Dogs Bark

A Poisoned Pen - - The Ghost Writer (2010) - - 20 March 2010

Strongly recommended. Roman Polanski is one of the most legendary, living directors, with The Ghost Writer, the best recent evidence. In this thriller/mystery, we get Polanski’s real talent, lovingly signaling an ominous mood in the first fifteen minutes. We know immediately that Ewan MacGregor, only identified as ‘the ghost,’ is in over his glib but earnest head. He’s hired by a surprisingly effective Jim Belushi to re-write a Blair-like former Prime Minister’s (Pierce Brosnan) memoirs.  From here, the trail leads tightly into murder most foul. Brosnan avoids mimicry, crafting the lethal edge of smarmy. Polanski has made some of the best scored movies, effectively using Alexandre Desplat’s (The Painted Veil) composition. These skills are well mated to the camera work of Pawel Edelman (The Pianist). Scattered about are professional jobs by Tom Wilkerson, Timothy Hutton, and Olivia Williams (An Education). Simply put, this movie respects its audience - - a sad rarity.    

Indeed! - - You Were Never Lovelier (1942) - - 15 March 2010

Strongly recommended. The second of two Hayworth-Astaire musicals, You Were Never Lovelier may be Rita’s best movie and if she were beside me (long, lovesick sigh) I think she would agree. This because it’s her best musical and, above all else she was a dancer. She was also Astaire’s favorite partner, the one he felt to be most talented. You can see the unbridled joy on her face in the big number “I’m Old Fashioned” and Fred responds with equal effervescence. Rita was his favorite because, not only was she indeed lovely, but she could match Astaire’s precise chaos step for step. The plot is nonsense in the best sense, with a score by Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer and strong support from Adolphe Menjou as Rita’s dad. The picture was well helmed by comedy king William Seiter (Sons of the Desert, Four Jills in a Jeep).

Desperately Seeking Faye - - Chungking Express (1993) - - 10 March 2010

Recommended. This movie was released in the US by the short-lived, Miramax/Tarentino distribution company, Rolling Thunder- - possibly their best effort of the run. It’s also an unusual product of the Hong Kong school, featuring director Wong Kar-wai unique style and screenwriting. Chungking Express describes the break-up woes of two distinct Hong Kong policemen (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu Wai), attempting to move on with two, even more distinct, lovers, The Woman in the Blonde Wig (Brigitte Lin) and a very cute Faye Wong at the beginning of her rise to  rock star status. Wong also supplies the credit song, a Cantonese version of The Cranberries hit, ‘Dreams.’  The homage to Godard in Chungking Express is obvious, but a 90’s, trippy, alt-rock, camera work is also at play. Although the second story runs long, I was never bored. If you liked 1993, this film is a joyous time machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJuLg3AD8Rg

Duke’s Picks - - The Oscars 2009 - - 7 March 2010

As if underlining that 2009 was a lousy year for pictures, the Academy, in their infinite stupidity, have chosen to dilute the competition by nominating twice the number of movies for Best Picture. OK, I also hated it when I was 16 and baseball went to divisional championships so maybe I was born crotchety. But the World Series and Oscar are kinda important to me and were fine as originally intended by the Founding Fathers.  

The other thing this did is make it even harder to see all the nominees and unlike last year, I failed. I didn’t see Up, Precious, The Blind Side, Nine, The Messenger, The White Ribbon, or In The Loop. Some haven’t arrived yet, some came and went too fast, and some can just go blow. Absent a four-hour plane ride, I do not watch Sandra Bullock movies. But of the ones, I did see here are my picks:  

Best Actor in a Starring Role  - - Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart - - Clooney was great in Up In The Air but the plot didn’t allow him to complete the characterization. He should have won for Michael Clayton. Colin Firth was brilliant but I had problems also with A Single Man. Morgan Freeman and Jeremy Renner turned in strong work but Bridges has been so pitifully overlooked by Oscar and carried Crazy Heart on his sleeve.  

Best Actress in a Starring Role - - Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia - - She had tough competition from Helen Mirren, the love of one of my lives since she was 28. However, I thought Julia Child was a more difficult person to interpret than Countess Tolstoy. I loved Cary Mulligan in An Education but she’ll have many more chances, I expect.  

Best Actor in a Supporting Role - - Matt Damon, Invictus - - This is a good group and I might be doing Woody Harrelson a huge disservice by missing The Messenger. Christoph Waltz was brilliant in Inglourious Bastreds, particularly the opening sequence.  One potential challenger wasn’t even nominated - - Peter Sarsgaard in An Education.  I feel bad voting against my buddy Stanley Tucci but he should have been nominated for much better work in Julie And Julia, not The Lovely Bones. However, I think Matt Damon, an acting chameleon, used this skill superbly as the South African rugby player in Invictus and was just a bit better than Waltz.  

Best Actress in a Supporting Role - - Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air - - I missed Ms Cruz and Ms. ‘Nique. I did admire Vera Famiga in Up In The Air and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart but their performances were not quite equal to the breakthrough effort of Ms. Kendrick, nightmarishly capturing every middle-aged man’s workplace rival. 

Best Original Screenplay - - Quenton Tarentino, Inglourious Basterds - - His assault on spell checkers everywhere is as insane as his sense of story but this was clearly the most original of the original screenplays. The Hurt Locker used a very good script also, as did A Serious Man. This is close . . . but Q gets my nod.

Best Adapted Screenplay - - Nick Hornby, An Education - - I really loved this movie, particularly the subtle, shifting dialogue, greatly enhanced by the performances of Mulligan and Sarsgaard.  Both Up In The Air and District 9 were actually undone by their scripts. Cartoons don’t have scripts so who cares about Up?  

Best Cinematography - - Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds - - Bob Richardson already has two Oscars (The Aviator and JFK) but this is one of his best efforts ever. War is incredibly hard to film but he was both inventive and classically precise. And what about the other war movie? The Hurt Locker was also powerfully filmed, just a little less of a challenge. Avatar? Please . . . smoke and mirrors.

Best Direction - - Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker - - Cool. The battle of the exes.  But Bigelow’s army beat Cameron’s fake Marines hands down. Tarentino was good but not all that he has been and Up In The Air had third act problems.  

Best Picture - - Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro, The Hurt Locker - - Avatar was garbage. Inglourious Basterds, An Education, and A Serious Man were very good. But of all the movies I saw, The Hurt Locker was the most ambitious and well executed product of them all, with a noble message about people that deserve our compassion and respect. Too bad our invasion of Iraq wasn’t as well done as this movie.  

And so it goes . . . in protest of this year, Ms. Ryan and I sold our tickets to Sunday’s self-lovefest on E-Bay. We can be found tonight in the Los Angeles River with a bottle of Jameson’s, firing the .44-40 at wrecked cars.   Y’all come down!

Bloody, But Unbowed - - Invictus (2009) - - 5 March 2010

Recommended. The Eastwood take on hatred has been constant since The Outlaw Josey Wales.  If we can only sit with our enemies in openness and respect, the animosity will slowly evaporate. Maybe Clint should be in the U.S. Senate? In Invictus, Eastwood directs Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, a man who prescribed this remedy for a nation of haters. I haven’t much personal knowledge of the efficacy of the medicine in South Africa, so I’ll take it on faith that Invictus is accurate.  Freeman’s friendship with Mandela is legendary, and he more or less honors him. More spectacular is Matt Damon, disappearing into the persona of François Pienaar, the captain of the South African national rugby team. His slow transformation from simple jock to national inspiration is thoughtful and authentic; however, it’s ironic that the poem, Invictus, transformed both Mandela and Timothy McVeigh. Such is the power of the word.

Peace, What Is It Good For? - - The Last Station (2009) - - 4 March 2009

Recommended. Among its other gifts, Anna Karenina offers that great line about the uniqueness of unhappy families. Tolstoy knew whereof he wrote. His final years, after adopting an anarchistic Christianity, probably drove his wife insane. This is the basis of Michael Hoffman’s (Restoration) The Last Station. Count Leo is torn between his socio-religious ‘movement’ and his abandoned wife. As Tolstoy, Christopher Plummer performs large - - a man hopelessly lost in his own mythos. But Helen Mirren, as Sonya Andreyevna, makes this movie. From A. N. Wilson’s excellent biography, Sonya’s dramatic temperament is established. Mirren fully exploits this, her 65-year-old, seductive beauty to suggesting a deeper romantic bond between the Tolstoys. James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti are lost in the chewed scenery. Not so with the lovely Irish actress, Kerry Condon, in a memorable turn as McAvoy’s love interest. The movie is not generally revealing but these small gifts should be savored.

For The Seafood Hater In You - - District 9 (2009) - - 28 February 2010

Recommended.  An interesting movie, no argument here.  Alien movies usually fall into two categories . . . right-wing paranoid (Independence Day) or left-wing naïve (Close Encounters Of  The Third Kind).  However, past efforts presume that the creatures arrive triumphant, not starving and sick like District 9.  This pretense allows newby director Neill Blomkamp to cast a dim view on Man’s inhumanity to his fellow crustacean and a host of imperial, anti-environment, and racist ills. Sharlto Copley’s performance as the corporate stooge delegated to ‘handle the prawns,’ as they are called, adds more compassion deficit to the syndrome, however, his downfall provides some measure of redemption.  Despite this, the plot seems stuck in an anti-human POV and this unbalance is a flaw.  I also found the frantic editing and hand-held camerawork distractingly overdone, along with the pseudo-documentary presentation. Nonetheless - - and although not the Best Picture - - District 9 is certainly unique and worth a visit.