By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter
Although this weekend’s studio releases, “Valentine’s Day,” “The Wolfman,” and a Harry Potter knock off, (the title of which is so unwieldy I can’t get it straight no matter how often I see it in print,) are attracting sizable crowds, my advice is to stay home with a good book and a few DVDs.
Despite record bad weather and mostly bad movies people are turning up at the theaters. Maybe it’s cabin fever.
The big numbers are partially due to the “Avatar’s” continuing popularity, but also the surprising performance of two female friendly titles, (“Dear John,” “Leap Year,”) and the continuing interest in several lauded art house items, including “Crazy Heart,” which is turning into a slow burning hit. Mel Gibson’s “Edge of Darkness,” has drawn audiences, although the reported budget of 80 million, an instance of studio bloat if ever there was one, may keep the film from turning a profit.
Usually, January, and the early stretches of February, are notorious dumping grounds for troubled studio titles and lame horror films. The studios dump them unceremoniously for quick play offs. “The Wolfman,” in spite of its intriguing trailer, has been sitting around for almost two years awaiting release. The John Travolta shoot ‘em up, “From Paris With Love,” a tepid bit of nonsense if ever there was one, is a complete flop. Advance word on “Valentine’s Day,” is poor, although it has opened very big. None of these will be remembered come awards time.
Now, a sprinkling of DVDs.
A Serious Man
“A Serious Man” is the latest Coen brothers output, and believe me, had it not been for their recent successes like “No Country For Old Men,” and “Burn After Reading,” the movie would never have been made. This is the most narrowly focused and personal of their many films, and weeks after seeing it and a host of conversations, I’m still not sure what to make of the vituperative and bitter mood that informs its every frame.
Larry Gopnick, a college professor consumed with worry about an imminent tenure decision, helplessly watches as every player in his middle class, Jewish world, disses him in one way or another. His wife confesses her love for a successful, blowhard neighbor, his kids behave abominably at home and school, his penniless brother camps out in his house and won’t leave, and both colleagues and students unconscionably hector him. There’s nothing subtle about any of this.
Larry’s circumstances, and the debilitating rumination that keeps him from taking action, provide a canvas for the Coen’s scabrous portrait of middle class Jewish life in the Midwestern suburbs of their youth. Is their objective here revenge or sophisticated satire? Probably both, and more; the movie has ambitions on several levels. It even begins with an emblematic fable from the “old world.” Regardless or intent, they’ve taken great pains to create a gallery of irredeemably selfish and self important bloodsuckers, driven, in large part, by the need to wreak havoc on poor Larry, a classic, “schlemiel;” (a slang term from Yiddish, for a character who’s unable to cope with adversity, or experience good fortune.)
Roger Deakins’ camera is merciless in capturing every repellent physical detail of both the people and the oppressively flat landscape. Only a sexy, neighbor, who entices Larry with nudity and pot, has any kind of visual appeal, and she’s shown as aimless and bored.
The Coen’s have played their characters for fools before. But sometimes, as in their superior “Fargo,” “Blood Simple,” and “Burn After Reading,” they’ve rigged the scripts with a playfulness that masks the detachment at their core. Here, contempt verging on outright anger is up front.
You will either be fascinated or disgusted by this ensemble of grotesques. Maybe both, as I was.
Bright Star
Writer/director Jane Campion, opting for lethal solemnity over anything that might be mistaken for entertainment, has concocted a one note love story that wears its seriousness like a hair shirt. And while there may be more truth than fiction in this labored telling of the chaste and doomed affair between the poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, a kind of Victorian fashion designer, it doesn’t matter. The entire proceeding is so tastefully bloodless it invites a long snooze.
You get a clue as to what the rest will bring the minute the lovely, usually blonde, Abbie Cornish appears in an unflattering frock and matching dark hair. Her early, chilly interaction with the poet and his grating brother sets the stage for a predictable and flat relationship, built on her blossoming appreciation for poetry and literature.
In the interests of veracity, energy is at an absolute minimum. The sets and locales are spare and hard on the eye. Ben Whishaw, playing Keats, delivers the poetry with conviction, but the director has failed him by adhering to a strict control over tone that kills any involvement in the story beyond respect for its uniformity.
Whatever happened to the inspired writer/director of “The Piano,” and “Sweetie?” Back in the 90s Campion’s work teemed with visual invention and wit, and picked up a slew of awards both here and abroad. Even when she went over the top, with “Holy Smoke,” you sensed her involvement with the characters. Nothing there prepares us for this.
“Bright Star” goes a long way to explaining why kids show indifference to literature. Its fans, will no doubt, point to the disciplined execution and adherence to reality, but it’s all for naught because you can’t sit through it.
Whip It
This is Drew Barrymore’s debut as a director. It’s a routine but amusing look at women’s roller derby that owes much of its considerable appeal to Ellen Page’s wide eyed performance.
Page, who starred in the altogether winning “Juno,” plays Bliss Cavender, a small town Texan, who, you guessed it, longs to escape the football games and beauty pageants that define the local culture. So she lies her way into auditioning for a raucous ladies skating team, then struggles to keep up with the rough and tumble competition, secretly defying her mother’s plan to advance her career through the Junior League.
Bliss’ aspirations to downward mobility are underdeveloped in a script that telegraphs its intentions way in advance, putting even more pressure on the actors to rise above it. Tethered to a PG-13 rating, and all that implies, the movie sorely needed a shot of vulgarity to kick it into high gear. As it is, the few rough edges are barely enough to keep it, well, rolling.
Daniel Stern and Marcia Gay Harden, seasoned pros, do their best to freshen up the thankless roles of clueless parents. Barrymore adds a bit of spunk as Smashly Simpson, one of the rollers. Kristin Wiig and Juliette Lewis try to seem bad, as girls who aren’t nearly as bad as they should be.
One of these days Wiig, a comedic chameleon, is going to break out in a part that gives her the space to run wild. Let’s hope it happens before she’s eligible for social security. In the meantime we have to settle for mere glimpses into her hilariously twisted psyche. See: “Ghost Town,” “Adventureland,” and Saturday Night Live.
The Burning Plain
Guillermo Arriaga’s compelling puzzle drama deserved better when it limped into theaters last fall and was met with mostly critical indifference, and some outright hostility. Why it didn’t win more respect is more of a mystery to me than the story line, which demands close attention, but rewards it with ample feeling, and a satisfying ending.
You might know Arriaga as the writer of “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams,” and “Babel,” all of which were directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. “Amores Perros,” one of the most riveting of recent films from Mexico, announced the coming of a talented team that was not to be denied a seat at the table of world cinema.
Arriaga applied the same motif to all three of his collaborations with Inarritu; separate but intertwined stories featuring a spectrum of diverse characters, operating at different and sometimes opposing levels of society. “Amores Perros” struck me as the best served by this strategy. The other two, undeniably urgent, had a whiff of contrivance that blunted their impact. Also, subtlety is not director Inarritu’s strong suit.
“Burning Plain,” is Arriaga’s debut as both writer and director, and he’s recruited an excellent cast, topped by Charlize Theron and Kim Bassinger. Theirs are not the only strong performances, but they’re certainly the most erotically charged. The others, including Jennifer Lawrence, (a real up and comer,) John Corbett, and a host of international players, well serve Arriaga’s intriguing tale of passion, murder, and racial strife.
The movie begins with an explosion and two deaths, and then moves backwards to explain how they occurred. Suffice it to say that two families were in opposition, along with a love affair that defied economic and racial barriers, powerful anger, and a tragic misunderstanding.
Two stories are developed simultaneously, representing two distinct time periods. They’re neatly intertwined, but to divulge how and why would reveal too much of their surprising connection.
“Burning Plain,” shot by two master cinematographers, Robert Elswit, (“There Will Be Blood,”) and John Toll, (“Gone, Baby, Gone,”) has a rich, appealing look. Apparently it was made as two separate productions, which were then cut into one film.
My guess is that Arriaga intended a lot more than the suspenseful drama that came out in the end, and that critics were disappointed that it was less than a masterpiece. In spite of that it’s suspenseful and absorbing. Good performances too!
