Movie Review: Attenberg

Friday, December 21, 2012

Movie Review: Attenberg

Attenberg
Directed by: Athina Rachel Tsangari.
Written by: Athina Rachel Tsangari.
Starring: Ariane Labed (Marina), Giorgos Lanthimos (Engineer), Vangelis Mourikis (Spyros), Evangelia Randou (Bella).

The Greek film Attenberg invites comparisons to another Greek film – Dogtooth – made the year before this one in two ways. It directly makes us think of the earlier film by casting Giorgos Lanthimos, the director of Dogtooth, in a key role in this film. And it indirectly reminds us of Dogtooth, because at the heart of each film is a strange, perhaps perverse, familial relationship. The family at the heart of Dogtooth – run by a megalomaniac father who refuses to let his kids off of their large estate, only to be undone when the outside world starts encroaching upon them – was screwed up. But the father-daughter relationship in Attenberg is also clearly dysfunctional in many ways.

Attenberg opens with Marina (Ariane Labed) and her best friend Bella (Evangelia Randou) is a strange scene, where Marina admits she has never “done that” – which in this case means kissing. Bella indulges her friend, and the two kiss – but people hoping for an erotic moment will be disappointed – yes, the two beautiful women kiss, but it purposefully lacks any real eroticism. Marina has no idea what to do, and it shows.

You are right to wonder how a beautiful 23 year old woman like Marina has never kissed anyone before – but then we meet her father and things start to make more sense. The first thing we hear Marina ask her dad is “Do you ever think about me naked?” – and although he says of course not, he doesn’t strike the admonishing tone we would expect a father to answer that question to his grown daughter. Clearly these two have a close relationship – even far too close – but we don’t really know how far it goes. Marina talks about how she never thinks about sex – the thought disgusts her, some man pumping inside her like a piston. What 23 year old talks to her dad this way?

Whatever their relationship truly is, her father Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis) is now dying – and knows he needs to get his daughter out there in the real world. Although it is never mentioned in the film, I couldn’t help but think that Bella may have been hired by Spyros to be Marina’s friend. It is mentioned several times that Bella is a “loose” woman, and near the end, she thinks nothing of sleeping with Spyros at Marina’s request. Could she be a prostitute hired by Spyros to try and dissuade Marina’s attitudes about sex? Sometimes all Marina and Bella do is Monty Python style walks, which gives the film some strange, comedic moments.

The other major character is an Engineer, played by director Lanthimos. Encouraged by her father, and Bella, to try sex, Marina meets him, and the two slowly initiate sexual contact – slowly at first, and then getting more and more involved.

Throughout all of this, Marina is also dealing with the imminent death of her father – who has some strange (for Greeks) requests – like being cremated, which only recently became legal there, and is still a lengthy ordeal.

I was drawn in by Attenberg, without ever really loving it. Like Lanthimos’ follow-up to Dogtooth, Alps, Attenberg is a film that is fascinating in its weirdness, but is probably more interesting to talk about than it is to actually watch. But writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari is certainly a talent to watch for in the coming year. Along with Lanthimos, she may be the beginning of a New Wave of Greek filmmakers.

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Directed by: Peter Jackson.
Written by: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Starring: Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Martin Freeman (Bilbo), Richard Armitage (Thorin), Ken Stott (Balin), Graham McTavish (Dwalin), William Kircher (Bifur / Tom Troll), James Nesbitt (Bofur), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), Dean O'Gorman (Fili), Aidan Turner (Kili), John Callen (Oin), Peter Hambleton (Gloin / William Troll), Jed Brophy (Nori), Mark Hadlow (Dori / Bert Troll), Adam Brown (Ori), Ian Holm (Old Bilbo), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Hugo Weaving (Elrond), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), Christopher Lee (Saruman), Andy Serkis (Gollum), Sylvester McCoy (Radagast).

When I first heard that Peter Jackson was planning on splitting The Hobbit into not just two, but three different films I assumed, like many, that it was purely a monetary move – more movies means more box office. But after seeing the first part, I don’t think that’s the case (at least not for Jackson – the studio on the other hand, I’m not sure of). Because the nearly three hours of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey plays like a film where the director is too in love with the material – he doesn’t want to sacrifice a moment of his film. That isn’t to say that it is a bad movie – it is in fact quite good, with wonderful battle sequences, special effects, production design, music and performances – but it sure does feel padded. Cut out an hour of the film, and Jackson may well have had a great film on his hands.

The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a humble hobbit who lives a quiet life in the Shire, and that’s just the way he likes it. Than one day, Gandalf the Grey shows up at his door and invites him to go along on an adventure. Before Bilbo knows it, his hobbit hole is filled with Dwarves, who plan on storming their old home, beneath a mountain, that they were forced out of by a dragon decades before. Gandalf is going along on their quest, and feels they need to add the skills of Bilbo Baggins. What those skills are no one, not even Bilbo, seems to know.

The film was made by pretty much the same team that made The Lord of the Rings films – and it shows. Jackson strikes the same tone in this film as he did in that trilogy, and cast the same actors. Even nine years after the final Lord of the Rings films, it didn’t take long to sink back into the Middle Earth that Jackson and his team have created. The key addition to the cast is obviously Martin Freeman as Bilbo, and he is quite good. His plays the role more quiet and subtle than I expected him to – but this is actually effective, making Bilbo a more believable character. Ian McKellan sinks right back into the role of Gandalf like he never left it. Richard Armitage is excellent as Thorin, the leader of the Dwarves, strong, tough, brave, but also stubborn. The best performance in the film belongs, once again, to Andy Serkis as a slightly younger, but still crazy Gollum. The riddle scene between him and Bilbo is easily the best of the movie.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a fine movie – not great like The Lord of the Rings films were, but entertaining nonetheless. While I certainly think the film is far too padded – and takes far too long in pretty much every scene – I cannot say I was ever bored by the film. Perhaps it’s just that Jackson has unrealistic expectations to try and meet with The Hobbit – that he already dazzled us with The Lord of the Rings, and now he’s got to return to that world and try to do it again (which is probably why initially, he wasn’t going to direct these movies). And The Hobbit, as good as it is, just isn’t as good as The Lord of the Rings. I have a hard time believing that Tolkien fans won’t enjoy the movie – hell, for perhaps the first time ever, fans of the book cannot complain that things were cut out of the movie version. The Hobbit could have using more editing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad film by any means.

Movie Review: Hyde Park on the Hudson

Movie Review: Hyde Park on the Hudson

Hyde Park on the Hudson
Directed by:  Roger Michell.
Written by: Richard Nelson.
Starring: Bill Murray (FDR), Laura Linney (Daisy), Samuel West (Bertie), Olivia Colman (Elizabeth), Elizabeth Marvel (Missy), Olivia Williams (Eleanor), Elizabeth Wilson (Mrs. Roosevelt), Martin McDougall (Tommy), Andrew Havill (Cameron), Eleanor Bron (Daisy's Aunt), Nancy Baldwin (Mrs. Astor).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great President, and he deserves a great movie to be made about him. Hyde Park on the Hudson is not that movie – in fact, it’s one of the worst films of the year. The whole movie seems so silly and inconsequential, even when it tries to get serious about the issues it addresses. Like The Iron Lady last year, about Margaret Thatcher, I couldn’t help but think as I was watching Hyde Park on the Hudson that at the heart of the movie is one of the most powerful, most fascinating political figures of the 20^th Century, and this is the story you want to tell about him?

The movie stars Bill Murray as FDR – and if that sounds like bad casting, let me assure you, it’s the least of the films problems. In fact, Murray is actually quite good as FDR. He least seems to be having fun, and tries his best to enliven the stillborn proceedings of the movie, ultimately to no avail. Anyway, Europe is on the brink of war, and King Geroge (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) are coming to visit America, in the hopes of convincing them to back them against the Nazis. The Cabinet doesn’t want FDR to meet with them, but he insists, but compromises on the location – instead of receiving them at the White House, he’ll do so at his mother’s home in upstate New York. The movie takes place over the course of a weekend, where it looks like the two sides will never come together, but ultimately, of course, do.

This probably sounds like a fascinating story – and it should be. But curiously, writer Richard Nelson and director Roger Michell decide to devote much of the story to Daisy (Laura Linney), a distant cousin of FDR, who in the months preceding the Royal Visit, also becomes his mistress. Daisy is quiet and fades to the background when around a large group of people, but comes alive when it’s just she and FDR. He had many mistresses, and his wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) knows and doesn’t care (the movie implies, as many have, that Eleanor was a lesbian).

I will never understand people’s fascinating with famous people’s sex lives. Really, is the most interesting thing you can say about FDR is that he was a womanizer? When you have a movie about the Royals visiting him on the eve of WWII, do we really need to add in the sad little story of one of his many dalliances? And if you want to include that, shouldn’t you at least do something to make that woman interesting? Daisy is a dull, lifeless character. I know the normally great Laura Linney was trying to make her into a shy wallflower, but there is a difference between quiet and boring – and she doesn’t find it. And do we need endless scenes of FDR seducing her, including a rather tasteless one in the car, and their intimate moments together, that revolve mainly around stamps? Or how about the endless scenes of preparing for the royal visit? The story that should be front and center of Hyde Park on the Hudson is shunted to the background – and barely registers, so we can get the endless crap the movie delivers.

Perhaps Hyde Park on the Hudson would have played better had it not been for two superior recent movies. The first is 2010 Oscar Winner The King’s Speech – in which Colin Firth won an Oscar for playing the stammering King, that poor Samuel West is stuck trying to play here. West is okay I suppose, although his stuttering doesn’t seem natural, but he cannot hold a candle to Firth, and I spent the whole movie comparing his performance to Firth’s (it should be said that Olivia Colman does better with Elizabeth than West does). And the other movie is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, which managed the difficult trick of making Abraham Lincoln into a towering political figure and a touchingly fragile human being, while still telling an important historical story. Because Spielberg handles that so masterfully, and Roger Michell handles this so clumsily, the film looks probably worse than it really is by comparison.

Still, perhaps that’s just me trying to come up with something nice to say about one the most dull, lifeless films of the year. How you can cast Bill Murray as FDR and still almost put me to sleep, I’ll never know – but Hyde Park on the Hudson accomplishes just that.

Movie Review: Searching for Sugar Man

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Movie Review: Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man
Directed by: Malik Bendjelloul.

Rordriguez was a very gifted singer/songwriter who released two albums in the early 1970s, and was never heard from again. Or more accurately, even when he released those albums, he wasn’t heard from. He got some good reviews, but his albums didn’t sell, and so he was dropped from his label, and forgotten, even by the people who liked his music. Everyone who worked with him remembered him though – and loved him. They have nothing but kind words to say about him, and they all rank him among the most talented musicians they ever worked with.

But a strange thing happens – somehow, Rodriguez became huge in South Africa. How his album even got there is not known – an old story says that an American girl came to visit her South African boyfriend with a copy of the album, and everyone loved it, and starting bootlegging in. All through the 1970s and 1980s, under Apartheid, Rodriguez’s two albums were in constant circulation – and inspired anti-Apartheid musicians across the country. His albums were censored by the government, who quite literally scratched the vinyl albums, so the tracks they didn’t want played on the radio could not be played. Rodriguez became a legend in South Africa – bigger than Elvis. He sold hundreds of thousands of records. Part of the reason he became so big is because no one knew anything about him. There were no real linear notes on the album, and strangely the vinyl record lists three different names – the cover identifies him only as Rodriguez, the record itself identifies him as Sixto Rodriguez, and the songwriting credits list him as Jesus Rodriguez. Somehow a story circulates that the reason he never made a third album is because he set himself on fire on stage, killing himself. Or he shot himself on stage. No one knows for sure, but they can all agree is this: Rodriguez is dead.

In the late 1990s, two South Africans set about trying to figure out how Rodriguez really is. They go to his South African record companies. Surely they’ll know – after all, they have to be sending royalties somewhere. And they did, although that trail turns out to be a dead end because the person they are paying royalties to isn’t Rodriguez, but his old record company – and they sure aren’t passing them along anywhere. So then they do a strange thing – they start trying to figure out where Rodriguez is from by looking at the lyrics to the songs themselves. San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam – all dead ends. Then they notice he mentions a place called Dearborn, and the path becomes clearer. What they find will astonish everyone.

I won’t reveal what happens next, because if you are lucky enough not to know this story already, then you deserve to find out for yourself when you watch this remarkable documentary. And remarkable it certainly is. If a screenwriter came up with this story, it would never get made, because no one would believe it. It is the type of story that is made for documentary, because if you didn’t hear it from the people who lived it, you would think it had to be made up. Another documentary this year was like that – The Imposter – but that was a much darker story, that ends as it begins with an enigma. I prefer Searching for Sugar Man which is one of the most inspirational films of the year. I often roll my eyes when I see movies that try to inspire me – I’m a cynic at heart. But I cannot help being won over by a story like the one Searching for Sugar Man tells. We can all learn a lot from Searching for Sugar Man – and the mystery man at its core.

Note: The only real complaint I have about Searching for Sugar Man is the same complaint I have about many movies about musicians – we never get to hear a song from beginning to end during the movie. We hear parts of a lot of Rodriguez’s songs – and what I heard makes me want to hear more, as it is my type of music, but I wonder why documentary filmmakers can never settle down long enough to let a whole song play beginning to end. Oh well, I seem to be the only one bothered by this, but it’s a pet peeve of mine. I want to hear the songs!

Movie Review: This is Not a Film

Movie Review: This is Not a Film

This is Not a Film
Directed by: Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.

Jafar Panahi is currently serving a six year prison sentence in Iran – just because in the Iranian elections of 2009, he supported the “wrong” party.  He was convicted in late 2010 of "assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic", given his six year jail sentence, and banned from making any films for 20 years. While appealing his sentence, he made This is Not a Film, over a 10 day span in March 2011, using a digital camcorder and an iPhone. The film was smuggled out of Iran in a cake, and played at Cannes in May 2011, before receiving a theatrical release in North America earlier this year. It may just be the best film Panahi has ever made.

Don’t get me wrong, I like much of Panahi’s other work – at least what I have seen. But I do not think that The Circle (2000), Crimson Gold (2003) or Offside (2006) (the three other films of his I have seen) are great films. They are all very good, but they are also a little on the simplistic side to me. In these films, Panahi never outwardly insults Iran, or its government, but their implications speak for themselves. He makes films about outsiders – often women – who are marginalized in Iranian society, and while all the films are well made, well-acted (by amateurs) and quite good, none of them rise to the level of the best work of some of his country – like Abbas Kiarostami or Asghar Farhadi. His imprisonment and ban from filmmaking however are an affront to anyone who values freedom of expression.

I mention all of this at the top of my review of This is Not a Film, because without knowing the background, you probably won’t know what to make of the film. It is a very strange film – one where boredom plays a crucial role, and overall, there is a sense of futility and resignation to the film. During the running time of the movie – a scant 75 minutes – Panahi sits in his kitchen, talks on the phone to his lawyers about his court case. He tries to read aloud from the screenplay he wanted to direct – even going as far as to map out the house he sees in his head on the floor in tape – before giving up (saying “If you can tell a movie, why would anyone make a movie?”). He feeds his lizard, and briefly watches a neighbor’s dog, until it becomes clear the lizard and the dog cannot co-exist. He re-visits his old films, telling stories of the great things in them that he did not plan. He interacts with co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, arguing with him with Panahi tells him to “Cut”, and Mirtahmasb refuses, saying that Panahi cannot direct, because that would be violating his sentence, so he holds the shot longer to show that it is him directing, not Panahi. The film ends with a very strange sequence where a building manager comes to Panahi’s apartment to collect his garbage, and then Panahi follows him into the elevator, and accompanies him down, one floor at a time, where he collects garbage from the other tenants, before reaching the street – at which point the young man walks away and Panahi records the fireworks being set off around the city, even though they have been banned by the government (apparently because they have nothing to do with Islam).

This is Not a Film is an appropriate title for the movie. It really isn’t a film – at least not in terms of what we think of as a film. Panahi is careful not to directly violate his ban – he doesn’t write a screenplay, which he is banned from doing, and he doesn’t act, also banned, but he simply reads aloud from his screenplay. He doesn’t give an interview, which is banned, but simply films himself talking – to himself and others. He doesn’t “direct”, he just shoots video. Yet, it takes extraordinary courage for Panahi to even do these things. Who else when hoping to get his prison sentence and ban on movie making would do this? Once again, Panahi never directly criticizes the Iranian government or their legal system for doing to him what they have done. He doesn’t have to. This is Not a Film speaks for itself. Whatever the hell This is Not a Film is, it is one of a kind.

DVD Review: Dreams of a Life

DVD Review: Dreams of a Life

Dreams of a Life
Directed by: Carol Morley.
Written by: Carol Morley.
Starring: Zawe Ashton (Joyce Vincent).

You most likely heard about the death of Joyce Carol Vincent, even if you do not remember her name. This was the incredibly sad, almost incomprehensible and unthinkable story, of a woman who died in December 2003, and whose body was not discovered until three years later in 2006. For those three years, no one reported her missing, and her body sat, slowly decomposing, in front of her TV, surrounded by Christmas presents. This woman essentially disappeared off the face of the planet – and no one noticed. Her body was so badly decomposed when they found her that no cause of death could be identified. Was it murder? Suicide? Accident? Natural causes? No one knows for sure, but the police don’t think foul play was involved. Why was she able to go three years without paying rent or utilities and have no one notice? And more importantly, how did this woman not have any family or friends who came looking for her for three years?

The new film Dreams of a Life tries it’s best to answer these questions – and does fill in a lot of the blanks, but still leaves many of the most pressing questions unanswered. This is not really a flaw in the movie, but actually proves to one of its strengths. For all the information about Joyce Carol Vincent that the movie uncovers, she still remains an enigma, and the reasons why she died and was left undiscovered are still unknown. Part of this is because many of the government organizations that are involved aren’t really speaking – and neither is Joyce’s family. The movie cannot really find anyone who had contact with Joyce after early 2002. What we do know is that early in 2001, she left a well-paying job at Ernst & Young, although no one knows the reasons. Some say she was headhunted by another firm, some say she left to go “travelling”. But later in 2001, she calls an old boyfriend up out of the blue and lives on his couch for a few months – and ends up working a maid’s job. After she left there, she spent time in a home from battered women, and eventually ended up in her low rent “bedsit” where she would be found. The question of “why” this happened never becomes clear.

What Dreams of a Life does do is put a human face on this tragedy – although a mysterious one. The movie finds many old friends of Joyce’s – and none of them can associate the Joyce they knew, with the lonely woman who wound up all alone and dead at the age of 38. They all recount a beautiful, vibrant young woman who loved life – loved going out and having fun, had a beautiful singing voice and dreamed of being a pop singer. Men were drawn were to her. She gave off an impression of being well educated, although she wasn’t, and happy-go-lucky, although obviously she wasn’t, at least not at the end.

What does out however is how no one really knew Joyce. She is described by her former boyfriends as a woman with no real interests or friends of her own. Whoever she was with at the time, their interests became her interests, their friends, became her friends. She moved constantly, and quit jobs almost as often. Friends say it was not unusual for them not to hear from her for weeks or months at a time. You could go from being great friends with her one day, to completely on the outside the next. Parts of her childhood help to suggest why her family may have not been involved with her life when she died.

Overall, however, Dreams of a Life leaves Joyce Carol Vincent as much as an enigma at the end of the film as she was at the beginning. The movie tries to fill in the gaps in her life with some “speculative” dramatized scenes – featuring a brilliant Zawe Ashton as a sad eyed Joyce. These scenes pull on the heartstrings, perhaps a little too heavily, but they are still effective. Like the rest of the movie, they try to get to know the real “Joyce”, and end up not being able to explain her.

I know that some people will be frustrated by Dreams of a Life. It is natural that people want a movie to answer all the questions it raises – particularly a documentary. But this is a story where there are no answers – or at least none that we can know. Only one person really knows what happened to Joyce Carol Vincent, and unfortunately she is dead. But what Dreams of a Life does do is put an all too human face on what was a story everyone heard, but few remembered. And more than that, it makes the tragedy universal. How well do we really know anyone? And how close are we all to ending up like Joyce Carol Vincent. She had her reasons for being secretive about her past, she never really let anyone in, and for that she paid a terrible, sad price. And really, we should learn something from this tragedy.

DVD Review: Ice Age: Continental Drift

DVD Review: Ice Age: Continental Drift

Ice Age 4: Continental Drift
Directed by: Steve Martino & Mike Thurmeier.
Written by: Michael Berg & Jason Fuchs.
Starring: Ray Romano (Manny), Denis Leary (Diego), John Leguizamo (Sid), Queen Latifah (Ellie), Jennifer Lopez (Shira), Wanda Sykes (Granny)Keke Palmer (Peaches), Nicki Minaj (Steffie), Peter Dinklage (Captain Gutt), Drake (Ethan), Josh Gad (Louis), Aziz Ansari (Squint), Joy Behar (Eunice), Nick Frost (Flynn), Heather Morris (Katie), Kunal Nayyar (Gupta), Josh Peck (, Eddie), Simon Pegg (Buck), Seann William Scott (Crash), Patrick Stewart (Ariscratle), Alan Tudyk (Milton / Hunky Siren), Chris Wedge (Scrat), Rebel Wilson (Raz).

I was surprised to learn that I had never seen Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I discovered this fact while looking for my review of the film to see if I had such a low opinion of that film as I did of Ice Age 4: Continental Drift. You see, movies like this all start to drift together at some point – apparently to such a degree that I didn’t even realize that I had only seen two Ice Age films before, and not three. Judging on the box office returns of this film, there will eventually be an Ice Age 5 – and perhaps I should follow the lead of my 2009 self, who skipped Ice Age 3, and not my 2012 self, who watched Ice Age 4. Mind you, by then my daughter (who is only 16 months old right now) will probably be of an age where watching these films is no longer a choice for me – but an obligation.

The story involves our three lovable heroes – Manny the Mammoth, voiced by Ray Romano, a constant worrier. Sid the Sloth, voiced by John Leguizamo, who is sweet but clueless. And Diego the Saber Tooth Tiger, voiced by Denis Leary, who puts up with the idiots around him, because his icy heart has been melted by them. In the opening sequence, we see Scrat once again trying very hard to get his hands on an acorn – which has the unlikely side effect of causing the Earth’s one land mass to break apart, and start drifting to wear they are today. Never mind that that happened a hell of long time before these creatures existed, and probably didn’t happen in a matter of seconds like it seems to here. That type of thing really isn’t what Ice Age 4: Continental Drift is about.

That’s because Ice Age 4 is all about rapid movement, lots of action sequences, bright colors and characters and everything else hurling at the screen almost constantly – because of course, in the theaters this movie was in 3-D, and you got give the audience their money’s worth of crap flying at the screen. Watching it  at home, this just looks pathetic.

I’m sure little kids will love Ice Age 4. There is nothing complicated about the movie at all, and it never slows down for a second. The film is full of chases and action sequences – many involving a band of animal pirates who constantly get in the way of Manny and his friends attempts to reunite with their family, after the continent split up. The jokes come at you fast and furious when the action isn’t, but they’re aimed at kids, with none of the knowing nods, winks or in-jokes direct at the kids parents.

The film was, for me, a chore to sit through. Like the recent Madagascar 3, this film foregoes any attempt at plot or character, and just throws one “visual extravaganza” at you after another. And nothing is more boring to me than constant movement.