Untimely review/Oscar Preview: Twelve Years A Slave

Steve McQueen’s “12 Years A Slave” chronicles the true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an America  -born free in New York who, in 1941 is kidnapped and sold into slavery.  This movie is gripping and stays with you many days after. Typically I like to remain slightly removed when watching a movie so that I may notice the choices of the filmmaker.  While there are many lovely filmic moments, I found it very hard to keep my distance.  It pulls you in.  Some movies use gratuitous violence to shock you and cause fear.  Some movies manipulate your heartstrings and cause you sadness.  This movie simply shows you things that are so inherently heartbreaking that you have no choice but to feel feelings.  Is it gratuitous?  Only in the same way that slavery itself is gratuitous.  Is it manipulative?  No.  

Although this is a straightforward narrative film, it takes moments to simply be – like a tableau.  At times the pause shows the immense beauty in the landscape of the American south which stands in stark contrasts to the atrocities it beheld.  Other times, the camera simply  lands on a flower, giving us a moment of melancholy stillness.   (Honestly, you will need the break.)  But the most haunting use of this motif is when the camera holds a near-lynching for an excruciating amount of time.  The plantation is in total stillness then slowly comes to life, nearly blind to what is happening.  (Oddly and completely inappropriately, it reminded me of the opening scene from “My Fair Lady” where London’s Covent Garden goes from empty to bustling.)  It is a beautifully composed shot which not only eats away at the audience but drives home in no small way the overarching question the movie poses: Is it wrong to stay silent in the face of injustice when your own survival is on the line?

The word “survival” in some form is used many times throughout the film.  It is man’s greatest desire but it is also a justification.  We see countless examples of others witnessing horrible things happen to others - either staying silent or seeing their actions backfire.  The examples cut  across race and gender. 

 

This is not a politicized movie which seeks to comment on the atrocities of slavery.  But it puts us in the position of having to watch it, to  come face-to-face with it, and being utterly powerless to brush it away.

It brings into focus our own watching.  In the context of the movie, we sit silently and watch.  But it is incredibly difficult. I nearly left the theater twice and I know many people who didn’t make it all the way through.  I was literally squirming in my seat mouthing words at the screen.  I wanted to cut that body down but I couldn't.  

As an Oscar contender I hope that it wins Best Picture.  And, although I don’t want to wish ill on Matthew McConnaughey, I would love to see Chiwetel Ejiofor* come away with Best Actor.  (Like maybe  this is McConnaughey’s Bill Murray-”Lost in Translation” moment.  But I doubt that will happen.  People seem split on whether Best Supporting Actress will go to Lupita Nyong'o - who is a vision as a doted on slave on one of the plantations - or Jennifer Lawrence.  For Lawrence sake,  I hope it goes to Nyong’o.  Too many accolades isn't good for a young person’s career.  

*Side note:  Remember him in “Love Actually”?  Fond memories of a simpler time.  Back when January Jones was just a pretty  American face .  

Just in case this is all feeling a little too heavy, check out the Italian poster for the film.

Untimely Review/Oscar Preview: Blue Jasmine

If you've never seen 1951’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” - let me stop you right here.  Go and find it, watch it, wait five years, and then watch “Blue Jasmine”.  

For the rest of you, proceed with caution.  All the accolades for Cate Blanchett allowed me to have over-high expectations.  That said, not having read any reviews, it was a fun surprise that the whole thing was a modern recession-era retelling of “Streetcar”. (Sorry I spoiled that for you.)  And this isn't mere allusion - it is more of a play-by-play.  

Cate Blanchett is our modern Blanche Dubois - Jasmine, nee Janette.  In this story, she is an ex-Park Avenue wife whose husband has gone to jail in the style of Bernie Madoff.  He has committed suicide in jail, and, anyway, after repo men and a nervous breakdown she needs a fresh start.  So she gets a first class ticket to San Francisco and obsessively blabs about her life to a stranger on a plane.  She goes to live with her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins)  in San Francisco.  Jasmine is clearly uncomfortable in Ginger’s apartment (which is actually quite well-appointed).  In flashback, we learn that it is rather shabby compared to Jasmine’s multi-mansion lifestyle she is used to.  

Soon, we are introduced to Ginger’s boyfriend Chilli (Bobby Carnivale) and it is in his wildly insensitive treatment of Jasmine upon their first meeting that I first found myself feeling like I have seen this before.  The inkling slowly grows until you find yourself playing a game of guessing how closely the two stories will parallel.  (The answer...very.)

It’s a fun game.  There are some modernizing touches which keep it fresh.  (At no point does Chilli should “Giiiiiiingerrrrrr!, although he does rip a phone off the wall.) But, and this is going to sound really mean, it kind of smacks of a junior high assignment to update your favorite classic novel.  Or - perhaps this is fairer -  Hamlet set anywhere other than period Denmark.  

There are some plotting and characterization issues.  For instance, Jasmine does not know how to use a computer but has an iPhone.  (Who else doesn't use a computer?  Woody Allen.)  The computer conceit allows for Jasmine to take a night course on computers - which itself has no real purpose.  Also, it is thrown in that Jasmine and Ginger are both adopted and Ginger ran away.  That is why Ginger is poor and Jasmine is was rich.  We just need to accept this premise.

It’s like Woody Allen wants to bring us into his world from our own but is not willing to bridge the gap.  Perhaps these are just the things we don’t hold against a Woody Allen movie. But it bums me out.

Cate Blanchett is great - a near dead-ringer for Vivianne Leigh’s Blanche.  But I find all the hype around her performance puzzling.  This is not a realistic portrayal of a woman having a breakdown.  It is a skilled imitation of another person’s performance.  Very, very skilled and with added depth.  Blanchett keeps saying how grateful she is that Woody Allen creates great characters for women.  But he didn't create Jasmine.  Tennessee Williams did.  It reminds me of her caricatured Katharine Hepburn from “The Aviator” - for which she won an Academy Award.  There, she created a heightened version of Hepburn which was very enjoyable to watch and evoked a strong nostalgic response.  In” Blue Jasmine”, she fleshes out Blanche’s descent into madness and Allen has added contextual details which explain its origins more fully.  (Although, Streetcar was limited by mores of appropriateness - we will euphemistically say -  which necessitated its vagueness and ambiguity.)  It is a thrilling performance but I’m not sure it is significantly better than others in the current Oscar field.

Louis C.K. deserves a mention.  He plays a small part as Ginger’s small-time affair away from from Chilli.  He is very charming in a schmuck-ish kind of way that is right in Louis C.K’s wheelhouse. The actor would make a very good Woody Allen proxy in his next male-centered neurosis pic.

What's with this photo of Matthew McConaughey?

This is last week's cover of People magazine.  He looks so serious, so contemplative.  I am not trying to suggest that he is not a "serious" actor....

During the initial release of Dallas Buyers Club, we were all impressed, of course.  And much of the buzz went Jared Leto's way.  Then, slowly, there was this McConaughey momentum and he won the Golden Globe.

Now Dallas Buyers Club is back in theaters.  And we have photos like this.  This is really not a post about Matthew McConaughey.  This isn't a thing wrong with this man and his very present talent.  It's not even a serious post.  I just find it funny how flexible, if fickle the Hollywood machine is.  And it works fast.  I don't think we would have seen straightforward photography of a year ago, let alone three months ago.   These aren't amusing images of an amusing actor who doesn't take life to seriously, nor are they of the beach-bum pseudo-stoner persona.

I wonder if it will last.  There are some rumors of a Magic Mike 2 so...

As a side note, this post could just as easily been titled, "Since when does Matthew McConaughey look like Paul Newman?" and then we can all just get lost in those beautiful eyes.

Untimely review/Oscar Preview: August Osage County

This is some hardcore Tennessee Williams shit.

Photo from TheHollywoodReporter.com

When an Oklahoma family patriarch goes missing, the whole Weston clan comes together to support their ailing - but still abusive - mother, Violet (Meryl Streep).  Chaos and emotional upheaval ensures, as one would expect from such altertenatingly strong-willed and martyr-bound individuals.  But rather than everyone learning and growing, no one learns and no one grows.  It all stays horribly, dysfunctionally the same.  Victims are victimized and villains are villainous.  And to top it off, new villains and victims are introduced as this family grows.

I know it doesn't sound like it, but is awfully entertaining to watch.  

August Osage county is adapted by the play of the same name by Tracy Letts.  And it feels like a play.  It is a scene-based film and totally dependent on dialogue.  And the actors lean towards melodrama, each with their own drippy drawl.  

The unchangeableness of the characters is very strange perch for a film to rest upon, if not a play.  It results in many characters remaining unlikable - even though you kind of love them.  I don’t believe the film is trying to deliver a cynical message about family.   But there is a coldness, a distance that the warm embrace of film never quite traverses.

These are big characters and most are played remarkably well.  So the act of not-liking them is active and conflicting.  But just as the viewer starts to feel something like sympathy for one of them, it is violently ripped away.  The act is sometimes funny, sometimes devastating and often very visceral.  

Photo from www.napavalleyfilmfest.org

Both Streep and Julia Roberts, who plays Barbara, the favorite of the three Weston girls and most like her mother, have been nominated for Academy Awards.  Streep was very Streepsian - a word that has been flitting about a lot lately.  It gets pretty ugly at points.  A fearless performance in the vein of Bette Davis.  Roberts roughs it (and roughs it up) a bit too.  There is no awkward sweetness and optimism here.  (I can’t think of a good adjective reworking “Roberts”.)

When it was all over, with very little resolved, we all just go home.  I was left nothing but my enjoyment of the film.   I overheard a few audience members complain.  I think it is simply the unexpected lack of cathartic change and resolution.  And then there is the one plot twist towards the end that is completely shocking and, perhaps, off putting.  (I thought it was great.)  So you have that to look forward to.  

Some other things:

• Dermot Mulroney has perfected his role as Jerkface Dirtbag.  
• Poor, poor Ivy.  Julian Nicholson plays Violet’s shrinking violet but dependable daughter.   She will break your heart and fittingly gets a bit lost amongst all the high wattage star power.  
• There was a gleeful gasp heard from the audience members who were unprepared for a Benedict Cumberbatch sighting.  (It might have been me.)* My main takeaway from his role was that I didn't realize how youthful and accessible he could be.  In Sherlock he seems so old and far away - one forgets its simply acting.

So go see it.  Just don’t expect it to make you want to call home.  

* Same thing happened when I saw Twelve Years A Slave - although within that context it seemed highly inappropriate.   

  

Who is the world's worst film student ever?

Hello?!  Is anybody there?

Welcome to my blog about film, her vulgar little brother television, and the crazy-mixed-up culture that allows for it to exist.  

My education is in film but I never quite fit in with my fellow students.  I was raised on 1950's musicals and wasn't allowed to watch R rated movies.  There were bound to be gaps.  I did my best to ingratiate myself in film culture but there were times, for instance, when a friend would mount a viewing of Eraserhead, that I would opt to watch The Sweetest Thing on VHS in my dorm room...again. 

In short, my taste is questionable.  

Put more elegantly, however, I would argue that there is something to be said for embracing the "bad" with the "good" - and even the ugly good.  I am not above the pretension of cinema.  (I am hella pretentious - why else would I have a blog?) I simply like entertainment - in all its forms.   

So in that spirit - let us celebrate that which entertains.  

And perhaps I will finally watch The Godfather.