake. What will Lincoln do to ensure that future is slavery free?

As it turns out, a whole lot. I have to admit that I was impressed with Lincoln’s political acumen which I didn’t know much about. He was often underestimated by his contemporaries who thought him an uneducated rube from the sticks but in fact even if he was self-educated he was shrewd and had the foresight to understand that a slave economy was a limited economy and that the U.S. would never be able to grow as a nation with one in place. Of course, he also recognized the immorality of it.

But what the movie achieves which to me is even greater is that it brings Lincoln into focus as a man. Not only does Spielberg accomplish this by creating an authentic atmosphere for the tale to be told within, but to allow Day-Lewis – one of the greatest actors of our time – to inhabit the role. I was surprised at the high-pitched voice Day-Lewis uses for Lincoln but contemporary accounts confirm that the Great Emanciptor’s voice was in fact not the sonorous baritone we have come to associate with it. It was more of a tenor.

You get the compassion of the man, but also the frustrations he suffered as both a man – the loss of his son was a blow he never really recovered from – and as a politician. He felt every one of the hundreds of thousands of deaths that occurred during the war keenly and bore their weight on his shoulders. Lincoln has been characterized as an awkward gangly man and Day-Lewis gets the posture exactly. The performance is so massive, so overpowering that you can’t help but feel that this is going to be accorded an Oscar nomination as Denzel Washington’s performance in Flight will be as well. Both performances could easily win it, with the slight nod going to Day-Lewis.

Field also gives a performance that will be given consideration come Oscar time. Mary Todd Lincoln is often characterized as someone whose sanity was on the brink (she would eventually be committed to the sanitarium years after her husband’s assassination) but here she is strong and determined, giving Thaddeus Stevens an earful at a White House function. She is a First Lady without a doubt, one who not only saved the White House from dilapidation but defended her husband like  lioness.

There are some great supporting performances here as well, including Jones, Strathairn, Gordon-Levitt and Holbrook at the fore. While I learned a great deal about Lincoln the man, Lincoln the film never fails to be entertaining. It is a bit long and in places long-winded but you wind up feeling like you know the 16th President a little bit better and admiring him a little bit more. This country could use another President like him and sadly, it will be a long time if ever that we get one.

REASONS TO GO: Humanizes an icon. Another Oscar-caliber performance by Day-Lewis (and Field as well). Informative and entertaining.

REASONS TO STAY: You know how the story ends.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are images of the carnage of war and the brutality of slavery. There’s also some brief strong language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Spielberg spent twelve years (off and on) researching the movie. He recreated Lincoln’s executive mansion office precisely down to the wallpaper and books. The ticking of the pocket watch is Lincoln’s actual watch taken from the Lincoln Historical society – it was the watch he had with him the night of his assassination.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/27/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 91% positive reviews. Metacritic: 86/100. The reviews are extremely positive.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: 12 Days

CIVIL WAR LOVERS: .A nice re-creation of the bombardment of Wilmington and the battle thereafter. Also a look at the waning days of the war which are rarely captured in Hollywood.

FINAL RATING: 9.5/10

NEXT: The Fifth Quarter

A Single Man

Elegance, sophistication and despair, 60s-style.

(2009) Drama (Weinstein) Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Ginnifer Goodwin, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult, Jon Kortajarena, Ryan Simpkins, Teddy Sears, Paulette Lamon, Aaron Sanders, Paul Butler, Lee Pace, Adam Shapiro, Jon Hamm (voice). Directed by Tom Ford

We live our lives out for the most part in isolation. It is a horrible fate that we strive to avoid and when we find someone to share our lives with, we feel a certain amount of relief, as if we have finally received our membership card for the human race. However, when that is taken away from us, our careful façade can show cracks as despair and grief set our very souls to crumbling.

That’s where George Falconer (Firth) is. He receives news that his partner of 16 years, Jim (Goode) has perished in a car accident. This being 1962, George’s relationship with Jim is barely acknowledged and when George makes inquiries about the memorial service, he’s told in no uncertain terms that his presence is not welcome. Very civilly, he thanks the caller (Hamm) for the information, hangs up the phone and stares into the abyss.

Eight months later, the grief has far from subsided; it has multiplied, feeding on itself and growing exponentially until George can no longer stand it. He wakes up in pain every morning, and confides that for the first time in his life, he cannot see a future. Without a future, with an intolerable present, George makes plans to end his own life. He meticulously arranges his study so all the important papers will be easily found, and goes about the business of his last day on Earth.

In it, he will lecture his class at a Los Angeles-area college on the works of Aldous Huxley and set up a philosophical discussion about invisible minorities. He will attend a dinner with his old friend and ex-lover Charley (Moore), who yearns for one last go at a man she knows is lost to her, but she herself is lost so that has little meaning. He flirts with a Spanish hustler (Kortajarena) and with a kindly student (Hoult) but in the end he knows there’s a gun waiting for him in his bedside table.

This is the first directing effort by fashion designer Ford, who is credited from rescuing Gucci from bankruptcy and turning it into a billion-dollar brand name. As you would expect from someone with that kind of eye, extreme attention is paid to art direction, the meticulous detail of recreating 1962 is done with great authentic detail from the brand names to the attitudes. The Cuban Missile Crisis is in the background but never  becomes the centerpiece; it is a topic of conversation and colors the film a bit without being the focus. Ford also takes some artistic cues from famed Chinese director Wong Kar-Wei, using colors as emotional triggers in the film.

However, as impressive as Ford is, it is Firth who steals the show here. He was Oscar nominated for his performance here (which he didn’t win but it set the stage for his win earlier this year for The King’s Speech) and it was richly deserved. Firth has made a name for himself for playing uptight British sorts, and so he is here, so tightly wound that it seems at times that one pinprick in the right place will let loose a barrage of screams.

His scene in which he is notified of Jim’s death is reason alone to see the movie; he’s just talking on the telephone, sitting down but you look at his eyes, his demeanor, his body language – while he looks composed, you can see him disintegrating inside. There’s no tears, no dramatic gestures, just the quiet despair of a man who in the space of a few moments has lost everything that has any meaning to him.

Firth shuffles through the film with a grey, lifeless pallor which only heats up in certain instances. One of them is with Charley, the divorcee who in many ways is as lost and desperate as George is. Moore gives her life, not only reading the lines with the caustic cattiness that was perfect for the period and the character but also showing the vulnerability she is careful to keep away from the surface, but so intense is it that it appears without warning and despite her best efforts. Moore was nominated for a Best Supporting Dramatic Actress Golden Globe; she didn’t get an Oscar nomination but I doubt anyone would have complained had she received one.

The Christopher Isherwood novel this is based on is considered a touchstone of gay English language literature and it is indeed ambitious that Ford, who is also gay, would take it on as his first filmed project but in many ways this is a movie that needed to be made and having someone with the visual eye that Ford has made him the right choice for the role, despite his limited experience as a director.

There are those who have skipped this movie because of its gay themes, and to those folks let me say this; you may be uncomfortable with the expression of same-sex love and there is certainly a good deal of that here, but I never found it uncomfortable or intrusive. This is more accurately a portrayal of grief, of a limited ability to express that grief both publically and privately, and the character study of a man deeply wounded but who in the end finds a certain measure of peace. It’s a very good movie and gay or straight, you should make an effort to see it.

WHY RENT THIS: An amazing looking film perfectly capturing the period. Firth does an amazing job in the role of George.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: It’s a very slow-moving film.

FAMILY VALUES: There is a good deal of sexual content, as well as some fairly disturbing images. There’s also a little bit of nudity.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Firth nearly turned the role down and had composed an e-mail to Ford sending his regrets. He was about to send it when he was interrupted by a repairman who was there to fix his refrigerator. While the fridge was being repaired, Firth reconsidered and never sent the e-mail. Firth thanked the “fridge guy” when accepting his BAFTA award for Best Actor for the part.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $24.9M on a $7M production budget; the movie was a hit.

FINAL RATING: 8.5/10

TOMORROW: Thor

When in Rome

Josh Duhamel and Kirsten Bell hope they are eaten by wild animals before doing When in Rome 2.

(2010) Romantic Comedy (Touchstone) Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, Jon Heder, Danny DeVito, Anjelica Huston, Alexis Dziena, Kate Micucci, Bobby Moynihan, Lee Pace, Don Johnson. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

Love is so mysterious to most of us that it borders on magic. It appears in its own mercurial time, it disappears without warning, it transfers from one person to another and when it hits us head-on, our lives are never the same.

Beth (Bell) is a workaholic sort who has blazed her way into becoming the youngest ever curator at the Guggenheim in New York City. Nick (Duhamel) is an easy-going sportswriter. They meet at the whirlwind wedding of Beth’s sister Joan (Dziena). Beth, stressed over a big exhibition that she is curating that no work is getting done on while she is foolishly enjoying her family’s life event in the company of chip-off-the-old-block pa (Johnson).

Things go inevitably wrong complete with a vase that refuses to break, electrical mishaps and the kind of shenanigans that usually go on at movie weddings. Pay no attention to these. Instead, note that Beth is getting hammered, and as hammered women often do she goes wading into the Fountain of Love (the city fathers of Rome wisely prevented the Trevi Fountain from being associated with this in any way shape or form) and pulls five coins out of the fountain.

This is when the magic happens…so to speak. Each of the men who threw the coins in the fountain – an annoying street magician (Heder), an annoying painter (Arnett), a really annoying model/narcissist (Shepard) and a slightly less annoying sausage king (DeVito) – all fall hopelessly and unrealistically in love with Beth and follow her back to New York where they make attempts to woo her that are about as well-worn as the word “woo.”

In the meantime there is that fifth coin. Was it thrown in by Nick? And if so, does that mean the blossoming romance between Nick and Beth is all a lie, forced by the magic of a fountain which has apparently confused stalking for love. Then again, what would you expect from a hunk of concrete.

There are some elements here that would have made for an interesting movie – unlike a lot of critics, I have no beef with the concept, only the execution. Rather than trying for genuine laughs, the writers opted for weak slapstick routines and cliché comedy bits (if I hear that freaking record scratch again I swear I’ll lose it – and you hear it not once but twice in the first five minutes).

It’s a real shame because Duhamel and Bell are genuinely appealing and make a nice couple. Duhamel, in particular, shows himself to be a real pro, offering a good performance despite the obvious knowledge that he’s in a movie that has some real problems.

I have no issues with Shepard, Arnett, DeVito and Heder individually but I’ve never really connected with them consistently as actors (with the exception of DeVito, who showed in such films as The Oh in Ohio that when given a decently written role he can make something wonderful out of it) and here they seem to be allowed to mug all over the place. I get the impression occasionally that there are four of them because they could get four name actors for the roles; had one of them passed, there would have been three of them – if one more name actor had agreed to do it, five. I found it amusing that all four of the coins belonged to men- statistically, far more women throw coins into the Trevi than men – and thought the movie might have worked better if at least one of the coins belonged to a woman (I could see someone like Amy Poehler as an aggressive romantic stalker).

But then that wouldn’t have played in middle America and one gets the sense that this was a movie assembled to target a particular demographic rather than because the writers had something important to say about love and life. I know that the first instinct of a studio executive is to go with the safe and the familiar, but I think box office figures demonstrate clearly that a well-written movie with an interesting story, memorable characters and something to say about the nature of life will more often than not bring in the box office gold that Hollywood studio executives know more about chasing than they do about chasing love.

WHY RENT THIS: Duhamel is one of the most underappreciated stars in Hollywood and he has nice chemistry with Bell.  

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The romance is cliché, the comedy is cliché, the script is cliché, the romance is cliché, the comedy is cliché, the script is cliché – say, do you get the strange feeling you’ve seen it all before?

FAMILY VALUES: There is some suggestion of sexuality but nothing really overt.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In the scene where Beth first stands in the Fountain of Love and surveys the coins, they are all in U.S. currency even though the fountain is supposedly in Rome.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There are a couple of music videos and a blooper reel here.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $43M on an unreported production budget; the movie most likely underperformed or broke even.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Invincible

Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

A lovely trio of Depression-era fashionistas.

(Focus) Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Lee Pace, Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Payne, Mark Strong, Christina Cole, Stephanie Cole. Directed by Bharat Nalluri.

In these economic times we are all of us riding the thin line between success and poverty, with one push in either direction sending us skittering towards one or the other. While in some sense this is almost always generally true, in only one other era was this more the case than the one we live in now – the Great Depression.

Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand) is a vicar’s daughter who works as a governess. Plain, socially awkward and somewhat plain-spoken, she finds herself dismissed from one position after another. After her latest dismissal, her agency declines to find another placement for her – ever. Desperate, knowing starvation and homelessness are awaiting her she impulsively steals a placement as a social secretary for a flighty and somewhat promiscuous actress by the unlikely name of Delysia Lafosse (Adams).

Adams, an American working in London as World War II looms, came to the UK as a lounge singer but hopes to find success enough in the West End to propel her to Hollywood. She has her sights set on a part in a new play produced by Phil Goldman (Payne) and is willing to do anything – and anyone – to get what she wants. Ditzy and disorganized, she lives in a swanky London flat that turns out to be the address of Nick Calderetti (Strong), the hot-headed nightclub owner she works for and is sleeping with. However, her heart belongs to Michael Pardew (Pace), a talented pianist who has just finished serving a term in jail for a “misunderstanding.”  

Miss Pettigrew is completely out of her element, but all the characteristics that made her unsuitable as a governess are just what the doctor ordered for Delysia. Conversely, Delysia is able to make the dowdy governess blossom with her knowledge of fashion, make-up and hair. The two are perfect for each other.

However, the world around them is spiraling out of control. The part that would make Delysia’s career is in danger of going to another actress, Charlotte Warren (C. Cole) but accepting that role would put an end to her relationship with Michael, who is returning to New York. Add to that the complication of Edythe Dubarry (Henderson), a fashion maven whose engagement to lingerie designer Joe Blomfield (Hinds) she wants Miss Pettigrew to rescue. However, Miss Pettigrew is attracted to the quiet, gallant Joe herself while Edythe begins to suspect the Miss Pettigrew isn’t who she says she is.

Based on the 1938 novel by Winifred Watson, the film rights had belonged to Universal since 1939 languishing there for nearly 70 years before finally getting made by Focus, the studio’s independent and art film arm. Director Nalluri takes the elements of a screwball comedy and adds a 21^st century romantic comedy ethos to it. The results are neither fish nor fowl, but an odd amalgam of both, rendering a not-unpleasant effect.

McDormand, one of Hollywood’s most consistent leading ladies, is quite understated as the somewhat timid Pettigrew. Adams, who is blossoming into not only a fine actress but also a charismatic lead, is sensational. She takes a character that sleeps around and is something of a birdbrain and gives her humanity and charm. You wind up liking this girl even though in real life, you probably wouldn’t…unless she was Amy Adams, that is. She also gets to sing a song, “If I Didn’t Care” which just about brings down the house. Lee Pace, so good in TV’s “Pushing Daisies” is somewhat lost in his role. Better are Henderson and Hinds, character veterans who have richly earned reputations for solid performances, and they don’t disappoint here.

Screwball comedies, so popular in the 1930s, are a skill in and of themselves. When done properly, they are some of the best entertainment value there are. In all honesty, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day doesn’t really hold up with the best of that genre, but is sufficient enough that because they are so rarely made these days, its rating might be skewed up a bit because of it. With the economy rapidly mimicking that of the Great Depression, I wouldn’t be surprised if we begin to see a lot more of them in the coming years. That, in itself wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

WHY RENT THIS: Decent screwball comedies are rare and this one is definitely that. Adams and McDormand are two of the best actresses in Hollywood, at the top of their games here.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: 21^st century audiences may find this a bit dated stylistically speaking.  

FAMILY VALUES: Suitable for all ages; almost no raunchiness to speak of, although the Delysia Lafosse character’s promiscuity is implied.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Miss Pettigrew’s father is revealed to be a minister. Actress McDormand’s father is also a minister.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: An interview with the author’s son, who gives some fascinating insight into how the movie came into being.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Inkheart