POV Blog by Peter Pearson

Cooking With Stella

2010-03-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

For next Monday, Monday, March 15th, we're got a world premiere comedy (not opening until March 26), starring Don McKellar, thanks to our good friends at Metropole. Cooking With Stella is a lighthearted, satirical, social comedy about an unsuspecting couple in the Canadian Diplomatic Service posted to New Delhi who inherit a household of Indian servants headed by the wily, charming... and totally inspiring cook - Stella.

Cook in the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, Stella is brilliant at padding her salary - a few pilfered items, minor overcharging, and a special phone-order duty free business. Stella's cozy domestic set-up implodes when Tannu, an honest nanny, threatens to expose Stella. Eventually Stella wins Tannu's full cooperation (and then some!) and unlikely partnership embarks on a much grander, riskier scam.

***

Lundi prochain, le 15 mars, nous présentons une comédie de première mondiale (n’étant pas à l’affiche avant le 25 mars), mettant en vedette Don McKellar, grâce à nos bons amis de Métropole Films. Cooking with Stella est une amusante satire sociale racontant l’histoire d’un couple affecté à New Delhi au sein des Services diplomatiques canadiens. À leur disposition se retrouve une armée de serviteurs indiens dirigés par l’astucieuse, charmante et très inspirante chef cuisinière, Stella.

Stella Elizabeth Matthews, cuisinière affectée au Haut-commissariat du Canada à New Delhi, est très ingénieuse pour faire fructifier ses revenus: légères tricheries, subtiles hausses des prix, et un petit commerce de commandes téléphoniques sans taxes. Son confortable univers s’écroule lorsque Tannu, d’honnête domestique, menace de dévoiler Stella. Mais éventuellement, Stella gagne son entière collaboration (et plus encore!) et une association se développe sur un plan beaucoup plus élaboré et très risqué.

*****

...contempo upstairs/downstairs story provides an interesting, often lively glimpse into the household of a Canadian diplomatic family living in India...

Une histoire contemporaine upstairs/downstairs qui nous donne un captivant et vivant aperçu au sein de la maisonne de diplomates canadiens vivant en Inde.

Variety

***

A light, clever comedy written by director Dilip Mehta with his sister Deepa. At the heart of the film is the culture clash of misunderstandings (and cultural disagreements) between a young Canadian family living in a diplomatic residence in New Delhi and Stella (Seema Biswas), an indefatigably crafty housekeeper. Don McKellar and Lisa Ray are terrific as the newcomers but itâ€™s the Indian cast members who have the most fun in the Mehta's fleet-footed satire.

Une brillante et légère comédie du réalisateur et scénariste, Dilip Mehta et de sa soeur, Deepa. Au coeur de ce film se retrouve un choc ethnique incompréhensions (et de désaccords culturels) entre une jeune famille de canadiens vivant dans une résidence diplomatique Ã New Delhi et Stella (Seema Bisway), une vigoureuse et astucieuse ménagére. Don McKellar et Lisa Ray sont fantastiques en tant que nouveaux venus, mais ce sont les acteurs de la distribution indienne qui prennent le plus de plaisir dans la délicate satire de Mehta.

National Post

A solid crowd-pleaser about the collision of cultures as a Canadian diplomat (Lisa Ray) and her husband find life in Delhi rather, um, grafty. Do we admire their live-in cook for teaching McKellar about Indian cuisine, or frown on her well-established system of kickbacks? Either way, it's a tasty meal.

Une histoire sûre de plaire sur l’affrontement des cultures alors qu’une diplomate canadienne (Lisa Ray) et son mari trouvent la vie à New Delhi quelque peu, disons-le, friponne. Sommes-nous attendris par leur cuisinière pour ses leçons de cuisine indienne à McKellar ou est-ce que nous sourcillons sur ses solides tactiques frauduleuses. Peu importe, c’est délicieux. Eye Weekly

***...an appealingly wry, distinctly Indo-Canadian spin on upstairs-downstairs tales of servants who outwit their social betters.

Attachante ironie, clairement Indo-Canadienne sur les contes upstairs/downstairs de servantes qui ont réussi à déjouer leurs supérieurs sociaux. National Post

Toronto Post

2010-03-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Malgré que je n'ai pas encore vu notre présentation du 8 mars, Le Hérisson (The Hedgehog), j'ai lu (deux fois) le roman best-seller de Muriel Barbery, duquel ce film fut inspiré. L'Élégance du hérisson retrace les rencontres inattendues de trois voisins, tous demeurant dans un immeuble à appartements très bourgeois en pleine ville de Paris : Paloma, une jeune fille de 11 ans effroyablement intelligente; Renée Michel, une discrète et recluse concierge de grande culture littéraire et l'énigmatique et distingué veuf japonais, Kakuro Ozu.

Et j'ai lu les critiques françaises.

While I have not yet screened our March 8th offering, Le Hérisson (The Hedgehog), I've read Muriel Barbery's bestselling novel (twice) on which this movie is based .The Elegance of the Hedgehog traces the unexpected encounter of three neighbors, all living in a middle-class apartment building in central Paris: Paloma, a fearsomely intelligent 11-year-old girl; Renee Michel, an unobtrusive, erudite concierge; and the enigmatic Kakuro Ozu, a distinguished Japanese widower.

And I've read the French reviews:

Ce qui nous est donné à voir est la découverte d'une complicité inattendue entre trois personnages habitant le même immeuble bourgeois parisien. Car tel est l'usage : hormis lors des tentatives de dîners citoyens, les voisins ont le réflexe de sceller entre leurs appartements des cloisons étanches, et d'entretenir des relations à peine civilisées, ne sacrifiant qu'aux règles élémentaires de politesse. Les locataires de ce bâtiment de grand standing qui nourrissent cette histoire sont à priori inconciliables, puisqu'il s'agit de la concierge, d'une gamine de 11 ans, et d'un locataire étranger.

(What we have here is an astonishing complicity among three characters, all residing in the same hoity-toity Parisian apartment block. Such are the traditions of such buildings that neighbors hermetically seal off all contact between the various tenants, maintain relationsips that are only marginally civilized, only conceding the very minimal concessions to civility. The elders of the place who encourage such practices, maintain by definition their irreconcialable distance from the three central characters of the movie, since we're talking here of a concierge, a little girl of 11 and a tenant from Japan. Le Monde
*****
De ces trois personnages improbables sortis du roman de Muriel Barbery L'Élégance du hérisson, la réalisatrice fait des aventuriers secrets de la conscience, naviguant au milieu d'un monde endormi dans son confort matériel et intellectuel, unis par des complicités secrètes. Le microcosme de l'immeuble se prête à ce jeu très visuel entre l'apparence et son envers. C'est plaisant, astucieux, ironique, touchant. Avec une Josiane Balasko finement malgracieuse et formidablement généreuse.

(From these three characters from Muriel Barbery's novel, L'Élégance du hérisson, the director creates hidden adventurers, making their way through a world, dozsing in its material and intellectual comfort. The microcosm of the the apartment block provides a visual stage between appearance and reality. Astute, ironic, touching. With Josiane Balasko, exquisitely bad-mannered and formidably generous.) Le Figaro
*****
Young director Mona Achache focuses three delicate souls, perceived by others as "odd", eccentric, different: Renée, the concierge, dowdy and ignorant, Paloma , the "complicated" young girl, and the Kakuro, refined, respectful, tactful. I felt raptured by the delicacy and the calmness of these characters, wonderfully interpreted by three talented actors. I identified myself with the little Paloma, because she reminded me at her own age, when I liked being on my own, finding my secret refuge, where I could stay alone with my thoughts. Go and see it, you will be enchanted by these three simple, plain, but magic characters. IMDB

Sa jeune réalisatrice, Mona Achache, se penche sur trois êtres complexes, étant perçus comme différents et excentriques : Renée, la frustre concierge mal fichue; Paloma, jeune fille ténébreuse, et le distingué Kakuro rempli de tact et de respect. Jai été ravi par la délicatesse et le calme de ces caractères, magnifiquement interprétés par trois acteurs de talent. Je me suis identifié à la petite Paloma, parce quelle ma rappelé comment jétais au même âge, alors que jaimais faire tout par moi-même, découvrant mon monde secret, dans lequel je pouvais être seul avec mes pensées. Allez voir ce film, vous serez enchantés par ces trois personnages simples et sans façons mais tellement fascinants. IMDB.

Un Prophète

2010-02-18T13:14:00.000-08:00

Over the past 12 months, Cinémagique has showed a string of French movies, all of which meditate on the role race and religion play in the lives oftheir characters. Cerebral civilized folk, talking (and listening) in full sentences, providing astute observations on their lives. They're French, doncha know! In Cinémagique's first-ever offering, Entre Les Murs (winner of the 2008 Palme d’Or at Cannes), a pasty-pink Parisian prof attempts to inculcate eternal French values into frisky immigrant Arab, Oriental and African teens. To no avail. In the end, as a teacher, he is learning far more than he inculcates.

Un Jour, Tu Comprendras tells of a French Jew (Jeanne Moreau), discarding the religion and race fictions she has spun all her life in order to recuperate the irrecoverable past of her parents.

L'Heure d'´Eté mediates on the dissolution of the traditional French family values, as siblings disperse the family home and find new lives across the globe.

In Les Beaux Gosses, a raunchy sex comedy, Director Riad Sattouf (who grew up, an Arab immigrant teen in Brittany), remembers those fantasizing, masturbating teen years, learning to be a French kisser in Rennes.

Last week, in Vilaine, our charming ugly Cinderella finds her St. Valentine in a guy from Bénin. Traditional French rectitude take a whupping at every turn. You get the point. Ah! French movies! You just gotta love 'em!

Now next Monday, we have this masterful prison saga, Un Prophète (winner of the 2009 Palme d'Or), and in three weeks our much-anticipated Le Hérisson.

OK, so no surprise that race and religion are at the centre of Un Prophète as well. A illiterate delinquent (immigrant Arab) only learns how crime pays after he's locked up for six years, by negotiating his own survival midst three warring criminal underworlds, Arab, Coriscan and Italian. One guy says, The idea of this place is to come out a little smarter. And he sure does. This is a rags-to-riches underdog movie, rooting on (despite yourself) this petty thug's Darwinian struggle for his own survival. The illiterate man-without-a-country emerges a kingpin Caid.

A couple of heads up. This is one brutal tour de force, which runs 2 hourse and 40 minutes, so we won't have time for post-coitals (Alas!!) Unless members wanna have a drink in the bar after. And at the very beginning one scene has drawn the wrath of Quebec cnsors, although honestly it's nothing compared to the mayhem of Hollywood movies.

****

Au courant des douze derniers mois, Cinémagique a présenté une série de films français dans lesquels figuraient des gens civilisés (ce sont des français…vous savez!), qui parlent (et écoutent) par des phrases complètes, nous faisant part de leurs astucieuses observations du rôle que la race et la religion jouent dans leur vie. Nous vous offrons lundi prochain, Un prophète, qui risque d’être un extraordinaire film à tout casser – un captivant thriller de crime dans le décor d’une prison à sécurité maximum.

Notre première présentation, Entre les Murs, (Palme d’Or 2008 au Festival de Cannes), est l’histoire d’un jeune professeur de lettres parisien qui tente d’inculquer à des élèves d’origines multiples (adolescents d’origine arabe, orientale et africaine) les valeurs d’être un vrais Français. Sans succès. À la fin, il apprend plus qu’il n’enseigne.

Plus tard, tu comprendras raconte l’histoire d’une juive française (Jeanne Moreau) qui cache certains événements de sa vie reliés à la race et à la religion, voulant ainsi empêcher la reconquête de la mémoire familiale et le désir de remuer le passé.

L’heure d’été est une chronique familiale, où l’histoire est celle des enfants d’une même famille confrontée aux objets de valeur du passé. Ces enfants, vivant dans des endroits dispersés autour du monde, tentent malgré tout de rester une famille soudée et d’éviter les affrontements et les déchirements.

Les Beaux Gosses, une comédie sur le passage à l’âge adulte. Son réalisateur, Riad Sattouf (immigrant arabe qui a grandi en Bretagne), relate des souvenirs personnels de sa propre adolescence, dans un monde de fantasme et de masturbation, tentant difficilement d’apprendre à devenir un beau gosse.

La semaine dernière, dans Vilaine, notre charmante et vilaine Cendrillon fait la rencontre de son Valentin, un beau mec du Bénin. C’est alors que les principes traditionnels français prennent, à tout coup, une sérieuse défaite.

Vous voyez l’idée…ah! ces films français ! On les adore !

Maintenant, lundi prochain, nous vous présentons une majestueuse saga qui se passe dans un environnement carcéral, Un Prophète, (Palme d’Or 2009), (et dans 3 semaines, Le Hérisson).

Dans Un Prophète, il est aussi question de la race. Un délinquant qui ne sait ni lire ni écrire (immigrant arabe) réalise, après avoir été incarcéré pendant six ans, que le crime est payant. Il négocie sa propre survie au sein de trois clans de criminalité différents, arabe, corse et italien. L’un dit : l’idée de cet endroit est d’en sortir plus futé que le voisin. Et il le devient

C’est finalement, de la misère à la richesse, l’histoire d’un simple petit voyou (quoique vous en pensiez) qui se retrouve dans un combat darwinien pour assurer sa propre survie. Le jeune illettré sans pays ni frontière devient un chef-maître Caïd.

C’est un brutal tour de force d’une durée de 2 H 40. Il ne restera malheureusement plus de temps pour une après-discussion (Hélas!). À moins que les membres ne désirent prendre un verre au bar à la fin. Une scène au tout début a attiré l’indignation des critiques québécois à la censure, mais bien honnêtement je vous dis que ce n’est rien comparativement aux bagarres destructives retrouvées dans certains films hollywoodiens.

*****

Vilaine

2010-02-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

Très sympa! J'adooore!

Vilaine starts out as a tender, touching Cinderella chick flick. Melanie Lupin (a scrambled anagram of Amelie Poulain), feeling bummed, questing after her gorgeous, sensual hunk, suffers a Valentine's Day massacre of her ego at the hands of her three best friends (while she watches Love Story). The movie then morphs. Mélanie decides enough is enough. It no longer pays to be gracious. And mutates into a vengeful Kathy Bates (as in Misery): a delirious, racist, greedy, manic tornado of revenge fantasy. For her, nothing exceeds like excess.

This feminist politically incorrect tract (written/directed by two young guys) could have been called The Revenge of the Ugly Duckling (its English title is gonna be Ugly Mélanie - ugh indeed!), mocking endearing Hallmark sentimentality: sappy Hollywood movies (Titanic, Love Story, The Graduate), Valentine's Day schmaltz, mothers, old folks homes, ceramic animals, best friends - one more example of France's ability to take the mickey out of rectitude. Instead of walking the neighbor's basset, Mélanie ties its leash to the back of an idling bus. When the zooed elephant breaks free, it provides a fresh take on a bull-in-a-china-shop concept (in the world's only animal ceramic museum). Indeed, the French SPCA protested Vilaine's on screen depiction of pets - particularly kittens and Basset hounds - when the movie was first released.

As in all Valentine's Day movies,while everyone in Vilaine indeed gets to the altar by the final reel, Mélanie guarantees that none of the best friends gets matched with her intended. Vilaine's star, Marilou Berry is daughter of celebrated French actress-director, Josiane Balasko (whom we'll see in two weeks, starring in The Elegance of the Hedgehog). Marilou made her debut at age 8, in a movie (My Life Is Hell) directed by her mom. We hope to cadge an interview with her, when she's in town next week. Jean-Patrick Benes and Allan Mauduit co-wrote and co-directed this antic madness, their first feature. (93 mins).

***

Vilaine s’annonce comme étant l’histoire d’une touchante et attendrissante petite poulette à la Cendrillon. Mélanie Lupin (vague interversion d’Amélie Poulain), sentant que l’on profite de sa gentillesse, poursuivant sa quête d’un bel et sensuel adonis, subit une écrasante humiliation de son ego aux mains de ses trois meilleures amies (pendant qu’elle regarde Love Story). Le film prend une toute autre allure lorsque que Mélanie décide qu’elle en a assez ! La bienveillance ne mène nulle part. Elle se métamorphose en une vindicative Cathy Bates (comme dans Misery) : un délirant et puissant tourbillon de vengeance l’envahit. Selon elle, rien n’est plus excessif que l’excès. Cette comédie féministe politiquement incorrecte (écrite et réalisée par deux jeunes gars) aurait pu être titré La Revanche du Vilain Petit Canard (The Revenge of the Ugly Duckling), sympathique raillerie sentimentale Hallmark : de tristes films d’amour hollywoodiens (Titanic, Love Story, The Graduate), sentimentalisme excessif de la Saint-Valentin, les mamans, les résidences pour gens âgés, les petits animaux d’argile, les meilleurs amis – encore un autre exemple du savoir-faire de la France de tourner la raison en dérision. Au lieu de faire la promenade au basset du voisin, elle l’attache à un autobus garé. Elle est comme un éléphant dans un magasin de porcelaine (dans la seule boutique au monde de petits animaux en céramique). En effet, la SPCA française a protesté sur certaines scènes d’animaux (plus particulièrement chatons et bassets) dès la sortie du film. Comme dans tous les films de la Saint-Valentin, alors que tous dans Vilaine arrivent à bonne fin, Mélanie promet qu’aucune de ses meilleures amies n’approchera l’un de ses prétendants. La vedette de Vilaine, Marilou Berry, est la fille de l’actrice, réalisatrice, scénariste française, Josiane Balasko, (que nous pourrons voir dans deux semaines, dans Le Hérisson). Marilou a fait ses débuts dès l’âge de 8 ans, dans le film (My Life Is Hell), réalisé par sa mère. Nous espérons obtenir une entrevue avec elle lorsqu’elle sera parmi nous la semaine prochaine. Jean-Patrick Benes et Allan Mauduit ont été co-scénaristes et co-réalisateurs de cette rocambolesque comédie, leur premier film (93 min.)

À voir absolument.

The Last Station

2010-02-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

Raucous, passionate oldsters, Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) and his Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren), are impassioned seduction charmers, plying their considerable wiles on underlings and overbearing sycophants alike. Mostly, its War and Peace on the Home Front. They have, after all, been married nearly 60 years. He, the ascetic stentorian, defends the greater interests of mankind, while running some sort of a Christian anarchy commune.

She - sensual vibrant mother of his 13 children- whew!! - has mouths to feed. Besides she alone knows Tolstoy's anti-sensuality purity kick can be overthrown with one good toss in the hay. And she is ever ready for that.

Plummer this year, turns 80, but you can't tell in by the way he gallops across the screen and into the mattress. Mirren, now 64 (she'll be 65 in July), is dressed in virgin white in this one. This operatic Masterpiece Theatre is set on his glorious Russian estate, white birches, in 1910, just as Thomas Edison's popular inventions - the movie camera, the phonograph - are arriving, and the movie takes a bemused advantage of tha fact.

And yet, Tolstoy was the 20th Centruy's first literary megastar. Nothing on screen in this movie suggests that Tolstoy inspired both Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Nor why. Which is a pity. It's all sensulaity v. the puritans. So is any of this true? Who cares - it's a movie for stage actors, playing to the back of the house, and such luminous cast - Paul Giamatti, James McAvoy (Atonement) and Kerry Condon take to the assignment with gusto . We now can anticipate that Last Station probably won't win the Best Foreign Oscar (White Ribbon will), but who cares? it's a cornucopia of pop history, gusto and passion.

***

Gens âgés grincheux et passionnés, Léon Tolstoï (Christopher Plummer) et sa noble épouse Sofya (Helen Mirren), sont d’ardents séducteurs de charme, faisant abondamment usage de ruses et de serviles flatteries tout à la fois. C’est Guerre et Paix chez eux. Il n’en demeure pas moins qu’ils sont mariés depuis presque 60 ans. Lui, homme de personnalité vibrante et rigoureuse, défend les plus grands intérêts de l’humanité, tout en faisant marcher une sorte de commune chrétienne chaotique.

Elle, l’explosive et sensuelle mère de ses 13 enfants, a des bouches à nourrir – ouf!. D’ailleurs, elle est la seule à savoir que l’entichement de Tolstoï pour la pureté et l’entretien d’une façade d’anti-sensualité, peut facilement fléchir d’une simple et furtive marque de tendresse. Et elle est continuellement prête à faire face à la situation.

Plummer aura 80 ans cette année, mais impossible à deviner lorsqu’on le voit galoper à l’écran et sur le matelas. Mirren, maintenant âgée de 64 ans (65 en juillet) est tout de blanc vêtue. Ce théâtral chef-d’œuvre prend place sur son domaine en Russie, bouleaux blancs, en 1910, juste au même moment où les inventions populaires de Thomas Edison -la ciné-caméra, le phonographe – font leur apparition, ce qui permet donc au film d’en tirer un avantage stupéfiant Tolstoï fut l’un des écrivains majeurs de la littérature russe.

On ne voit rien à l’écran dans ce film qui incite à croire que Tolstoï a inspiré autant Ghandi que Martin Luther King. Ni pourquoi. Dommage ! Tout est dans la sensualité vs. les puritains. Est-ce qu’il y a un peu de vérité dans tout ceci ? On s’en fout – c’est un film pour des « stage actors » d’une distribution formidable – Paul Giamatti, James McAvoy (Atonement) et Kerry Condon. Nous pouvons dès lors anticiper que Last Station ne sera pas récipiendaire de l’Oscar du meilleur film en langue étrangère (White Ribbon le sera), mais ce n’est pas grave ! C’est une corne d’abondance d’histoire pop, de plaisir et de passion.

Lies My Father Told Me

2010-01-28T19:59:00.000-08:00

Our very special Q&A guests this week, Hila and Gerry Feil, have spent much of their last four years, rescuing that treasure, Lies My Father Told Me from celluloid ravages of age and neglect. And will tell us how they went about this ressurection.

The project began in 2005, when producer Harry Gulkin screened a 35mm theatrical print of "Lies My Father Told Me for Gerald and Hila. Even with the best projection facilities, the image and sound had badly deteriorated. And so began a four year effort. Although the Feils are not film restorers, with a combination of experience and skills, they set to work, Hila as a film researcher, writer, Gerry as a director- cinematographer.

Celluloid disintegrates. Nitrate movies are particularly threatened (in 1967, the entire NFBs nitrate collection spontaneously combusted in the middle of he night. In 1980, the Cinématheque in Paris lost an entire warehouse as well). Most of the film stock from the silent period has disintegrated, and hundreds of original prints have been lost.

A Very Brief Introduction to our Guests:

GERALD FEIL joined the New York Filmmakers group in 1959 (Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, the Maysles and Mitch Bogdanowicz) -- the group responsible for revolutionary camera and sound techniques for the Cinema Verite" documentaries.
In 1961 Gerry worked with Brook as "independent second director," cinematographer, film editor, sound designer and associate producer on "Lord of the Flies" He was Director of Filmed Sequences and Director of Photography for the ABC Network “”AFRICA” (Emmy and Peabody awards.) In 1999 he supervised the photographic restoration and telecine transfer for the Criterion Collection DVD of then deteriorated "Lord of the Flies." Gerald Feil is a Life Member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, an active member of the American Society of Cinematographers the Directors Guild of America and the International Cinematographers Guild.

HILA FEIL began her film career in 1962 as a negative matcher and a film researcher. At CBS she was a assistant film editor for "The 20th Century" series with Walter Cronkite. She has written four books of fiction for young adults, translated Shel Silverstein’s classic “The Giving Tree” into French. Together, Hila and Gerry collaborated on a nine month long film expedition into unexplored regions of Papua New Guinea, aired as a prime time special on the NBC .

Lies My Father Told Me (1975, Canada, 104 mins) Directed by Ján Kadár

This heart-warming film set in the 1920’s Montreal is seen primarily through the eyes of David, a grandson who lives with his Canadian-born parents, his Grandfather Zaida, a junk peddler (who emigrated from Russia), and Zaida’s aging horse, Ferdeleh. David’s father, a man of science, dreams of striking it rich by designing unique inventions. Zaida, on the other hand, works hard for his living. Intuitively, David responds to his Zaida's love, travels the back alleys of author Ted Allan’s Montreal with Zaida and his horse Ferdeleh and carriage. Zaida answers all of David’s questions about the world in terms of the Creator and the miracles that he performs. But this winter there are no miracles to spare David the pains of growing up.

The film’s screenplay, by eminent Montreal writer/playwright Ted Allan, is based on his autobiographical short story, ‘Lies My Father Told Me’. The film was directed by Czech filmmaker Ján Kadár (winner of the 1965 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film for ‘The Shop on Main Street’). ‘Lies My Father Told Me’ was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, won the 1976 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Jeffrey Lynas who played young David was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor. It won six Canadian Film Awards (today’s Genies) in 1976. The film stars Yossi Yadin as Zaida, Jeffrey Lynas as David, Len Birman as David’s father and Marilyn Lightstone as David’s mother, with screenwriter Ted Allan playing the role of the revolutionary tailor, Mr. Baumgarten.

Ted Allan & Harry Gulkin

***

Ce film touchant se déroule dans la communauté des immigrants juifs des années 1920, passe principalement par le regard de David, le petit-fils. Ce dernier vit avec secs parents nés au Canada, son grand-père Zaïda, un brocanteur venu de Russie, et le vieux cheval de ce dernier, Ferdeleh. Le père de David est l’homme de son époque: matérialiste et moderne, il rêve de devenir riche en signant des inventions originales. Par contre, Zaïda est un homme modeste qui trime dur, tout en attendant patiemment l’arrivée du Messie. David répond spontanément á l’amour de son grand-père. Ensemble, tous les dimanches, ils écument les ruelles de Montréal dans la charrette tirée par Ferdeleh. Zaïda s’ingénie á répondre á toutes les questions que lui pose David sur le monde, son Créateur et ses miracles. Mais, cet hiver-là, nul miracle ne viendra épargner á David la dure réalité du monde des adultes.

Lies My Father Told Me est un classique du cinéma canadien qui réchauffe le cœur. Se déroulant dans le Montréal des années 1920, le film porte un regard sur la vie des immigrants juifs venus s'établir dans la métropole québécoise. Sensible et écrit avec intelligence, le drame s'articule autour de la relation affectueuse qu'entretiennent un jeune garçon de six ans et son grand-père orthodoxe, qui lui raconte de multiples histoires. Conçu par l'éminent auteur et dramaturge Ted Allan, le scénario est une adaptation d'une nouvelle autobiographique écrite par celui-ci, également intitulée Lies My Father Told Me.

Réalisé par le cinéaste tchèque Ján Kadár, lauréat d'un Oscar (Le Miroir aux alouettes), le film a reçu une nomination pour l'Oscar du meilleur scénario original et a gagné en 1976 le Golden Globe du meilleur film étranger. Jeffrey Lynas, qui interprétait le rôle du jeune David, a reçu une nomination pour le Golden Globe accordé à la meilleure performance d'acteur dans un rôle de soutien. Le film a aussi remporté en 1976 six prix du Palmarès du film canadien (prix Génie d'aujourd'hui). La distribution comprend Len Birman, Marilyn Lightstone, Jeffrey Lynas et Yossi Yadin, de même que le scénariste lui-même, dans le rôle d'un tailleur révolutionnaire.
***
My thanks to our friends (esp. Ezra) at the Segal Centre for allowing me to borrow their text, pix and translation of Lies.

white ribbon/ruban blanc

2010-01-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

Austrian director, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon was the much-deserved winner of the Palme d'Or in Cannes, May 2009. And I'm delighted to have it open our winter Cinémagique season. It is one riveting hypnotic - and tough - movie - its full translation from the German is The White Ribbon: A German Children's Story. And most of the Children are members of a small rural village Lutheran choir - reared in repressive puritanical ways. Those perceived to have been bad, wear their own version of the scarlet letter, in their case, a white ribbon - to remind them of their own fall from purity and innocence. Those who are defiant - male and female - are brutally caned. Haneke's original working title for the movie was The Right Hand of God.'

My point was to show the consequences of absolutism if applied to an ideal, then that ideal, either political or religious, becomes inhuman.... These children believe they are the right hand of God: they have understood His laws, and follow it to the letter. This makes them punishers of the others, who do not obey the same ideals.

White Ribbon is a meditation on the origins of evil. Beneath a bucolic veneer of sweet innocence lies a reign of terror. In a feudal German village just before World War I, great malevolence is being perpetrated - the murder of a child, canings for minor infractions, incestuous molestation, blinding. An old man (whom we never see), decades after the events, unravels a series of horrific atrocities in the small village in which he taught. We're in Hannah Arendt's banality of evil territory here. Arendt wrote, Adolf Eichmann himself was not evil , he obeyed orders, but did not feel guilty. This long course in human wickedness had taught us ' the lesson on the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.

Yeah, banality of evil. Not just freak accidents, as is first suggested - and you get a pretty good idea by whom, early on. Yet no one will believe what everyone suspects - we, the audience included. Two cops have no clue. Amongst the village powers that enforce the social moral strictures - the Baron, the Lutheran preacher, the town doctor - only the schoolteacher voices any suspicions. And he admits his version may not reflect "the truth in every detail. Much is hearsay and "a lot of it remains obscure to me even today." Many questions are unanswerable and yet the strange events that occurred in our village . . . may cast a new light on some of the goings-on in this country. Both the movie and some reviews hint at an exploration of the genesis of naziism as well. Mebbe!

How such an extraordinary film could have won this year's Golden Globes as Best Foreign Language Movie is beyond my powers of explanation.

Some caveats are in order:

White Ribbon is long - 2h30 minutes, so bring nibblies;
the horrific descriptions might scare some mavens off, but most of the violence occurs off screen. This is a whodunit spellbinder, not a horror flick;
some of the material is deliberately confusing
like Hurt Locker and the Hunger, you may find some parts disturbing to watch, but will appreciate having made the effort after.

Michael Haneke

***

Le ruban blanc, un film franco-germano-italo-autrichien du réalisateur autrichien Michael Haneke, a obtenu la Palme d'Or du Festival de Cannes 2009. Et je suis ravi que ce film fasse l'ouverture de la saison d'hiver de Cinémagique. C'est un fascinant film hypnoptisant, mais dur sa traduction intégrale de l'allemand est Le Ruban blanc: une historie des enfants allemands. Et la plupart des enfants allemands sont membres d'une chorale luthérienne au sein d'un petit village rural; élevés dans un rigorisme corseté. Ceux perçus comme ayant été méchants, portent leur propre version de la lettre écarlate, dans leur cas, c'est un ruban blanc pour leur rappeler leur propre pureté et innocence. Les rebelles, homme ou femme, sont brutalement punis. Le titre initial de ce film de Haneke était La Main Droite du Dieu.

« Mon but était de démontrer les conséquences de l'absolutisme lorsque collé à un idéal, qu'il soit de nature politique ou religieuse, devient alors inhumain…Ces enfants croient qu'ils sont le bras droit de Dieu : ils ont compris ses lois et les obéissent à la lettre. Ceci leur permet de sanctionner ceux qui n'obéissent pas à ces lois. »

Le Ruban Blanc est une méditation sur les origines du mal. Derrière une apparence bucolique de douce innocence se retrouve un règne de terreur. Dans un petit village féodal germanique d'avant la Première Guerre Mondiale, plusieurs méfaits s'y commettent: un enfant est assassiné, des punitions corporelles sont infligées pour de légères infractions, agressions incestueuses, aveuglement. Un vieil homme (que l'on ne voit jamais), des décennies après ces événements, révèlent une série d'atrocités ayant eu lieu dans ce petit village où il a jadis enseigné. Nous sommes dans le concept philosophique de la banalité du mal proposé par Hannah Arendt. Elle écrivit, Adolf Eichmann lui-même n'était pas méchant, il obéissait aux ordres et ne se sentait aucunement coupable. Ce long parcours dans la méchanceté humaine nous a appris sur la terreur et sur le défi de la parole et de la pensée de la banalité du mal.

Oui, la banalité du mal et pas simplement de bizarres accidents tels que suggérés : et vous avez une très bonne idée dès le début par qui ils sont perpétrés. Personne ne veut croire en ce que tous les autres se doutent et l'auditoire non plus. Deux policiers n'en ont aucune idée. Parmi les gens du village ayant le pouvoir de faire respecter et d'appliquer des restrictions tant sociales que morales, le Baron, le pasteur luthérien, le médecin du village, le seul professeur de classe unique. Il admet que sa version ne reflète peut-être pas « la vérité dans tous ses détails ». Ce n'est en majorité que du bouche à oreille et « beaucoup me demeure toujours inconnu encore aujourd'hui». Il admet que plusieurs questions demeurent toujours sans réponse mais « les étranges événements arrivés dans notre village…apporteront un jet de lumière sur ce qui se passe dans ce pays. » Autant le film que quelques critiques suggèrent que c’est une exploration sur l'origine du nazisme. Ceci est très possible.

Recherche:
http://www.lerubanblanc.com/

Un peu d'avertissements s'imposent :

White Ribbon est d'une durée de 2H30…apportez des grignotines;
Les descriptions horrifiantes peuvent faire fuir certains cinéphiles, mais les ébats de violence se passent hors projection. C'est un ensorcelant roman policier, pas une tragédie d'horreur;
Certains faits portent volontairement à la confusion;
Tout comme Hurt Locker et the Hunger, certains passages sont troublants, mais l'effort en vaut la peine.

Saturday, Jan 2, 2010 21:01 EST
Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon"

The enigmatic Austrian director on his chilly, gorgeous new period piece exploring the rural roots of fascism

By Andrew O'Hehir

I don't know whether Michael Haneke ever plays chess or poker (the former seems a lot more likely). But either way, he'd be a deadly opponent. Mild-mannered, formal and professorial, the bearded Austrian filmmaker is not a difficult interview subject in any ordinary sense. He was neither grouchy nor combative in our half-hour conversation. He was unfailingly polite, never refused to answer a question and even cracked one or two quiet jokes.

But I gradually became aware that the director of "Caché," "The Piano Teacher" and the new international sensation "The White Ribbon" -- winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes and best-film and best-director prizes at the recent European Film Awards -- was steering our discussion exactly as he wished. Beneath his calm and courteous demeanor, Haneke exerts an inexorable, iceberg-like confidence, which you can also see in his films. With minimal effort, he brushed away my attempts to link his work to his background or his private life, and calmly insisted that the unanswered questions and unfinished narratives in his films -- the very ingredients that fascinate viewers -- are unimportant and superficial.

Now, if you've seen any of Haneke's films (others include "Time of the Wolf," "Code Unknown," "Benny's Video" and two different versions -- one in German, one in English -- of the horrifying "Funny Games") you know that they have the uniquely unsettling quality of operating on several different and perhaps contradictory levels. Haneke generally wants to draw you into a compelling story, draw a political or philosophical parable, and remind you that what you're watching is just a fiction -- "an artifact," as he puts it -- all at the same time.

In Haneke's notorious "Funny Games," a pair of amoral and sadistic killers, who are less like characters than imaginary specters, address winking asides to the audience -- and at a crucial juncture rewind the film with a remote control. "Caché," Haneke's biggest hit, appears to focus on the question of who has been making sinister videotapes of a middle-class Parisian family and leaving them on the doorstep. As in David Lynch's somewhat similar "Lost Highway," the mystery is both unsolved and (I believe) unsolvable. But Haneke isn't just trying to undermine the narrative stability of conventional cinema, although he's doing that too. He's shining a spotlight on the atmosphere of paranoia and submerged guilt in which the middle-class family's entire life has been constructed.

At first glance, "The White Ribbon" is the most mannered and most beautiful of Haneke's films, and you could describe that fact as a calculated gamble on his part. Set in a village in rural northern Germany in 1913, with World War I looming on the horizon, it's a gorgeously photographed and oddly riveting chronicle of a late-stage feudal society running on fumes. Shot in spectacular black-and-white by cinematographer Christian Berger, and marvelously acted by a first-rate German ensemble, "The White Ribbon" captures a mood of thickening tension and mounting violence as a series of brutal but apparently unrelated events -- vandalism, fires, accidents and abductions -- turn the people of the village against each other and shatter what remains of a fragile social consensus.

If Haneke's most obvious point is that the hierarchical, aristocratic society of peasant Germany was replaced by something much worse -- by the "New Order" created by its mistreated children, a generation later -- it definitely can't be reduced to a fable about the roots of fascism. "The White Ribbon" is a dense account of childhood, courtship, family and class relations in a painfully repressed and repressive society, which seems to channel both early Ingmar Bergman and the "Bad Seed"/"Children of the Corn" evil-tot tradition.

Haneke's title refers to a ribbon parents of the period affixed to the sleeves of preadolescent children suspected of "impure" thought and behavior (i.e., masturbation). On one level, this story is about a very simple notion: The physical and psychic violence inflicted on one generation by another is always passed along, often in heightened and more dramatic form. But this severe and striking period piece is also a story that subtly but constantly reminds us that it is a story, and as such cannot be trusted. Even at the risk of undermining his own film, Haneke wants us to see history as a problematic and partial narrative, one that has more to teach us about the present than the past.

I met Haneke in his Manhattan hotel suite during his visit here in September for the New York Film Festival. We sat at a round table with an interpreter between us, which only heightened the atmosphere of competition and/or negotiation. Although Haneke understands English pretty well (or at least much better than I understand German), he waited for translations in both directions. Occasionally he corrected the interpreter or broke into brief snatches of English; I've marked those passages, as they seemed like important moments in the poker game.

All your earlier films have had contemporary settings, so it's striking that you've done a period piece. I suppose there are some obvious reasons why you picked this time and place, rural Germany just before World War I. But I'd like to hear you explain it.

Unfortunately, Germany is the place and time in which ideological radicalism is most prominent, and that's why I chose to set the film there. But it would be a mistake if one were to reduce the film to a German example.

"The White Ribbon" is also your first film in black-and-white. Were your reasons for that primarily aesthetic or, I don't know, primarily philosophical?

There are two reasons for choosing to shoot in black-and-white. The first is that all of us, if we think back to that period, know it almost exclusively from photographs. Photography had been invented shortly before, and we all know the period from photographs we've seen. I thought it would be easier to enable the spectator to enter the story by shooting it in black-and-white.

That's the first reason. The other reason, however, is that shooting it in black-and-white automatically produces an element of distance for the audience, in the same way as does the use of a narrator. The film opens with the narrator saying, "I'm not sure if the story I'm about to tell you corresponds to what actually took place. I can only remember it dimly. I know a lot of the events only through hearsay." So both those elements, then, raise mistrust in the audience as to the accuracy of what they're going to be seeing, and the reality of what they're going to be seeing. Both the black-and-white and the use of a narrator lead the audience to see the film as an artifact, and not as something that claims to be an accurate depiction of reality.

Do this period and this place have any personal significance for you? You've spoken about the political importance, but you were born in 1942, the heyday of Nazism. I wonder, for example, whether your parents were young people in a similar time and place?

I think that most of my films have very little to do with me or my family. I was more interested in the theme: How are we ideologically conditioned?

All right. For film buffs, it's hard to avoid thinking of Ingmar Bergman or Carl Theodor Dreyer when you see this beautiful black-and-white photography, the rural Northern European setting, a story that's about child-rearing and young love and religion.

Of course I admire the directors you mention, but there are any number of directors I admire. I've heard the comparisons of my work, or this film at least, to Dreyer, and for that reason I recently watched "Ordet" again. I have to say that I see very little in terms of connections or similarities. In terms of the aesthetics, Dreyer's staging and lighting are very theatrical, whereas I was looking for more realistic light. If there was any specific influence, it was much more the photographs of August Sander, who was the great German photographer of that period. If we oriented ourselves to anything, it was his work.

You're depicting the 20th century here, but this doesn't look anything like the age of industrial capitalism. Was it really still the feudal era in rural Germany at that time?

At the time, 85 or 90 percent of the population lived in villages. So the vision of society that I present is a mirror of a feudal society, in which there was the baron at the top of society, going down to the farm workers. In between them, you had the teachers, the professional classes, the pastor. The film in that sense reproduces the classes that were present in society at the time. Had I chosen to locate the film in the city, then social relationships would have been far more complicated and far less easy to discern.

I suppose what you're showing us is the feudal order at exactly the moment it breaks down. I mean, the baron [played by Ulrich Tukur] is the most powerful man in the village, at least in theory. But we see his fields destroyed, and his son abducted and abused. His power is broken.

Yes, that's precisely what you see in the film.

One of the hallmarks of your style is that you withhold acts of violence from us. Horrifying things occur, in this movie and in others, but we generally don't see them. What interested me in "The White Ribbon" is that you withhold other kinds of intimate or emotional acts as well. When the farmer sits with his dead wife's body, the camera remains behind the wall. We can tell he's grieving but we literally can't see it.

I'm always trying to enable and arouse the imagination of the spectator. Especially when you're dealing with powerful emotions and tragic situations, I avoid using close-ups. First of all, the close-ups are always false. It's unrealistic. They're indiscreet and they're kitschy as well. I think it's far more powerful if you see this expression of pain indirectly. You hear a sigh, and that's far more evocative than if we'd shown a shot of him.

In this film you also express emotions that are -- how can I say this? -- not strongly associated with the work of Michael Haneke. [Laughter.] There's the relationship of the young lovers, the schoolteacher [Christian Friedel] and his girlfriend [Leonie Benesch], which is very tender and tentative. There's the heartbreaking scene in which a little boy gives his father a caged bird, and even though the father is a cruel and unsympathetic figure, we see his humanity at that moment. It's like you're throwing us a lifeline, a way out of this place: The terrible things that happen are not the only things in life.

The film depicts the story of so many people that I think it's realistic. In real life, not only catastrophes happen, but also pleasant things as well. There can be relationships that are positive. It's also economic in dramaturgical terms. If it were a film about couples and there were only two or three leading roles, then it would be different. You concentrate on the conflict, and that's more than enough to keep you busy in the film. Here I think it's important to show positive as well as negative energies. That corresponds to our experience of daily life, in which not only terrible things happen. There were love stories in concentration camps as well.

One of your principal subjects here is education and the treatment of children. Can I sum it up by saying that you think the methods of child-rearing in this time and place had disastrous consequences?

I think that education is one of the decisive points in human experience. When I was making the American version of "Funny Games," there was a word I discovered that I find is so indicative. There's a scene in which one of the two boys pees himself, and the other one says, "Please forgive him. He's not housebroken." I think that word is so illuminating: It suggests that we have to be broken for the house. We have to be broken to be acceptable socially, and that's the dilemma of every educational system.

You have to partially destroy or restrict the freedom of the individual in order for him or her to function in society. That's the dilemma of every generation, and I'm not convinced that current approaches to educational theory are necessarily the ideal solution either.

You want people to perceive this as more than a parable about the roots of Nazism, isn't that right?

The question that I'm asking is: What conditions have to be in place for people to seek to grasp such ideological responses? In a position of hopelessness, humiliation and despair, people clutch at any straw, and those straws usually take an ideological form, whether religious or political. Out of hopelessness, they turn to ideology -- the model is always the same, although the external forms may be different.

You spoke earlier about using the black-and-white photography and the narration as a distancing mechanism, a way to remind the viewer that the film is an artifact. There's another sense in which you are challenging the audience. As you did in "Caché," you lead us part of the way toward a solution of the central mystery: Who is committing these violent acts, and why? And then you seem to suggest that solving the mystery is not actually important.

Those are the least important questions. In my previous film, "Caché," the question of who sent the videotapes isn't important at all. What's important is the sense of guilt felt by the character played by Daniel Auteuil in the film. But these superficial questions are the glue that holds the spectator in place, and they allow me to raise underlying questions that they have to grapple with. It's relatively unimportant who sent the tapes, but by engaging with that the viewer must engage questions that are far less banal.

There are so many different things that take place in "The White Ribbon" that there are any number of possible explanations. It may not be that the acts have been committed by someone intentionally. For example, when the barn burns down, it's possible that was simply caused by an accidental spark. Perhaps the hay had been stored when it was too wet, and spontaneous combustion happened. Perhaps the farmer's wife who died simply fell. It was an accident, and she was not murdered. The explanations, in fact, are so unimportant. In real life, there are any number of events that take place that we don't understand. It's only in mainstream cinema that films explain everything, and claim to have answers for anything that happens. In reality, we know so little about what happens. It's far more productive for me to confront the audience with a complex reality that mirrors the contradictory nature of human experience.

It strikes me that in "Caché," and perhaps in this film as well, there literally is no answer that explains what is happening.

[In English.] There could be an answer!

Well, we can point back at you, the director of the film. Who is making those videotapes and sending them to the family? You are!

[Laughter.] Every interpretation is right.

[In German.] I always say that a film is like a ski jump. The film constructs the jump and enables the spectator to jump. It's up to each member of the audience to jump, and they're all going to jump differently. I create tension. I raise certain questions. That's my intention, but it's to give the audience a chance to respond.

[In English.] The film ends in the head of the viewer, not on the screen.

On the simplest level, you want to leave us asking: What happens next? What will the events we have seen lead to, and how do we think about them?

[In English.] Yes, and why? Why do things happen like this? Everybody has to find his own explanation.

[In German.] It's important to always try to tell a story in a way where there are several credible possible explanations. Explanations that can be totally contradictory!

I know you want this story to have present-day relevance. But you're running a risk, aren't you? Viewers can watch this beautiful, stylized film that's set almost 100 years ago in a society that no longer exists and think, "Well, that was then. Things are different now."

Yes, absolutely. It wasn't my intention simply to warm up an old subject for itself. I think the problems that existed then are the same today: Are we conditioned to accept and embrace certain ideologies? That is as relevant today as it was back then. I'm not simply trying to re-create a certain age. I'm not a history teacher.

I remember with my first film that was shown in Cannes, "The Seventh Continent" [in 1989], there was a screening and afterward we had a discussion. The first question came from a woman who stood up and asked, "Is life in Austria as awful as that?" She didn't want to accept the difficult questions being raised in the film, so she tried to limit them to a specific place and say, "That's not my problem." You could make the same mistake with this film, if you see it as only being about a specific period.

***

Peter,

Thanks for this interview. I have seen Caché and Funny Games and both of these along with White Ribbon did, more or less, the same thing to me as a viewer, They used a setting, characters and a story in a manner I admire, something quite different from the mainstream. In mainstream film everything is knitted together for you, while in these types films you know the narrative is a repository of ideas or concepts that you are free to, or are compelled to, linger over during and after the screening. European cinema seems more comfortable with this arrangement, this relationship between the director and the audience.

I know you have heard me say this before: Hollywood films are often like a pleasure house but then again they are like prisons. You know what to think and feel at every moment because of the way the films are constructed. Some, but not all, European cinema lets you out of that prison, trusting you to form your own ideas about the film. I dare say that sometimes a prisoner, when set free and standing at the door of the prison as he is about to leave its rigid yet perhaps comforting structure behind, might feel the fear of stepping outside. The parallel here is with an audience who is set free. The fear of leaving the known and comfortable behind often makes audiences nervous, not trusting their own ability to navigate the world outside the confines of the usual narrative structure. I actually saw a man get up and kick the screen during Godard's "Vent d'est" while studying at the British Film Institute in the 70's. I never forgot that image because it so graphically illustrates the intense frustration an audience can feel when deprived of the usual comforts of bourgeois narrative. Film, as a medium, seems to many to have the obligation of telling a coherent story whereas any other medium seems freer to have a large variety of natural purposes. When I pick up a pencil someone watching me might think I was about to doodle or do a math problem. They wouldn't necessarily demand that I write a story. With a camera it seems that nearly everyone wants you to tell them a story. I relate this to bedtime as a child when a story was soothing and a medium of comfort. It seems that Hollywood or western cinema-goers are looking for that same comfort and when someone like this director comes along and subverts that then the audience is uncomfortable.
Enough of that!

John

Extraordinary Measures

2010-01-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

Member Commentaries

***

Wednesday night, Jan. 6, 2010 was a fabulous start to our 2010 film club series at the Imperial Theatre with marvelous adaptation of screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs based on Geeta Anand`s Pulitzer winning book, The Cure! Brendan Fraser met us at the entrance and presentented the film in a warm, humorous manner on the beautiful Imperial stage. This film is not to be missed with Ford & Fraser outdoing themselves.

Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, a biotechnology executive, whose two youngest children are afflicted with Pompe disease. Along with his wife, Aileen (Keri Russell), he raises money for research scientist Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford) (most likely representing the real Dr. William Canefield), forming a company to develop a drug to save his children's lives.

Not to be missed, this film gives faith & proof to all that determination can rise above the most powerful structures to save lives, when a seasoned Harvard educated MBA`er joins forces with a brilliant researcher scientist to join forces with a deal that corporate venture capitalist can`t refuse. The best part of this film is that ``chasing the wind`` did have a winning outcome in this real life case. It also proved WC Fields belief & Christopher Plummers` fear in `Sound od Music` that children upstage the best of actors!

This cast of children are fabulous so do not miss this film!

Happy New Year to you all, Katherine M.

***

Loved the movie and especially the theatre - I LOVE that place - wish they were open for more movies. .. a friend of mine will also be writing you about joining and they will come too but I'll let her book it.

Thanks again for tonight

julie

***

Good movie, down to earth, reality, no fakes, lesson to all, how lucky we are to have people that can tap into the geniuses we have all around us and are not recognized or supported by society wasn't this always the case. perhaps this will never change. should have an international think tank (no polititians) perhaps we could beter tap into our own priceless resources and make a better world for all. I could go on and on but the movie delivered the mesage at all leves.

***

Came home so happy to have seen Extraordinary Measures - many thanks for making this possible,

Marilyn

***

It was fun to be there, so thanks indeed for arranging that.

Straight up I should say I am just not a big fan of this type of Hollywood movie so I went in with moderate expectations, and the film lived up - or down - to those.

I thought the acting was convincing within the limits of the script. I appreciated the relative complexity with which the film tackled the scientific trade-offs of developing pharmaceuticals, and I appreciated that it did not go down the road of either demonising or glorifying that industry or medicine in general. Given the subject matter it was not as wildly sentimental as I feared.

What I did not like was the "hollywood polish", which I find irritatingly hard to both define and articulate, but somehow makes mainstream movies like this ultimately bland and neither believable nor out of this world. Why do the people and the sets have to be so beautiful, the family so functional and well-behaved even in crisis, the quirks so cliched (like Ford's mad scientist shtick) and the symbols so overt (like the fish toy) ?

Nothing was really brilliant about this film so it did not rise above sameness and blandness. The story is true, relatively accurately portrayed as far as I can gather, and almost unbelievable in what the family managed to achieve yet as piece of cinema I just did not find it compelling.

Susan

****

Once again, thank you for organizing our presence at the Premier of Extraordinary Measures. I am so grateful that I was there to share the opening energy with so many people in attendance.

I was so touched by the story and the actors, in particular Brendan Frazier. His commitment was so genuine. Stories like this can be very difficult to tell on the big screen but not with EM. Even though I knew the premise, I was still engaged and surprised from beginning to end. What a touching inspirational story that I took home in my heart and am still reflecting on. How wonderful that human stories are continuing to be told more and more.

They are as inspiring as you are Peter, for manifesting such a wonderful group of Cinemagique. Where members are privileged to enjoy such beautiful screenings together!

Thanks so much,
Dawn

***

... enjoyed the movie had seen the trailers previously when attending other movies. It was very interesting, first I heard about Pompe, although had heard of Muscular dystrophy. The dedication of the movie to tell this story, the importance of research, motivation, sacrifice, risk time , money and hard work for a pitch at the possibility of a happy conclusion.

Louise d.

***

I am sorry to say that this movie did not do it for me. Even though the subject is based on a terrible disease and real facts (you think?). A real intrigue was missing, something that would have made it more of a medical thriller instead of an Hallmark movie of the week.

Diane

***

Before going to see the movie, I thought it's going to be predictable throughout. I was very pleasantly surprised by the very good acting by the stars, Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, and Keri Rusell. It was presented very interestingly , and kept my full attention to the end .

Thank you, Peter.

Nelly

***

The Premiere of Extraordinary Measures was an extraordinary event. Brendan Fraser's appearance was totally Hollywood with all the television networks there and cameras flashing non-stop in the gorgeous Imperial's lobby, for half an hour. Brendan presenting his film prepared us to savour an extraordinary film which kept your attenton all the way through. Harrison Ford really played his part out of the ordinary. Brendan Fraser definitely managed to make you feel the pain parents go through when their children have what they call untreatable conditions. This film will give hope to all parents facing children with such health challenges and will further encourage donations to medical research organizations.

Renée

***

Thanx for the tickets for the movie at the imperial. What a treat too to have brendan Fraser address the audience. The film was very enjoyable and the acting was great. Though the script was weak at some parts, I still found it immensly pleasing.

Thanx again. - judy :)

My Ten Most Memorable Cinemagique Mementos of 2009

2010-01-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

1. Avatar

When the Hollywood rotational axis occasionally tilts - Intolerance, The Jazz Singer, Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Star Wars come to mind – the seismic tsunami remakes the landscape for all succeeding moviemakers. Don’t miss James Cameron‘s Avatar - see it in 3D Imax. His script may be lame, but Cameron has reinvented moviemaking for the next generation.

2. L’Heure d’été/Un Jour Tu Comprendras/ Entre Les Murs

In Hollywood - to rework a cliché - only the successful movie director is celebrated; in England no movie director is celebrated, and in Canada, nobody knows what a movie director does. But in France all directors are celebrated. From the 1950s nouvelle vague on, the French have instructed us how to think about the aesthetics of moviemaking. These three felicitous reminders, coming out spring 2009, show a nation, still at the top of its cinematic form.

3. Hurt Locker

Katherine Bigelow’s Hurt Locker provided a excruciating depiction of exactly what kind of hell war - and in this case, America's Iraq war - must be. Not since George-Henri Clouzot’s Wages of Fear and/or Spielberg’s Jaws have movie pyrotechnics scared the bejeezus out of me.

4. An Education

Nick Hornby’s felicitous rendering of smirking bourgeois British anti-Semites in 1960, and one teen’s willful self-liberating escape from her own mean and pernicious upbringing.

5. Precious/The Soloist

January 2009, Barak Hussein Obama became America’s 44th President, and we looked upon African-Americans with a new dignity. In the spring, the Jamie Foxx/Rob't Downey Jr. The Soloist did the same. And last month, we met Precious. Only friend Phillipe and I seem to think Precious will win the 2010 Oscar.

6. A Serious Man

Those two skeptical Coen scamps, wondering what their Jewish God must be thinking, torture a dorky Minneapolis prof with all manner of bourgeois afflictions - a philandering wife, dubious children, hostile associates - in order that a trinity of rabbis can expostulate on the wisdom of this divine disorder.

7. Sugar/Sin Nombre/Che

OK, nobody, but us cinémaniacs went to see these three vigorous Sundance movies about the firestorm engulfing Latin America, but who cares? Each served as a vivid reminder the American Empire is not only under seige across the Middle East. It is about to explode Down Below as well.

8. Gomorrah

Matteo Garrone’s unsentimental depiction of Neapolitan mobsters’ enterprise of recruiting tots and teens, pregnant women, immigrants into becoming full-blooded criminal entrepreneurs.

9. Che/Girlfriend Experience/The Informant

Steven Soderbergh is just about as original a filmmaker as Hollywood can muster. And he proved it three times out in 2009, each a moviemaking clinic on how Hollywood must make movies, if it hopes to survive digital technology.

10. Cairo Time/Love & Savagery/One Week

Three felicitous reminders that when it comes to making our own movies, some still know how to do it.

Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

Audience members responses to Sherlock Holmes were dramatically different, depending on age, language and gender. Ten kids in the audience, aged 10- 15 absolutely loved the movie: excited by the action, loved the pace, got all the jokes and eft burbling with excitement. Those up to 40 years of age talked of the film’s various technical achievements – the overall bleached look of the images, the sooty London décor, the recreations - Piccadilly, the docks, the Tower Bridge - caused considerable discussion.

Sherlock Holmes buffs (some are members of the Sherlock Holmes Society), couldn’t stop talking about the respect the script showed for the original Conan Doyle material.

Many women 65+ said their husbands liked it, or would have liked it but found the action sequences too much, too violent, too long. They found the plot very confusing, esp. the death and the ressurrection. They didn’t get the explanations as to how Holmes figures things out.

I had expected a 100% house, and in conversations after, discovered that many, having seen the Sherlock Holmes trailer (we had run it prior to the three previous screenings), anticipated what the film was going to be like and stayed away. Indeed some said the only reason they came was to support Cinémagique, knowing WB had given us the film.

Here are member verbatim responses:

****

I really enjoyed Sherlock Holmes as did my wife and son. I've read all 56 of the short stories and the four novels so there is no way I would want to miss this film but Barbara and Dave were watching it without all that background...and they loved it too! I think you've got a hit on your hands. David told me at lunch today that he will go back and see it again when it opens and that he will bring many of his friends along. He liked the stylistic way Guy Ritchie handled the characters and the story. Using the slowed down footage to reveal Holmes' thought process as he was about to do something complex showed his ability to think clearly under pressure and revealed Holmes' reasoning powers in a very visual way...Conan Doyle would have approved...an excellent example of how a modern filmmaker can adapt ideas from literature and translate them into something special, something cinematic.

Your guest was a great addition to the evening and I liked how he reflected on the filmmaking process and I also enjoyed the personal touches when he spoke about his interest in saving greyhounds from their post racing life and staying in his local community even though he is starting to get some traction in Hollywood. His family being there to support him was also a nice touch. Seeing him standing there with his daughter emphasized his large stature for sure, but also his humanity.

If I am any judge of Holmes and Hollywood I am guessing there will be a part 2 in the near future. I predict we will see more of your guest in part 2 but he most likely will be working on the side of Holmes and Watson instead of playing the heavy. That's what Doyle would do...

Thanks again for the great evening...did you notice how many films we've seen with Cinemagique this season were front runners with the Golden Globes! Good for you! - John

***

Wonderful evening...à tous points de vue...film, ambiance, belle soirée...merci beaucoup. Louise

***

On the whole, it was just a little too fast, and a little too Hollywood for me to fall into my idea of a Sherlock Holmes-type story, so I would classify it as a 'modernization' although Ritchie created a very believable London of the 1800's. They went to great lengths to give us the clues and to help us follow the story, but I got only the very broad strokes - they could have slowed down the delivery: all those details were given much too quickly for me to follow them properly, but it was such a ride that I had to just let go and enjoy it. This feeling of 'just ride with it' is, I think, a hallmark of an adventure story, not my idea of a Sherlock Holmes film. That said, the things I really appreciated: the sets! both interiors and exteriors were wonderful, the performance of Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) personified totally implacable evil, the mapping out of the Tai Chi-based fight scenes, and the wonderful interplay between two master actors, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. The scene at the shipyard was very unusual, powerful and felt completely authentic. Leslye

***

My grandson loved it and especially meeting the villain. Very sympathique he is! . Best Nicole

***

Je n'ai pas de mots...52 étoiles...merci à tout le génie et l'âme qui habitent cette majestueuse production...un privilège exceptionnel d'avoir pu visionner ce spectacle magistral...au temps de noel 2009...ce film fait maintenant partie de nos souvenirs de cinéma préférés...le talent était au rendez-vous...et a su créer un chef-d'oeuvre Sherlock Holmes authentique. Bravo !

***

john and i have enjoyed the fall so much after discovering your movie club - heard about it in the cinema du parc newsletter as that is our "local" so to speak and am very happy to have discovered it.

anyway, i wanted to thank you for all the work you have done on the season!! Happy holidays and see you in the new year, - julie

***

Sherlock certainly had a lot going on. Loved the cinematography, slow motion-capture choreography, fantasy sets, and editing. Not quite sure about the casting? I am a huge fan of Robert Downey Jr but not in this particular role. Maybe Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Laurie, Rupert Everette would have told a different story, the story I was expecting.

I wanted to feel more for the characters, really care about them, love them..I guess I don't think of Sherlock as being so young and athletic! The action was a fun ride but I missed not having more mystery/intrigue and less fast filler. Dawn

***

Aller au cinéma, c'est pour voir ce genre de film qui profite pleinement du grand écran.

Sherlock Holmes est un bagarreur. Il faut bien se tenir occupé! Autrement, il se morfond entre deux enquêtes, imaginant mille et un scénarios et testant toutes sortes de mixtures à une époque où la science devenait de plus en plus importante. Son ami, le docteur Watson, est heureusement là pour l'aider à être un peu plus présentable. Un "straightman", mais qui sait se battre lui aussi!

Holmes est un génie troublé, qui a besoin d'action pour vivre. Chacun de ses déplacements est une invitation a retenir tous ces détails qui lui permettent de résoudre les intrigues. Et des détails, le film en fournit abondamment. Le Londres du milieu du 19e siècle est surpeuplé, et sale de toute cette fumée de charbon. Très propice aux mystères.

Qu'est-ce qu'on cherche quand on va au cinéma? De l'action: DES TONNES! Des cascades? PLEIN! Des effets spéciaux? Vous ne les verrez pas ou très peu tellement ils sont bien réussis. On se croirait à Londres. Du paranormal? C'est la base de l'intrigue, où de jeunes femmes sont tuées pour accomplir un rite. Une histoire d'amour? Deux même, mais bon, c'est secondaire dans ce film. Important pour les suites? On verra. Le décor, les costumes, les explosions, les menaces, l'intrigue, le scénario (c'est une histoire de Sherlock Holmes après tout!), méritent un détour par le cinéma. Tout le film est présenté par une solide équipe de comédiens, autant pour les bons que les méchants et même les policiers. Dans la version anglaise (très British comme langue parlée, avis aux auditeurs moyennement bilingues!), le géant est présenté comme un français. Mais l'est-il? Et survit-il?

Voilà le genre de film que l'on attend des grands studios hollywoodiens. Même dans ses excès.

J'ai pu voir ce film dans le cadre des activités du club Cinémagique, un ciné-club qui présente des nouveautés à chaque semaine au Cinéma du Parc à Montréal. Nous avons eu comme invité le fameux géant du film, Robert Maillet, qui habite au Nouveau- Brunswick. Bien sympathique de finir un film avec un de ses acteurs et d'en apprendre un peu plus sur les capacités de Robert Downey à excéuter ses propres cascades.

Sherlock Holmes? Définitivement, cher Watson. Et en espérant une suite aussi glorieuse.- daniel

(Published on Flickster/Facebook)

I thought the film was well-matched with the intellect of Holmes: complex, quirky and witty. I marvel at the appeal to a wide age range. It takes everyone along with the action at its own pace and the viewer is challenged to keep up. In this way, the intelligence of the audience is not taken for granted. The previous exposure (if any) one may have to Holmes as a character of our imagination built since the publication of the books and release of various films did not matter. This was a new experience for all.

Downey's incarnation is entirely believable to a contemporary audience and plays with any previously established characteristics to reveal him as more outlandish and layered than expected. The film thus exceeded my expectations and I want to see it again and again. I was thoroughly absorbed, entertained and intrigued. The speed of language, and repartee created a rush of excitement from beginning to end. The Holiday Season timing is perfect.

Robert Maillet was a great ambassador for the movie, again totally unexpected. He had a refreshing manner and charming way of answering questions. You were also an ideal foil for him during the question and answer period with your respect, understanding and knowledge of filmmaking as a collaborative art form. Robert's role in the film was an example of the attention to detail that could have been easily overlooked upon a single screening of the film. The fact that he was flown in for this, heightened the overall reception and allowed us to explore the darker side of the movie from the point of view of the villain of the piece. I noticed that Robert was also on CBC Radio in Montreal while he was here and his infectious enthusiasm, respect for his fellow actors and Director, Guy Ritchie, and obvious pride in his own performance came across even on radio. Somehow his physical size equalled his voice and the interviewer seemed captivated by his honesty and integrity. Thank you and thank you, Warner Brothers! Marlene

***

Sherlock Holmes: Wow! A very interesting interpretation. A genius who needs action to take care of himself. He loves to fight, and every step is an oberver point of view. Clues in everything he sees - not very good for his mental health!

Helped by his straightman Dr. Watson (who sure knows how to fight!), they solve intrigues set up in the mid 19th century dirty London. The city is full of details, and its creepyness adds to the story plot.

What do we want when we go to the cinema? Action? LOTS! Stunts? PLENTY! Special Effects? So good you won't notice them. You will be in this old London. Paranormal? This is the main idea of the story. Love story? Even two, could we say, but I admit it is really secondary. Important for future releases? We'll see. All set design, costumes, explosions, threaths, story line (it is a Sherlock Holmes story after all!) are worth a detour by your favorite theater. The whole movie is sustained by a solid team of actors, as well for the goods, the villains and even the policemen. The English version is really "Old British" for the language. The exception is a French giant (is he really French?), who adds a nice touch to the feature. He's a villain, so he dies. Really?

This is the kind of movie we like from Hollywood studios, even with their excesses. I got to see this movie with the Cinémagique movie club, presenting new features of all kind every week at Cinéma du Parc in Montreal. We had a guest, the giant Robert Maillet, who lives in New Brunswick. It was nice to complete a presentation with one of the actors of the movie, who allowed us to learn a little more about the true stuntman capacities of Robert Downey (yes, he does as much as he can).

Sherlock Holmes? Definitely, Watson. And hoping for a glorious sequel. Daniel

***

First of all thank you for providing the opportunity to see the film. Not sure whether the producers would want these comments:

The work to recreate 19th Century London was extremely effective. I was really impressed. The story line, with its frenetic chase was a little less appealing; it reminded me more of Raiders of the Lost Ark than Sherlock Holmes.

The portrayal of Holmes was not consistent with the Holmes of Conan Doyle. Holmes is described as an intellectual who might have known everything about martial arts, but would much prefer to think about them rather than develop the practical skills. He was also a misogynist, who might have been fascinated by the brain of a smart woman but would not have fallen in love with her. The scruffy look of Holmes was also odd. The drawings published with the original editions showed a very well dressed individual.

Much of the books (and earlier depictions) depend on the relationship between the severely gifted Holmes and the well grounded and not so swift Watson(elementary, my dear Watson). A close partnership, yes, but not between the almost equals portrayed in the movie. The relationship between House and Wilson in the popular medical drama series is closer!

One might argue that the portrayal in the movie uses artistic license. However one would hope that any interpretation is consistent with the ‘facts’ provided by Conan Doyle. This is not. Martin

***

Sherlock Holmes dusted and revisited !

Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes is like nothing you ever saw or imagined. The reconstruction of London at the time of the action is probably more accurate than ever portrayed before. Slums are slums, streets are dirty and dangerous, and most dwellers on the unkempt side. The rich are super rich, the poor, super poor

Sherlock,as portrayed by Ritchie and brought to life by Robert Downey Jr. is multifaceted. He is a Martial Arts expert, (Downey is himself an adept) with a superior intellect, divining abilities, wry sense of humour, a scientific curiosity that borders on dangerous and with a tendency to be on the slob side rather than neat and with a trying sense of friendship that would make any normal person decide he is not worth befriending. In short he is very different than ever seen before.

Jude Law's Watson, sidekick and mystery solving partner, is his preyed upon friend and colleague who comes through even in the most trying of circumstances. The chemistry between the two actors is good and believable as we witness them They battle against the evil plot of Lord Blackwood who confounds Scotland Yard. They will of course solve the mystery and save their country. Both are put through very difficult situations made even more impressive with the use of special effects and a sound track that accentuates the sombre, the evil , the tense, and the comic.

Rachel McAdams is Sherlock's dangerous love interest and some of their scenes together are downright funny. Mark Strong plays a villain true to colors. The villains are really bigger than life! Robert Maillet Bouctouche New Brunswick, born wrestler turned actor is impressive.

If the plot is thin, the villains, villainous, the dialogue is at times difficult to understand. It is as if they mumble. The action is continuous, it is a film that is action packed with impressive special effects and gives a new look and probably more accurate look at Sherlock than ever seen before. I wonder what Sir Conan Doyle would say. He probably would have a good time and so will you ! Nicole
***

This is a refreshing new look at the most famous of all fictional detectives, Sherlock Holmes. Nowadays the market is flooded with mystery stories. We tend to forget that crime fiction of the Western world only became an accepted style of writing in the 19^th century. In the early days there were no police or private detectives trying to figure out how, why and by whom crimes were committed. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, who first appeared in publication in 1887, is often described as the first consulting detective. His methods of observation, deductive reasoning and forensic skills influenced police methods and criminology all over the world.

Robert Downey is certainly a different actor than Jeremy Brett, THE Sherlock Holmes of British films. He is rather rougher around the edges than we are used to. But Downey’s portrayal accents some aspects of Holmes’ character that we haven’t seen as much previously, his prowess in bare-knuckle boxing for instance. Downey is very observant and has the audience as well as fellow actors cringing as he keeps tasting items to deduce what they are. Jude Law as Watson makes a more appealing lady’s man than previous actors I thought. Irene Adler, the one woman who could match Holmes’ skills, is only featured in one of the original Sherlock Holmes adventures (A Scandal in Bohemia). But she (Rachel McAdams) plays a large part in this film and one suspects she will be turning up in subsequent movies. I certainly hope so. I would also enjoy seeing a revival of Dredger (Robert Maillet), the giant villain. Bad guy Mark Strong, playing Lord Blackwood, is wonderfully sinister. I did not find it hard to follow the plot and action

There is some wonderful camerawork in this film. The special effects are very well done. The shipyard and inferno scenes are spectacular. I loved the upside down angle on the chase of Holmes going after Dredger. The slow motion filming is effective, a good contrast to fast action scenes.

It is fun noticing the bits of dialogue which refer to other movie characters, such as Dr Who. My British friend recognized phrases from a childrens’radio show, which director Guy Ritchie must have also grown up listening to.

Some members of the Bimetallic Question, Montreal’s Sherlock Holmes Society, were upset about this film’s departure from traditional British Sherlock Holmes movies. Others saw it as a breath of fresh air. I think this movie does a good job of introducing Sherlock Holmes to a new generation. Nancy

***

Bonnes fêtes! Happy Holidays!

2009-12-18T10:11:00.000-08:00

Mavens:

Scrutinizing this marvelous collage of movies we've screened, done by our own Paul Higgins, brings back glorious memories of another year, lost in the dark. Happy holidays to all from everybody at Cinémagique and Cinéma du Parc. We'll be back on January 18th, all things being equal. Thanks for all your support!

Cinéphiles:

Toute l'équipe du Cinémagique et du Cinéma du Parc vous souhaite de joyeuses fêtes de fin d’année ainsi que de très nombreux cadeaux sous votre sapin ! On vous retrouvera des le 18 janvier prochain avec quelques petites merveilles decouvertes! Merci de votre fidelite !!

peter

Mmes et Messieurs, M. Robert Maillet

2009-12-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

Robert Maillet, a truly exceptional guest, is the villain of Sherlock Holmes. Here are a few factoids you may not know about him:

He was born October 26, 1969, in Sainte-Marie-de-Kent, NB, and still lives there;
he works as a machine operator in Bouctouche;
he was into volleyball in high school, since his school didn't have a football or basketball team.
he and his wife live with 7 or 8 rescued racing greyhounds;
They have a new daughter, a 4 year old they recently adopted from Ethiopia;
his next movie will be The Big Bang, with Antonio Banderas & Sam Elliott.

In Sherlock Holmes:

He plays the villain Dredger who takes on the famed detective in fight scenes.
his SH dialogue is all in French
he accidentally whacked Rob't Downey on the chin, during a fight scene, stunning Downey, but not knocking him out.
when he recovered, Downey sent a bottle of champagne and a card to Maillet that night "to lift my spirits. He knew I felt bad"

***

Il joue le rôle du vilain Dredger qui s'en prend au fameux détective dans des scènes de combat.
Son dialogue SH est entièrement français.
Pendant une scène de bagarre, il envoit accidentellement un solide crochet au menton de Robt Downey, ce qui a eu pour effet de lengourdir quelque peu mais ne lassomme pas;
Lorsqu'il s'est rétabli, Downey a fait parvenir à Maillet une bouteille de champagne avec une carte « pour me relever le moral, sachant que je me sentais coupable».

In 300, the all-bluescreen graphic part-fantasy, part-war epic:

he plays the Uber Immortal, a savage, gigantic member of the Imperial Guard, unleashed upon the Spartans;
Il joue Uber Immortal, un énorme et monstrueux personnage barbare de la Garde Impériale, libéré des ses chaînes par les Spartiates.

As Kurgan, the Acadian Giant:

he has wrestled Hacksaw Duggan at halftime of a CFL game in Mtl.,
Il avoue que la lutte « est comme du théâtre », quoique plus dangereux. Lindustrie du cinéma prend mieux soin de ses acteurs lorsque vient le temps des cascades et de leurs chutes

Here are Kurgan's patented moves:

Chokeslam, (or in Japanese, a "nodowa otoshi"), the wrestler grasps the opponent's neck, lifts him up, and slams them to the mat.
Kurrgan Shuffle (Bear hug into a side slam
Paralyzer (Clawhold)
Big boot
Spinning spinebuster

Broken Embraces/Etreintes brisées/Abrazos Rotos

2009-12-12T11:28:00.001-08:00

We who sit in darkened theatres, unrepentant at having abandoned Kansas in favour of Oz, understand the hypnotic powers movies wield over us. They are our lifeblood, our dream life, our profession of faith, our ambitions, our prejudices, manipulating our perceptions of reality, suspending our disbelief, altering/affirming our life views. No wonder great movie makers turn their lenses back on movies themselves to understand just how movies work. Consider these movies-on-movies masterworks: Wilder (Sunset Blvd. - 1950), Cukor (A Star is Born - 1954), Fellini 8 ½ 1963), Godard (Le Mépris - 1963), Woody Allen (The Purple Rose of Cairo - 1985), Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso - 1989), Coen Bros. (Barton Fink, 1991), Altman (The Player - 1992), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive - 2001), Spike Jonze (Adaptation - 2002).

Now along comes master stylist Pedro Almodóvar, with his own gorgeous seductive movie about what it means to live in/for movies (Broken Embraces/Etreintes brisées/Abrazos Rotos). A blind director (imagine that!) turns to screenwriting. Homage allusions abound: Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray, Carol Reed, Bernard Herrmann, Henry Hathaway, Rossellini. Almodavar even quotes himself, most notably Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

So mavens, be alert. Spot-the-reference questions may follow the screening.

***

Nous qui sommes assis dans la noirceur des salles de cinéma, non repentants d’avoir délaissé Kansas pour Oz, comprenons bien les pouvoirs hypnotiques qu’exercent sur nous le cinéma. Ils font partie de notre vie, de nos rêves, notre profession de foi, nos ambitions, préjudices, manipulant notre perception de la réalité, notre incrédulité, tout en altérant et/ou en affirmant nos idées sur la vie. On comprend maintenant pourquoi les réalisateurs examinent à nouveau les films eux-mêmes afin de mieux comprendre comment le cinéma fonctionne. Voyez donc ces chef-d’œuvres : Wilder (Sunset Blvd – 1950) Cukor (A Star is Born – 1954), Fellini 8 ½ - 1963), Godard (Le Mépris – 1963), Woody Allen (The Purple Rose of Cairo – 1985), Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso – 1989), Coen Bros. (Barton Fink, 1991), Altman (The Player – 1992), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive – 2001), Spike Jonze (Adaptation – 2002).

Maintenant arrive le maître styliste Pedro Almodóvar, avec son fantastique et séduisant film sur la signification de la passion de vivre pour le cinéma (Broken Embraces/Etreintes brisées/Abrazos Rotos). Un réalisateur aveugle (imaginez!) qui écrit et réalise des films. Les hommages abondent : Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray, Carol Reed, Bernard Herrmann, Henry Hathaway, Rossellini, même Almodovar se cite lui-même, plus spécifiquement Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Cinéphiles, soyez à l’écoute. Une période de questions pourrait suivre après la projection.

Recherches :

- the trailer is here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWw9n0ekYCw

- the best movies-on-movies list I found: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/moviesaboutmovies.html

Afra adds her thoughts:

..even if Broken Embraces is second rate, Almodovar is a good storyteller moving fast through a convoluted plot with subplots and points of view which mix up melodrama, humour and an happy ending - his forte. Within the genre 'movie on movies', his cinephilia of passionate love, tragic ends and death has his unmistakable style but isn't there too much nostalgia of his own past? It seems to me a 'regard' in images and words of the time when it all began 'Women on the verge..', the film that gave him success and a brand-name. I liked the idea of a blind director which in my mind is a good metaphor of the artist, the art of creation and all the 'highs' and misfortunes of life - his major theme.

The artist is a dreamer and his work arises more from the power of imagination than visual sight. In the same vein, aren't all the 'highs' of life [lust, strong emotions, desires, jealousy, vengeance] - and what Almodovar does best- more a product of our imagination than of what we see or what is really there?... and I liked the ending: a middle-age director and his youthful self passionately re-running/making women.. - nostalgia of a time past gone which myself look back with nostalgia.

The Young Victoria

2009-12-03T08:45:00.001-08:00

Rupert Friend Emily Blunt Jean Marc Vallée

We welcome Jean Marc Vallée, director of The Young Victoria, to Cinémagique Monday evening.

His first film, Liste Noire (starring Michel Côté) was the box office smash of Quebec for months on end when it first opened - a tale of a hooker, whose client black list includes the who's who of Quebec City politics.

And then there was C.R.A.Z.Y., that delectable irrepressible family saga of five sons (again starring Michel Côté), spanning three decades.

Young Victoria is our first movie from Alliance, Canada's biggest, most important distributor. This is where we, your friendly Cinemagique audience have a key role to play. We want to show Alliance that we're their large and vigorous audience, that we can help launch their finest films. So we want Young Victoria to have the most successful launch imaginable. To that end, bring in your cinephile buddies (especially those interested in joining). Young Victoria is a wonderful film and deserves all the support we can offer it.

***

Anyone who complains Hollywood doesn't make love stories like they used to, will revel in the lavishly produced 'The Young Victoria,' a biopic of Victoria, our longest-reigning queen, who in her bedtime ways, turns out to have been quite unvictorian.

In Canada, she's a national holiday, a college at U of T, a hospital in Montréal, the namesake of two provincial capitals, one province and one Qc town best known for its hockey sticks. Several Ontario towns are named after her nine offspring. No wonder malevolent Jacobin talk of abolishing our Royals, just because the present lot is underimpressive and underperforming, doesn't sit well.

OK, granted, they're congenial idiots - stoical, laconic, stiff-upper-lip; they have poor personal habits and make public spectacles of themselves. But c'mon, royal hanky-pank has been going on since Guinevere's fling with Lancelot. Who cannot adore their philandering foibles and appetites: dorky Edward VIII giving up his throne to bed bland Mrs. Simpson from Baltimore Maryland; the present Charles getting off on sucking the toes of Camilla, who it turns out is nothing less than a descendant of Edward VII's mistress. Who for example sired young Prince Harry, for example? It certainly wasn't Prince JugEars

Royals and Movie Stars are but gossamer confections of mind, concocted to inspire us, like benevolent aunties: Dame Helen Mirren (who has played a total of six queens including QE I & II, Queen Charlotte to Crazy King George (Nigel Hawthorne); Dame Judi Dench (the red-headed virgin, QE I, Victoria, Lady Macbeth) Cate Blanchett (QE I – twice!), Genevieve Bujold (the unfortunately decapitated Anne Boleyn). And now Emily Blunt as Queen Victoria. They are magical moms reigning supreme on supermarket magazine racks the world over. We are but supporting players in their grand dramas.

Like Saints and Martyrs, Monarchs and Movies Stars are but fantasies we choose to believe in. Remember - ELVIS, even decades after death, still reigns as King!! Prince is still a prince of a fella. San Franciso now has more queens than London ever will. And Madonna, who once used be a virgin mother, has changed her sexual mores. So be it. Long Live our QUEENS!!!!

Research

The Young Victoria has a terrific website, full of info & cvs about the cast and crew, interviews with the cast. http://www.theyoungvictoria.co.uk/

Monarchist may know the backstory of Young Victoria which provides the spine of the movie narrative, but I didn't. You might want to brush up on the relationship between Lord Melbourne & Rob’t Peel here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lamb,_2nd_Viscount_Melbourne

And here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel

Here's a Wikipedia article on the villain of the piece:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Conroy

*****

Quiconque se plaint qu'Hollywood ne produit plus de belles histoires d'amour comme dans le temps, sera ravi par The Young Victoria, un bio pic de la reine Victoria, dont le règne fut le plus long de la monarchie britannique et qui, par ses manières parfois hors norme, s'est révélée quelque peu non victorienne.

Au Canada, son nom représente un congé national, un collège de l'université de Toronto, un grand hôpital montréalais, le nom de capitales provinciales, une province et une ville au Québec où l'on fabrique des bâtons de hockey…. Plusieurs villes de l'Ontario affichent également son nom suite à la naissance de chacun de ses neufs enfants. L'on comprend mieux pourquoi les discussions jacobines malveillantes à l'effet de détruire cette royauté, parce qu'étant peu impressionnante et peu performante, ne font pas bonne figure.

D'accord, ils sont de sympathiques idiots imperturbables et insensibles, démontrant peu de bonnes manières et qui s'offrent dérisoirement en public. Allez donc! Les entourloupettes amoureuses existent depuis le temps des amours entre Guenièvre et Sire Lancelot. Qui ne raffole pas devant leurs élans d'ardeur et leurs fougues donjuanesques: Édouard VIII abdiquant le trône pour se marier à madame Simpson de Baltimore, Maryland; notre Charles se retrouvant entre les draps de Camilla, qui s'avère n'être qu'une descendante de la maîtresse d'Édouard VII ! Par exemple, qui a engendré le jeune prince Harry ? On peut douter que ce soit notre prince JugEars !

Les personnages de la royauté de même que les vedettes de cinéma ne sont que de fins caractères élaborés dans le but de nous inspirer, telles de bienveillantes tantines : Dame Helen Mirren (qui a incarné six reines, incluant la Reine Élizabeth I et II, la Reine Charlotte à Crazy King George (Nigel Hawthorne); Dame Judi Dench (la vierge rouquine, la Reine Élizabeth I, la Reine Victoria, Lady Macbeth); Cate Blanchet (deux fois la Reine Elizabeth I), Geneviève Bujold (Anne Boleyn, mère d'Élizabeth I, malheureusement décapitée). Et maintenant, Emily Blunt dans le rôle de la Reine Victoria. Elles sont nos magiques mamans qui règnent en suprématie sur les présentoirs de journaux des supermarchés dans le monde.

Tels les saints et martyrs, les monarques et les vedettes de cinéma sont indestructibles. Rappelez-vous Elvis, des décennies après sa mort, qui demeure le King qui règne toujours. Prince est toujours le prince d'un pote. Il y a maintenant plus de reines à San Francisco que jamais à Londres. Et que dire de Madonna qui fut une femme chaste et pure et qui a maintenant révisé ses valeurs sur la sexualité. Longue vie à nos REINES !!!

Recherches

La monarchie doit sûrement connaître tout de la vraie histoire de Young Victoria, ce qui est la base de la narration du film, mais je n’ai pas réussi. Pour en savoir plus plus sur la relation entre Lord Melbourne et Robert Peel :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wuju/william_lamb,_2nd_viscount_melbourne

Et encore ceci :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel

Et ceci sur une partie plus croquante de l'histoire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Conroy

*****

The Road

2009-11-27T06:20:00.000-08:00

J. Paul Higgins Review

I read Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men)'s novel The Road this past summer. A post-apocalyptic story about a father and son trudging through a world of no animals or birds, dying trees and constant fires, it's prose was sparse and elegant. However, it was also unremittingly bleak. There was little sense of hope and no sense that anyone would survive the planet's decline. Many of the remaining humans resorted to cannibalism or suicide.

So when I heard that The Road was to be made into a film I was intrigued. Would the director be tempted to brighten up the plot in order to attract an audience, would he highlight the gruesome episodes and make it into a horror flick or would he be true to the book but settle for a limited, art house audience? In the event he seems to have worked some cinematic magic, remaining true to the book but still somehow imbuing the film with a more hope than I found in the novel.

I'm still not sure how this was done. I suspect that it has something to do with the superb acting, especially by the young Kodi Smit-McPhee who plays the boy. Other principal roles are played by Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises, A History of Violence and Aragon in the Lord of the Rings) and Charlize Theron (Monster, In the Valley of Eliah) who's character is only seen in flashbacks. Tellingly a number of small but important roles with very little screen time (each less than 10 minutes) attracted top flight actors such as Robert Duvall and Molly Parker.

Not a good first date movie. But for those interested in exploring courage in the face of despair and hope in the face of inevitable destruction, or for all film goers interested in strong acting, definitely worth a look.

***

And here's Robert Foster's take:

WARNING: anyone with a queasy stomach or who is otherwise put off by blood, violence, cannibalistic allusions (one character is called “Baby Eater” in credits), corpses, abused trees, dark gray smoke-filled skies with zero sunshine should probably (ok… definitely) skip this offering cause a Bob Hope road flick it isn`t...

HOWEVER... if you are willing to work through the above to see how much love a father can have for an angelic son who in turn embodies a trusting innocence to get to some semblance of the possibility of hope in a hopeless situation -- by all means see this star-filled (though barely recognizable under layers of crud) movie.

A father (Viggo Mortensen) and 10-year-old son (played exceptionally by Kodi Smit-McPhee real life son of Australian actor Andy McPhee ) are two of the last nameless humans left on an Earth that has undergone some kind of apocalypse whereby food, wildlife, plants, bugs, game shows, etc., are all gone. The son has only ever known this.

They have adventures or better yet near misses with the final oblivion along with a couple bits of luck in their quest to just stay alive and reach the sea for some reason we are never told. Flashbacks to the mother (Charlize Theron who can’t seem to lose her beauty even in a dark setting like this) show how good things used to be before she bails and dies out in the dark - not typical of a mother in my humble opinion but then this is not a typical scenario.

The world is filled for the most part with some pretty desperate folks who are feeling more than a little peckish. There are glimmers of humanity mostly played by big name actors (Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce,
Canadian Molly Parker…) who probably signed on with fresh memories of the last Cormac McCarthy book put to film that rightly won big time Oscars: No Country for Old Men. The real evil or victimized characters
are played by, as far as I can tell, yet-to-be-discovered thespians.

In the final analysis, can catastrophy lead to good things via bad things? We hope so. I guess anyone who has a child and/or a parent will probably love this movie at some level; the problem is getting to that level.

PS: Oh, for those do-it-yourself handymen out there, keep an eye out for a scene that shows new self healing uses for staple gun and duct tape (sorry but I had to chuckle with visions of Red Green trying to do something similar Monty-Python-style on his old CBC duct-tape-theme television show). Ewww, see how this film made me look desperately for some kind of humour?

Catharsis anyone? Ah, I feel much better now.

***

Glenn Gould: Genius Within

2009-11-25T23:03:00.001-08:00

Glenn Gould, classical music's Michael Jackson, understood the commercial value of eccentricity and his personality often eclipsed his music. Because of this, he's also one of the most closely chronicled performers of the 20th century... With "Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould" the helmers certainly deliver a must-see film for serious music fans that should make beautiful music at the arthouse.

Glenn Gould, le Michael Jackson de la musique classique, comprenait bien la valeur commerciale de l’excentricité et sa personnalité quelquefois voilait sa musique. Cet artiste musicien a donc fait l’objet de plusieurs chroniques au cours du 20e siècle. Genius Within : The Inner Life of Glenn Gould » est un film à voir pour les fervents de bonne musique.

- Variety

***

Marshall McLuhan et Glenn Gould, même s’ils sont torontois tous les deux et de la même génération, ils ne sont logiquement pas reliés. Cependant, tous les deux appréciaient les moyens de diffusion électroniques comme étant ceux qui connectaient le mieux l’artiste à son public, l’essence même du milieu culturel contemporain. Gould a été l’un des premiers artistes à comprendre qu’il pouvait atteindre un genre de postérité digitale (par rapport à une simple postérité ordinaire) en abandonnant des spectacles en direct devant public (en 1964, à l’âge de 31 ans – l’année où McLuhan a écrit (Understanding Media) en faveur du studio d’enregistrement.

Gould entrevoyait l’enregistrement en studio comme le seul véritable moyen d’expression pour une théorie musicale, faisant usage de plusieurs micros à la fois pour créer différents environnements acoustiques, durant la préparation, en combinant différents essais avec l’assurance que les petites imperfections pouvaient être corrigées et que l’on pouvait subtilement façonner des interprétations délicates et remplies d’émotion. Imaginez la réaction si les deux vivaient encore aujourd’hui !

***

Marshall McLuhan and Glenn Gould, albeit Torontonians and of a similar generation, are not logically grouped together. And yet, both extolled electronic media as the essential connective tissue between performer and audience, the essence of contemporary cultural milieu. Gould was one of the first performing artists to understand he could achieve a kind of digital posterity (as opposed to plain ordinary posterity) by giving up live performances (in 1964 at age 31 - the year McLuhan wrote Understanding Media) in favour of the recording studio.

Gould viewed recording as the only reliable means of conveying an musical concept, using multiple mics to build acoustical environments, seized upon editing, intersplicing dozens of different takes with the assurance flaws could be corrected, and to fashion subtly complex emotional interpretations. Imagine their responses, were the both alive today!

Michèle Hozer

Director/ Editor

Two-time Gemini award-winning documentary editor, Michèle grew up in Montreal, started her career at The National Film Board. She has cut over 50 documentaries, working with Peter Raymont for 8 years, including the feature length documentary Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire and A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman.

Réalisatrice de documentaires qui ont remporté un Gemini Award à deux reprises, Michèle a grandi à Montréal et a débuté sa carrière à l’Office National du Film. Elle a contribué à la réalisation de plus de 50 documentaires, travaillant avec Peter Raymont pendant 8 ans, dont le long métrage documentaire Shake Hands with the Devil : The Journey of Roméo Dallaire et A Promise to the Dead : The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman.

Michèle Hozer Notes:

Gould, like all mythical figures, is a fascinating, complex and contradictory character. At the same time, there was something about Gould that made him the classic tragic hero. Through him one can explore the greatest virtues in humanity, but also the darkest of fears and flaws—in other words, that which makes us fundamentally human, in all our triumphs and frailties.

Gould has not one but five biographies, with others in the works. Also, since his death in 1982, there have been numerous films exploring his life and achievements. At the heart is a great human story. By looking at the man alongside the myth, not only do we understand more about Gould, we understand more about ourselves. Gould often talked about the transcendental nature of music; by losing ourselves in his music and story, we may better find ourselves.

*****

Gould, comme tous les personnages mythiques, a un caractère fascinant, difficile et contradictoire. En même temps, il y a un je-ne-sais-quoi qui fait de lui un traditionnel héros de tragédie. À travers lui, l’on peut découvrir les grandes qualités de l’être humain mais aussi ses défauts et ses plus sinistres peurs et imperfections. En d’autres mots, tout ce qui nous rend fondamentalement humains autant dans nos réussites ainsi que dans nos faiblesses.

Gould n’a pas qu’une seule mais plutôt cinq biographies ainsi que d’autres en chemin. De plus, depuis sa mort en 1982, plusieurs films ont retracé sa vie et ses exploits. Une merveilleuse histoire humaine. Si l’on examine l’homme à côté de son personnage légendaire, non seulement on apprend plus de ce qu’était Gould, mais d’autant plus sur nous-mêmes. Gould a souvent parlé de la nature transcendantale de la musique. Tout en s’évadant dans sa musique et son histoire, nous découvrons mieux ce que nous sommes.

Michèle Hozer and Glenn Gould

Research/ Recherche:

Il existe plusieurs lectures d’intérêt à faire avant la projection de ce film, et dans ce cas plus particulièrement, plus vous lirez, mieux vous pourrez apprécier toute la complexité entourant ce film, son histoire et ses personnages.

There's lots of fascinating material to read before the screening, and in this case, the more you read, the more you'll appreciate the complexities of this film, the stories it tells, the characters who pop into and out of frame

The National Library has a bountiful reservoir of quirky, insightful delightful bits: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-502.10-e.html#g

Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2003), 257ff.

This site summarizes Gould's approach to each of his major recordings. Insightful, opinionated, it provides you with sketches: http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/gould.html#52685

Cast of Characters/Distribution:

One would not ordinarily list the cast for a doc, but this one is quite exception:

VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY, Pianist/chef d'orchestre

FRANCES BATCHEN, la bien aimée

PETULA CLARK, chanteuse

CORNELIA FOSS, Artist
Wife of Lucas Foss and Gould paramour

MARK KINGWELL, Philosophe/Ecrivain;

RAY ROBERTS, Close friend

ROXOLANA ROSLAK, Soprano
Close collaborator

FRED SHERRY, Cellist

RUTH WATSON HENDERSON, Pianist/Composer

JAMES WRIGHT, savant et prof

Herb & Dorothy

2009-11-25T22:51:00.000-08:00

Art collecting , to believe this serious-minded, quirky, charming documentary, Herb & Dorothy, is not only for the rich & famous. It's also an object lesson for those who are poor & passionate, but aspire to become rich & famous. The cutline for the movie: You don't have to be a Rockefeller to collect art, is missing its coda: But if you aspire to be Rockefeller, collect art.

Herbert Vogel, postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel, librarian, frugal Puritans, built their massive collection of NY Minimalist and Conceptual Art, guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and small enough to fit in their rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment. In the doc, Herb & Dorothy come across as sweet, loveable, workaday folk. And the teary-eyed entertaining doc grows on you, just as Herb & Dorothy do. She shops for a new iMac. In return for catsitting one artist's pet, they get one canvas. Painter, Chuck Close called them mascots to the minimalist movement.

We like what we like, seemed to be their primary criterion, they're dogs sniffing for truffles.. After thirty years and over 2,000 pieces, filling every nook and cranny of their one-bedroom apartment, the Vogels gave it all away to the National Gallery in Washington, DC. "Not even a toothpick could be squeezed into the apartment," said Dorothy, without irony. If I had no room for toothpicks where I live, I too might want to free up the space.

In today's elitist world, art is a commodity and a work's investment upside takes precedence over artistic value. As one with zero expertise on futures, derivatives, investment bubbles, credit default swaps, I must confess much of the stuff to my eye comes off as trinkets and playthings aimed at gazillionaires. Today, the Vogels live in the same apartment with 19 turtles, fish, and one cat. And resumed their addictive ways. piles of new art they've recently acquired.

The doc imitates the Vogels - four years in the making, 120 hours of footage, thousands of images from artists. Nothing exceeds like excess, I say. At least it only runs 89 minutes.

Here's the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vma2T5luy08

peter

*****

Les collectionneurs d’œuvres d’art, si l’on en croit le caractère sérieux de ce documentaire, Herb and Dorothy ne sont pas seulement des gens riches et célèbres. Ceux qui mènent une vie modeste et passionnée peuvent devenir riches et célèbres. La phrase « You don’t have to be a Rockefeller to collect art » sur l’affiche du film pourrait tout aussi bien se lire « Si vous aspirez à devenir riche comme Rockfeller, devenez collectionneur d’art ».

Herbert Vogel, employé des postes, et Dorothy, libraire, un couple de puritains de nature modeste, ont bâti une imposante collection d’œuvres d’art minimaliste et conceptuel de New York, guidés par ces deux règles: le prix devait être abordable et l’œuvre devait être de taille assez petite pour bien cadrer dans leur minuscule appartement. Dans ce documentaire, Herb and Dorothy est un couple adorable et travaillant. Et ce documentaire vous atteint jusqu’aux larmes tout autant que Herb et Dorothy. Elle magasine pour un nouveau iMac. En retour de ses services pour avoir garder l’animal de compagnie d’un artiste, ils reçoivent une toile. L’artiste peintre, Chuck Close, les appellent les mascottes du mouvement minimaliste.

Nous aimons ce que nous aimons semble être leur critère premier…ils sont comme des chiens qui flairent l’odeur de truffes. Après plus de trente ans et avec plus de 2,000 œuvres, ayant rempli tous les coins et recoins de leur petit appartement, les Vogel ont fait don, en 1992, de leur collection à la National Gallery of Art de Washington. « Même un simple petit cure-dent ne pouvait trouver place dans l’appartement », avoue Dorothy, sans aucune trace d’ironie. Si je n’arrive pas à faire de la place pour un petit cure-dent, je dois donc créer de l’espace.

Dans notre monde d’élite fortuné, l’art devient un simple agrément et uniquement un autre investissement, et ceci a préséance sur la valeur artistique. N’ayant aucune expérience sur les investissements en vue du futur, l’accroissement des valeurs, les remous des investissements, tout ce marché, je dois admettre qu’à mes yeux, tout semble n’être qu’objet clinquant destiné à un monde présumé riche et célèbre. Aujourd’hui, les Vogels demeurent toujours dans le même appartement avec leurs 19 tortues, poissons, et un chat. Et ils ont repris leurs accoutumances, empilant de nouvelles œuvres récemment acquises.

Le documentaire imite bien les Vogels – quatre ans pour le tournage, 120 heures de métrage, plus de mille images provenant des artistes. Rien n’est plus excessif que l’excès! Au moins, sa durée n’est que de 89 minutes.

Voici la bande-annonce : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vma2T5luy08

*****

It was fascinating to learn about this couple who lived only for art. In a collage of past and present we were privileged to be able to follow the development of their passion, how they met, visited art galleries, became amateur artists and gradually developed insights into the expressionism, minimalism and conceptual art of the day. Through interviews with many contemporary artists the film conveyed their appreciation of Herb and Dorothy’s friendship, interest and understanding. I was amazed at the incredible number of artworks the Vogels managed to fit into their tiny apartment, filled ‘above critical mass’. As a former cat owner I’m not sure how their art collection survived the hair generated by their pet cats that must also have collected in their small living space!

Nancy Walkling

***

un petit bijoux, a real (reel) diamond in the rough ! ... a heartwarming story of two lovable, intelligent and tough New Yorkers, mixed with true art and an insight into the cultural history of their times - it leaves one feeling good and inspired to give that sometimes difficult art another look in another way.

I loved it, but I also knew I would from the moment I learned of this film - the Cinemagique showing allowed me to participate in the kind of 'festival' atmosphere of the venue and to appreciate the quality of your invited question taker - a wonderful evening, that could have been shared by many more.

Marilyn Berzan-Montblanch

***

Herb & Dorothy est un reportage sur un couple de personnes sans grands moyens ni grande ambition financière qui s’est créé une grande collection d’œuvres d’art d’artistes devenus pour la plupart connus. Même si on ne s’intéresse pas forcément à ce type d’art, on s’attache à ce couple qui a toujours gardé les mêmes critères de sélection, même après avoir fait la Une de plusieurs magazines. Ce sont deux personnes qui montrent que l’on n’a pas besoin d’être millionnaire pour établir une collection d’œuvres d’art. Et on peut voir que seul l’amour des œuvres d’art les guide, ils suivent leur instinct qui est souvent juste.

La réalisatrice a suivi le couple dans leur vie quotidienne jusque dans leur minuscule appartement qui déborde de tableaux et de sculptures, mais sans jamais faire preuve de voyeurisme. Elle a une certaine retenue très respectueuse.

J’ai été touchée par ce reportage et par ce couple de personnes qui sont comme tout le monde mais tellement singuliers en même temps.

marianne diuzet

Inside Hana's Suitcase

2009-11-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

A movie from Japan to Canada with the world in between, expressed in many languages, developing a vivid series of WWII events, a simple and most understanding document, easily flowing from end to beginning and back again, a slow unfolding of an amazing period of time and great distances yet holding together, a modern miracle. - Ron

***

Definitely not a tear jerker, rather a unique film filled with love & respect for courageous children lost in war and contemporary children telling this story of one child, Hana from Moravia.

`Love never dies` is given new meaning in Larry Weinstein`s profound documentary, Inside Hana`s Suitcase`, as Hana`s dream of becoming a teacher is fulfilled through Japanese teacher Fumiko Ishioka, her students, a Japanese survior of the atomic bomb, Hana`s schoolmates & friends , her adoring brother - George Brady and his family and young students in Canada.

Alexina Louie & Alex Pauk`s musical score enhances the childrens voices; gifted cinematographer,Horst Zeidler recreates Hana`s journey from a happy Moravian childhood, to Auschwitz in 1944. Ironically, Auschwitz, where young Hana`s suitcase is confiscated, serves as the nucleus that breaks the silence. Karen`s Levine`s book tells the story but this film enables to fulfill Hana's dream: to teach children to never lose hope.Hana`s brother, George Brady, Fumiko Ishioka and Laura Brady are sooooo splendid! - Katherine

***

The film is a moving tribute to the resiliency of the human spirit, the power of love, and the belief in the possibility of a better, more humane world....well worth seeing. The effortless flow between past and present was akin to a well-choreographed dance, brilliantly executed.

The story - a suitcase left behind by a child, lost in the holocaust - took a good deal of creative ingenuity. One Japanese woman showed each and every one of us could make a difference, one by one, in making this a more hospitable planet. I hope this film gets to be seen by children in every schoolroom in every country around the word. They are our future. And if the children in this film are representative of how the film will be received, the future looks much brighter than the past. - Rita

The Blind Side

2009-11-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

The Blind Side is a Pygmalion & Galatea movie I've waited four years to see. Like a sprinter in full flight, I first raced through Michael Lewis' book, while flying home from Florida, and would not put it down. It's Pygmalion, on a gridiron, one unbelievable story. Michael Oher, in the words of Michael Lewis, 'goes from being the least valued human being in America, to the being the most exalted 18 year old.'

For the next year, I gave away copies, as thank you notes, as confidence boosters, as Christmas presents to males and females alike. Michael Lewis, when I first came across his writing, was a reporter with the NYT Magazine, writing on new technology. Like Nick Hornby (An Education), Lewis explores hidden underbellies, figuring how things work - in this case, race, schools, class, conventional thinking.

The Blind Side depicts the remarkable story of teenager Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) surviving on his own, virtually homeless, when he is spotted on the street by Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). Learning he is one of her daughter’s classmates, Leigh Anne insists that Michael—wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the dead of winter—come out of the cold, invites him to stay at the Tuohy home for the night. A gesture of kindness turns into something more as Michael becomes part of the Tuohy family. And as the family helps Michael fulfill his potential, both on and off the football field, Michael’s presence in the Tuohys’ lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own. The Blind Side is written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie) Gil Netter, Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove produced the film with Molly Smith, Erwin Stoff and Tim Bourne serving as executive producers. Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw star as Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, and Kathy Bates as Michael Oher’s dedicated tutor, Miss Sue. Quinton Aaron is introduced in the central role of Michael Oher. The film also stars young actors Lily Collins and Jae Head as the Tuohy children, Collins and S.J., respectively. Women's book clubs across America have been wrapping their minds around The Blind Side for the last three years.

Here is Michael Lewis, on YouTube, talking about his book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F-_HHriWSQ

For mavens who are readers, here's a NYT magazine excerpt from the Lewis book: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24football.html?pagewanted=all Here's the trailer: www.theblindsidemovie.com

*****

The Blind Side est le film que j’attendais depuis quatre ans. Tel un sprinter, j’ai parcouru le livre de Michael Lewis, durant mon vol de retour de la Floride, étant incapable d’en cesser la lecture. C’est du Pygmalion, sur un terrain de foot…une histoire tout à fait incroyable. Michael Oher, selon Michael Lewis, passe d’un personnage très peu valorisé en Amérique à un jeune homme de 18 ans merveilleusement passionné.

Durant l’année qui a suivi, j’ai offert des copies de son livre en tant que marque de remerciement, outil de motivation, cadeau de Noёl. Lorsque j’ai découvert l’écrivain Michael Lewis, il était chroniqueur de nouvelle technologie pour le NYT magazine. Comme Nick Hornby (An Education), Michael Lewis explore les aspects cachés tentant de découvrir la façon dont les choses fonctionnent – dans le présent cas, la race, les écoles, les cours, la pensée conventionnelle.

The Blind Side relate une histoire vécue, celle d’une étoile de football américain, Michael Oher. L’adolescent, Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) est un sans-abri abandonné et subsiste par ses propres moyens. C’est alors que Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) le remarque sur la rue. Apprenant que le jeune homme est un camarade de classe de sa fille, elle insiste pour que Michael, vêtu d’un short et d’un t-shirt en plein hiver, sorte de ce froid terrible. Sans aucune hésitation, elle l’invite à venir passer la nuit dans la maison des Tuohy. Ce qui devait être un simple geste de compassion devient beaucoup plus intense alors que Michael fait partie de la famille de plus en plus, malgré leurs différents antécédents. Vivant dans son nouvel environnement, l’adolescent doit affronter plusieurs nouveaux défis. Cette famille l’aide à réaliser son potentiel sur le terrain de football de même qu’en dehors. En même temps, la présence d’Oher dans la vie des Tuohy les amène à se réaliser eux-mêmes.

The Blind Side est réalisé par John Lee Hancock (The Rookie), qui a aussi écrit le scénario basé sur le livre The Blind Side : Evolution of a Game, de l’auteur Michael Lewis. Gil Netter, Broderick Johnson et Andrew Kosove ont produit ce film avec Molly Smith, Erwin Stoff et Tim Bourne en tant que producteurs exécutifs.

Sandra Bullock et Tim McGraw incarnent les rôles respectifs de Leigh Anne et Sean Tuohy, et Cathy Bates celui de son dévoué professeur, Miss Sue. Quinton Aaron joue le rôle principal de Michael Oher. Dans ce film, de jeunes acteurs tels que Lily Collins et Jae Head interprètent les rôles des enfants Tuohy, Collins et S.J., respectivement.

Plusieurs clubs du livre s’adressant aux femmes se sont penchés autour du livre The Blind Side depuis les trois dernières années. Michael Lewis parle de son livre

sur YouTube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F-_HHriWSQ

Pour les cinéphiles qui s’adonnent aussi à la lecture, voici un extrait du livre de Lewis :

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24football.html?pagewanted=all

Et voici la bande-annonce : www.theblindsidemovie.com

Shrewd Assessments:

I'm enjoying the new season of the movie club. Cinémagique gives people new experiences and exposure to movies we'd be unlikely to see otherwise. Plus I like the social aspect of the club and the discussions afterwards. My favourite movie so far this fall was Mary and Max, which made me laugh out loud several times and also brought some tears at the end. Last night's Blind Side was entertaining but I thought too simplistic to be completely believable - even though it's based on a true story. It doesn't seem plausible that a family of four would embrace a new member so uniformly lovingly with no resentments or jealousies. I enjoyed the commentary of the two young football players - even though I don't understand football and am rather repelled by the sight of it. And the quiz with prizes was fun! I put up my poster at the Atwater Library in a prominent place.

Lynn

***
Good turn out for tonight's screening and interesting discussion (thanks to Robert and Tony from the McGill Redmen).

Movie was just OK in my opinion. Similar to Remembering the Titans: inspirational, manipulative with a dose of social commentary. Perhaps it moved too quickly away from the early life of Big Mike to his redemption in Republican suburbia? Perhaps I just never bought into the possibility that he could fail?

Nice to see Sandra Bullock in a somewhat meaty role after some recent awful parts [The Proposal, Miss Congeniality 2, ...].

Paul

***
Peter: I thought your comment was so 'right on': that the film allowed us to watch someone transform from being the most worthless person in society into one of its most valuable ones - that is so true! My reaction to this is that there is such human potential just being wasted - because we as a society just let it.

And that's what brings me to Leigh-Anne. I loved watching her transform from being a smarty-pants, get-it-done, Sarah Palin-type wife/mother/powerhouse decorator into someone with heart and self-doubts. I'm thinking of the Thanksgiving meal: realizing the value of what she really had, and moving the family from the TV room into the dining room. Another moment was the questioning of her own deeper motivations after Michael spoke to the NAACP - did she save Michael for Michael or for herself? I really appreciated Sandra Bullock's performance, as I did the smart-Alec 'younger brother' SJ - but I thought he was just a little too cute and over-used, especially when he was dealing with all those college coaches. It may have even been true - I didn't read the book - but it didn't feel true. I think they could have fleshed out why the family trusted him with the negotiations for Michael. Funny, but I could believe him as being a trainer to Michael, but not a negotiator. I also thought he was a wonderful actor, and loved him when he was on the screen - but you asked about my reaction and that's what I thought of when I was analyzing my reactions.

Again, thank you and Warner Brothers for letting us have the film - and getting the McGill football players to speak to us was inspired!

Leslye
***
Thanks for the screening last night Peter. We really enjoyed it. We both thought the set up until we see Michael on a football field, too long ..... the first act. Thanks for understanding, we had to run off and watch the game. The interesting thing when you watch the real # 74, Michael play for the Baltimore Ravens is that on every play he's involved in, he helps to pick up a player on either team all the time. What a mensch!

Jimmy
***
Some of my "fears" about Hollywood have been present last night, but at the same time, this week's movie, from a movie viewer point of view, is a great example of the US pattern we will see in the coming year: very christian values, sustained by lots of violins... They even added a very US argument with the mention of the NRA, which is for me very anti-catholic!

As you mentionned, Hollywood produced, and is still producing some amazing movies. This one is a correct, standard production, that should not make history but reflects current USA values. Yes, you can thank MGM (he means WB - pp) for this presentation. It is good to see movies from as many sources as possible. And they were great to give you this movie at your first meeting!

Thanks for your work, and see you at the next presentation.

Daniel
***
I did indeed like your "Hollywood Movie". In fact I liked everything about it, the excellent cast, the fact that it was a true story and the football players were a great addition. Thank goodness our universities don't have athletic scholarships. Thanks for bringing it to Montreal.
Cheers

Mary
***
Ce film comporte plusieurs messages de vie...l'amour inconditionnel d'une mère, la réalisation de soi et cette phrase "quand on veut, on peut" n'a jamais été si bien représentée. Ce film s'adresse à la famille toute entière...convaincant et regénérant ! À voir...avec une boîte de Kleenex !

Louise

***
Thank you for letting me be a part of last night. Sandra Bullock lived up to her statement that she was indeed a multi-tasker; wife, mother.
psychologist, even the coach for the football team. Totally unbelievable but I managed to cry anyway.

More history of Michael's past would have made the film more endearing. And what happened to Mr. Tuohy. He seemed totally in accord with whatever the Mrs. said and did.

I wonder how he became so successful.

In summary I have and would recommend the film.

Beverley

***
It was exciting to be among the first to see this film. It was also somewhat reassuring to slide back into the competent hands of Hollywood. Yes, the film had the familiar tone and predictability , but I was also surprised and pleased by its new approach, less sensational and more human.

I was glad it was a true story - for some reason the fact that something like that actually happened makes it more meaningful. My movie partner, however, found it an entertaining and very realistic presentation but it made no difference to him that it was based on a true story.

His comments: a happy movie, it held the audience, was very realistic and had no nastiness. It leaves one feeling complete. A movie to see but not one that would generally not need a second viewing.

For my part, this movie gave me an insight into a part of American life - I felt it rang true more than many other movies. Compared with Peter's description of the book, I think the movie did not capture enough the depth of emotion and commitment of Mrs. Touhy . I liked the football although it did not help me understand the game. The movie avoided dealing with the exploitation of the players that I hear actually does go on. And I liked the photos of the actual people at the end.

Nancy R.
***
dear peter, i like writing but i am not really comfortable about publishing my reactions to the films..all that being said, i am now bleery-eyed after reading the new york times review (of Blind Side) which is really a synopsis of the book...which i suspect was actually better than the film on many levels.

We have often discussed at [McGill] that no one sees the same film...it is an interactive process to which we bring ourselves. I, for one, was the mother of a quarterback at lcc and then westmount high; he was a gifted athlete but we still spent many hours at the orthopods with injuries...he could have gone to college on a football scholarship, but decided early on that he needed his brain, gave up contact sports for an education and received a medical degree from mcgill university. I am positively shocked at the amount of money paid to star athletes. What is wrong with this society's values when scientists, educators, nurses, doctors and other essential service givers have their work so comparatively, poorly recompensed?

On another level, it is very heartwarming to see that poor kids can use their athletic prowess as a means to upward mobility. Your two athletes were very articulate about mcgill's position concerning athletics and the academic priorities valued at this institution; maybe hockey players will shed a different light on their experience in this northern climate! Last night's film underscored the fact that success on any of life''s playing fields equates to success in life...there is nothing like positive reinforcement as a motivator!

I give the film a 3 star rating and i'm sure it will have wide appeal and be financially successful....sandra bullock was very endearing in her role...but even with a southern accent, she still played sandra bullock...in other words she is no meryl streep! i hated all that body smashing and predictably covered my eyes...this is a hollywood film for the masses and I am sure will last more than the two week stays that have marked some of the very best films you have guided us to.

Just a little aside...i found it very amusing when cathy bates spoke of science and body parts being buried under the football field...do you know where enrico fermis first atomic pile was housed? Under the football statium in chicago...probably northwestern university's...

Farla
***
The Blind Side is a fine movie to recommend, both to sports enthusiasts and to people who enjoy a great story, well told, with a happy ending: a first-rate date movie. I laughed whole-heartedly, and needed a hankie for the final scenes. Sandra Bullock nailed the Memphis twang and looked great wearing Erin Brockovich's dream wardrobe. The football side of the story was well explained, and Quinton Aaron was appropriately lovable as the young Michael Oher, although physically he seemed flabby, knock-kneed and not very athletic. The whole cast performed very well, and Kathy Bates's story about the FBI's forensic science lab underneath the University Of Tennessee playing field was a hoot.

Although I am very glad to have seen the movie, I have two big reservations about it. The first is the motivation of the Touhy family: why did they take in this kid? People explain that Leigh-Ann is a do-gooder, but why? She wears a cross around her neck, but never speaks of her Christianity, except as a way of networking with the district attorney. We can certainly understand where Michael Oher comes from, but the principal driving element of the story is the Touhy’s magnanimity, whose origin remains utterly mysterious. What’s the back story?

My second reservation is that almost all of the problems these people face are solved by spending more money. Want a private school education? A kind family will pay. Need clothes? Money and wheels to store provided. Need an identity? Get a drivers license and a nifty red-neck pick-up truck. Have an accident? There’s insurance. Problems in school? The family hires a full-time live-in tutor. The fact that the Touhy’s seem never to make sacrifices (when in real life they confronted many obstacles) blunts the message of selflessness. The Touhy’s seem so rich that we might reproach them for not fostering an entire orphanage or, indeed, all of Bangladesh.

Margaret

***

Thank you for the opportunity to see this well acted (if not over-acted (SJ)) movie. Sandra Bullock was the best I have seen her, and Tim Mcgraw was passable as the doting husband. As it was my first experience attending a cinema club, I tried to look beyond the characters, and thought that the camera angles and positioning, especially in the football scenes, was good. I also enjoyed the music score, which was upbeat and added to the positive attitudes put forth in the movie.

With the links you gave us before the screening, I got a good understanding of Michael's character, and I found it missing in the movie. Where he ran out from the NCAA inquiry was the only movie indication of Michael's evasions throughout his life up to that point.

I also liked the use of photos of the actual people portrayed in the movie, during the closing credits. I studied them all, looking for the similarities with the actors. It seemed a good fit, an enjoyable experience. I hope to see you again soon.

Wayne

I so enjoyed my first film as a member, The Blind Side. You gave insight into a film to which I would normally have paid little attention. The two young footballers were an inspired choice. Too bad they cannot tour with the film. Warner Brothers could use such film buffs of the football genre.

Marlene

I found the set-up up too long, and (as someone who has not read the book and was only minimally aware of the story) very disjointed. It took too long, in my opinion, to get us "hooked".

Once under way, I enjoyed the ride. I must say, though, that if I didn't know it was a true story, I'd have a hard time buying it. The couple's relationship was just too perfect to be true. Whether this is a fair reflection of the book or not begs the question.... how in the world could they have gone through that with so little tension or disagreement? It would have added so much to the movie, in my opinion, had we seen even a small bit of the discord that must surely have gone on in that family. All, in all, this movie feeds into my bias about the somewhat deluded world-view many of our republican neighbours to the south seem to have. This Blind Side will probably go over gangbusters with that market segment, but I like a little more depth to my movies.

Barbara

Enjoyed The Blind Side experience, my first outing with your group - A feel-good movie with good actors. Felt it didn't portray well enough the family's struggles and challenges when Mum brought home a street kid. The book would have gone into better detail I would guess. Enjoyed the younger boy's amusing coaching tactics but felt things went overboard when he bargained with the various university football coaches. Liked the pictures during the credits which showed the real family whose story this movie tells.

Nancy W.

Love & Savagery

2009-11-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

Kathrine Moore's Conversation with John N. Smith

What is happening now that film is coming out and you are no longer under pressure?

Just returning from Chicago where Love and Savagery was well received, John is taking next year off. Things are in the offing, but for now he just wants to enjoy his well earned time off .

Where did the passion bloom for moviemaking come from?

His very cultured mother’s artistic input. They went to at least three times a year, John going to live theatre and museums.

Can you give some insight into the writing of Love and Savagery?

In 1979 the poet, Des Walsh spent three months in County Clare. In 1989 he auditioned for a role in Welcome to Canada and his band Tickle Harbour did much of the music. After shooting Random Passage (directed by Smith, written by Walsh), they rented a place in Ballyvaughan, County Clare, and started shaping the script for Love and Savagery.

How would you describe Love and Savagery?

A universal, atavistic story set in what is at once both a real and mythical landscape. Losing someone you love with all your heart is a terrible, if common, ordeal. Although set in a faraway time and place, audiences will find emotions we all know well. Human love is a universal experience. The collapse of love is always savage. Two people meant to meet, carry each other in their hearts forever, a meeting that must be cherished and respected. It is partially an exploration of the spiritual yearning that exists in all of us.

How did you find the lead characters?

Michael McCarthy is from Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and Cathleen O`Connell from County Clare. Producer Kevin Tierney observed something very innocent in Allan Hawco`s being that shines through the camera lens.. Sarah’s Cathleen is sensual and innocent, both modern and traditional. She celebrates her lust, while understanding it will make her a better nun - a fabulous paradox. As she matures, she finds spiritual peace.

The Mother Superior character reminded me of my favorite teachers.

Martha Burns had wanted to play a nun since seeing The Sound of Music in her native Winnipeg. Without judgement, this Mother Superior tries to help Cathleen find peace. The Church is a vast and complex continent, spanning many communities and peoples. Some of the greatest people he met during the production of the Boys of St.Vincent were priests and nuns.

How was filming in Ireland?

We went to Carrigaholt, which has the architectural integrity of a coastal town from a different century! The townsfolk brought their knowledge of grief in their faces. Postmaster Pat Gavin transformed the bus-stop built by the crew into a protected outdoor coffee shop adjacent to his post office.

*****

And three separate member reviews of the movie...

*****

Si vous aimez qu’on vous raconte des histoires empreintes de véracité!

Si vous êtes du genre qui aime voir des comédiens qui ont l’air d’être de vrais humains!

Si vous aimez les belles images non peintes en 3D ! Alors vous êtes du genre à poursuivre cette lecture.

Love and Savagery, le dernier film du réalisateur John N. Smith, raconte une histoire d’amour que le scénariste et poète Des Walsh situe en Irelande et à Terreneuve. Le film pose l’éternelle question: est-il mieux d’avoir aimé et d’avoir perdu cet amour que de n’avoir jamais aimé ?

Carrigaholt, ce petit village côtier d’Irlande mieux connu pour ses huitres, quoiqu’on y voit débarquer des homards, est à la fois charmant et pitoresque. L’endroit regorge d’histoires de sièges et de captures, de mythologie et de magie. Du quai on peut voir la silhouette de la tour d’un château médiéval. Il semble même que les rochers ont autant de vécu que les habitants du village.

L’action des passe en 1969. Un jeune poète et géologiste Michael McCarthy ( Allan Hawco) débarque sur la côte ouest de l’Irlande pour y étudier les formations géologiques de The Burren . qui regorge de crevasses, de symboles et d’histoires vielles de milliers d’ années et de flores surprenantes. À l’auberge ou il loge il y rencontre une belle jeune fille; Cathleen O’Connel (Sarah Greene) tout a fait époustouflante par la justesse de son jeu.. Martha Burns comédienne, bien connue du milieu du théatre et de la télévison anglaise et récipiendaire d’un Génie, interprète le rôle la Mère Supérieure d’un couvent qui double d’hôpital La belle Cathleen vient certains jours y faire du bénévolat une fois son travail de bairmaid terminé à l’auberge et bar/restaurant de son oncle.

Le jeune homme troublé par la belle vient à son tour troubler la paix du village et soulever les ires des villageois. Les comédiens principaux sont entourés de Sean Panting, interprétant le rôle du meilleur ami de Michael. Jark Whelan, Macdara O’Fatharts, Dylan Scott Smith and Nicholas Collins qui se mèlent aux têtes intéressantes et traits creusés des villageois.

Les paysages Irlandais époustouflants sont superbement saisis par la camera de Pierre Letarte. Il est intéressant de noter que Letarte, le scénariste et poète Des Walsh et le réalisateur John Smith, avaient préalablement collaborer sur la série de renommée internationale The Boys of St.Vincent en 1992. Dix ans plus tard ils se réunissaient sur le tournage de Random Passage, une mini série à succès qui se méritent 2 Génies et récolte la faveur du public de la CBC .

Deux des producteurs, Barbara Doran (Terreneuve) et Tristan Orpen Lynch (Irelande) ont fait aussi équipe auparavant sur un autre film de John. N. Smith, The Englishman’s Boy. La musique est de Bertrand Chénier, le montage de Michel Arcand - des noms bien connus d’ici au Québec.

Le film existe en langue anglaise uniquement mais si vous posséder la langue vous pourrez apprécier le joli accent Irlandais. Si non, prenez-des cours! Ca vaut le coup.

Surtout ne dites-pas que l’on ne fait plus de films comme on les faisait autrefois.

Nicole de Rochemont

*****

J.N. Smith has done it again, this time a Canadian-Celtic gem based on Del Walsh's book, 'Love and Savagery'

As the Irish 'Celtic Tiger' continues to skyrocket into the international community, Irish diaspora greats as J.N. Smith ensure the eternal celtic culture stays abreast within the endless celtic artistic circle. At this dawning of 21st century globalized mass communication, few professional artists are capable of communicating the continuations of ancient cultural societies. John N Smith makes us appreciate the role played by the diaspora of an ethnic people born out of genocides, famines, endless wars. Thank God, for the Irish diaspora of Newfoundland/Labrador and Quebec that was instrumental in producing this gem, 'Love and Savagery'.

In Love and Savagery, one of the curious young, a Newfoundland geologist and poet returns to his ancient land. Michael McCarthy (played by Allan Hawco) travels in 1968 to Ballyvaughan to examine the "Burren", a geological wonder. In County Clare & the Aran Isles, Michael discovers not only in the rocks but within the lifestyle of the area people, his own roots. One colleen, Cathleen O'Connell (played by Sarah Greene), wins his heart while teaching him far more of his peoples' ways, sacrificed in the diaspora. Irish celtic way to one's path in life is not as evident as his North American culture led him to believe. A price must be paid for any introspective spiritual search within oneself. Kathleen O'Connell shows Michael that the journey may not lead to simple conclusions. The insightful & patient Mother Superior, Louise Nicol enlightens Kathleen to the fact that convent walls will not dispel the 'aching total pain of lust'.

A fine piece of Celtic art, this film's music score and sweeping cinematography join symphonically with a sound script & fine performances. Of course, one cannot help ponder the inability of our fast paced international film business to link this cinema gem to comparative cultures of the masses fearing the loss of their own continuance with the march of a one-culture globalized world. So, do your part and spread the word so that others may experience this excellent film. Canada and namely Montrealers are so honored that JN Smith is one of us but not surprised by this latest gem knowing the legacy he continues to give us:

Katherine Moore

*****

Quel BEAU film! Bravo à tous ceux qui on collaborés à cet œuvre du cœur si bien rendue.

Si on parle des ingrédients qui font d’un film un succès, on pourra affirmer que Love and Savagery a suivi la recette et que le plat est une superbe réussite.Le scénario de Des Walsh est simple et sans aucuns artifices, comme les émotions qui y sont évoqués. Michael rencontre Cathleen et ils tombent amoureux, rien de plus simple. Mais Cathleen veut devenir religieuse et même si elle aime Michael profondément elle optera pour la vocation divine. Histoire déchirante à laquelle tous peuvent s’identifier.

La réalisation de John N. Smith est simple comme les décors d’Irlande et les gens qui le peuplent. Il n’est nullement nécessaire d’en faire beaucoup quand c’est si facile à comprendre, et John N. Smith possède le don d’extirper des comédiens une performance poignante et vraie.

Les comédiens : Je m’attendais à voir des stéréotypes Hollywoodiens, mais les deux protagonistes principaux du film ont l’air si vrais et jouent si juste que l’on est littéralement aspiré dans cette histoire d’amour. Allan Hawco et Sarah Greene portent ce film impeccablement. Le reste de la distribution est aussi juste et bon ; Impeccables. J’ai été particulièrement touché par le jeu de Dylan Smith dans le rôle de Sean Collins, quelle maîtrise de son personnage. La Caméra de Pierre Letarte est irréprochable et les éclairages si naturels que cela en devient remarquable. Enfin, le montage est doux et fin. L’expérience d’un Michel Arcand s’intègre tout doucement dans cette équipe de professionnels chevronnés.

Michel Siry

*****

Mary and Max

2009-11-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

Animated Hollywood flicks transport us into magical worlds where dragons fly, romances bloom and endings are forever happy. Mary & Max, a feature film debut by Australian animator Adam Elliot, is not Hollywood. It is a captivating journey of a friendship between two improbable people: Mary Daisy Dinkle [the voice of Tony Collette] is 8 years old at the start of their friendship and lives in Melbourne, Australia; Max Horowitz [the voice of Philip Seymour Hoffman], fat and forty, lives in New York.

Mary & Max opens like a book. The narrator [Barry Humphries, better known as TV’s Dame Edna Everage] chronicles the enduring friendship of two unalike, unlikely people, spanning two continents and 20 years. We accompany Mary from childhood to middle age, Max from middle to old age.

We first encounter Mary’s uncaring world in her Melbourne suburb, gloomy hues of brown evoking her melancholic mood. Friendless, the target of schoolmates’ scorn, Mary is ignored by both her chain-smoking, sherry-nipping, kleptomaniacal mum and dull dad who stuffs dead birds for a hobby.

Mary randomly comes upon Max when she picks his name out of a NY telephone directory. Her letter panics Max. Anxiety prone and lonely, he can’t relate to people, can’t hold a job, lives alone with Hal, his one-eye cat, and Henry, his stupefied goldfish. He frets over everything and nothing. He resents his fit psychotherapist, since his passion for ‘chocolate hot dogs’ has prevailed over Overeaters Anonymous.

Mary and Max become pen pals, bond over their shared love for chocolate, bizarre anecdotes from their isolated lives and amusing insights into the world they struggle to fit into. Both have come across something neither ever had: a friend.

Despite this, Mary & Max has no Hollywood magic and predictability. As the story unfolds through the ‘70s to the ‘80s and ‘90s, unexpected afflictions occur. Mary’s inapt boyfriend dumps her, her parents die, other disasters befall each. Max is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome [a form of autism]. Mary determines to find a cure.

Mary & Max is a touching exploration of human foibles, a poignant look at life’s afflictions: loneliness, obesity, sexuality, anxiety, agoraphobia, autism, kleptomania, alcoholism, psychiatry, sexual and religious differences, trust and death. At first we feel detracted by the outré look and dread surrounding of these grotesque clay-made characters, but as they open their hearts, we are captivated by the brilliant and subversive story and the tragic-comic side of life.

As misunderstandings get patched up, the two resume confidences about forgiveness and imperfections. If their world is imperfect, so too are those who inhabit it. It becomes important to mend what has been broken. When Mary finally enters Max’s desolate NY room, she restores the bond which has tied them throughout the years in a long rewarding friendship.

Hilarious, poignant Mary & Max is impregnated with kind of humour and sadness that draws us all in. (88 mins.)

Afra Botteri

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey

2009-11-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film... Stanley Kubrick

And so mavens, with Kubrick's come-hither invitation, feel free to surf the Web at will, questing for 2001: A Space Odyssey meaning. Kubrick never spelled out his own.

2001 is the original seminal epic big-budget sci-fi movie. Before you check out this site: (http://www.underview.com/2001.html,) make sure you've hours to spare.

Everything basic is at: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey

Some vintage classics, neglected and forgotten, take a generation to come of age. Citizen Kane released in 1941, only garnered critical acclaim after WWII. The Wizard of Oz (1939) became a classic only with the arrival of NBC coloured television (1956). Casablanca (1942), didn't become iconic until the 50s when the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square played it during exam week, a tradition that still endures.

2001: A Space Odyssey got mixed reviews from NY know-it-all smartpants reviewers, who knew everything there was to know about movies. Pauline Kael (New Yorker) called it a monumentally unimaginative movie. Stanley Kauffmann (New Republic) wrote, a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull. Renata Adler (NYT): ..somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring. Variety called it: Big, beautiful, but plodding sci-fi epic…A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark. Andrew Sarris (Village Voice): one of the grimmest films I have ever seen in my life…2001 is a disaster because it is much too abstract to make its abstract points. John Simon: a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines…and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans.

Check out: http://www.kubrick2001.com/
Scientists speculated for Kubrick (and Arthur C Clarke) what computer technology would be like in 2001, generally optimistic that machines with HAL's capabilities could do any work a man can do. Forty years on, only a few technical details of 2001: A Space Odyssey have dated. Pan-Am no longer flies; we don't yet have space stations nor interplanetary vehicles. And yet the film's views on human evolution, nuclear war, technology, artificial intelligence, extraterrestrial life, seem as asture now as then. While the film is scientifically inaccurate in minor details - natural language processing, lip reading and even commonsense reasoning for example - you will spot laptops and notepads, used to view news broadcasts from Earth.

Arthur C Clarke: ...we set out with the deliberate intention of creating a myth. (The Odyssean parallel clear in our minds.) Quite early in the game I went around saying, not very loudly, "M-G-M doesn't know this yet, hut they're paying for the first $10,000,000 religious movie." I might mention that we have recently discovered-this was quite a shock--that there is a Buddhist sect which worships a large, black, rectangular slab. The analogy of the Kaaba has also been mentioned; though I certainly never had it in mind at the time, the fact that the Black Stone sacred to the Muslims is reputed to be a meteorite is a more than interesting coincidence.

***

OK, for another perspective on 2001: A Space Odyssey and the vasstness of space, this one is a stunner! Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q&feature=fvsr

Les Beaux Gosses/French Kissers

2009-10-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

@ Cinéma du Parc

lundi, Monday le 26 octobre
6 p.m./ 1800 h

(English text follows...)

Devenir adulte n’est jamais simple, mais nous finissons quand même par passer au travers de la puberté, tôt ou tard, d’une façon ou d’une autre. Pour le meilleur et pour le pire.

Les films qui parlent du phénomène du passage à l’âge adulte viennent nous chercher en ce qu’ils nous rappellent nos plus doux-amers souvenirs. Ils sont une vibrante nostalgie de l’époque où nous avons appris nos leçons de vie parfois de façon brutale. On se souvient du temps où…mais oui, on revit notre propre évolution – la période de la crise d’adolescence où nous passions de mômes capricieux à de gentils adultes. Ayant tous passé par là, nous sourions à l’évocation de notre propre période d’adolescence. Ces films ravivent notre mémoire, faisant reluire nos éclats d’étourderie. On se languit et se souvient du « doux temps » de notre innocente jeunesse..

Les Beaux Gosses (French Kissers), film en compétition officielle, ce printemps 2009, dans le cadre de la Quinzaine des Réalisateurs au Festival de Cannes. Cinémagique a le plaisir et l’honneur de vous le présenter, lundi, le 26 octobre, au Cinéma du Parc. Une comédie croustillante teintée de gags grivois à la Mack Sennett, roi de la comédie et du cinéma burlesque avec des blagues frôlant parfois le ridicule.

Les histoires traitant du passage à l’âge adulte sont à tout jamais rattachées à une époque et à un endroit précis. Des souvenirs personnels à peine déguisés du réalisateur lui-même. Les Beaux Gosses explore cette jungle impénétrable de ce qu’est un adolescent dans une petite ville bretonne en 2008. Et pourtant, quoique ces ados Beaux Gosses 2008 soient tout aussi différents de ceux dans Blackboard Jungle (1955), malgré qu’ils soient au temps de l’informatique, malgré une vie de médiation depuis l’enfance, malgré leur génération et culture MTV, malgré qu’ils soient conscients du virus du sida, malgré une omniprésente pornographie, ces ados nous arrivent comme d’innocents personnages tout naïfs tels que nous l’étions il a très longtemps déjà sur une planète très lointaine.

Hervé (qui ressemble quelque peu à Michael Sera) est un vulgaire petit connard qui veut séduire, qui se masturbe et qui rêve à ses fantasmes. Son univers d’aujourd’hui – comme le nôtre jadis – conspire contre lui, l’amène sur des sentiers dangereux, l’incite à cesser de réfléchir en enfant, à repenser son rôle d’adulte, à surmonter d’innombrables obstacles tels qu’aliénation, opportunités illimitées, la mort, les drogues, l’existentialisme, l’aventure, confusion, flirt, commérages, l’incertitude, l’irresponsabilité parentale, l’insécurité, l’instabilité, libido, mensonges, faible amour-propre, musique, frivolités amoureuses, discours philosophiques, précocité, psychisme, sauvagerie, concentration sur soi, sexe, sexe et re-sexe…Complétez ce programme et vous voilà diplômé adulte !

Bref, les films sur le passage à l’âge adulte sont de nature embêtante. En voici quelques paramètres :

Pas de romans feuilletons à l’eau de rose.

Sans banalités, sans soucis d’idéal, et sans fausses émotions.

Sans exploitation ni lascivité.

Le résumé d’une génération. Avec ses particularités tout en étant de portée universelle.

Les films sur le passage à l’âge adulte ne se passent pas seulement avec des gars. Rappelez-vous les filles merveilleuses dans ce type de films : Juno; Girl Interrupted; Bend It Like Beckham; To Kill A Mockingbird; Whale Rider; 16 Candles; Rabbit Proof Fence; Celui de Peter Jackson, Heavenly Creatures ainsi que (dois-je le mentionner?) Lolita. Ces films sont aussi de style très Canadien/Québécois. On n’a qu’à penser à : J’ai tué ma mère; Les Bons Débarras; celui de John N. Smith, New Waterford Girls; My American Cousin de Sandy Wilson; Duddy Kravitz (Richard Dreyfus est venu à Montréal à la suite de American Graffiti de Georges Lucas).

On découvre d’excellents nouveaux réalisateurs de films traitant de ce même sujet : Truffaut avec (Les Mistons, Les 400 Coups); Fellini (I Vitelloni, et puis a suivi Amarcord); Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), Francis Ford Coppola (You’re A Big Boy Now); Peter Bogdanovich (Last Picture Show). Et ceux du réalisateur John Hughes : (Breakfast Club, Ferrie Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink); Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Vidotapes); L’acteur et bédéiste Riad Sattouf, auteur de plusieurs fils de comédie, est le réalisateur et co-scénariste de cette comédie tout comme s’il l’avait extirpée tout droit de ses bandes dessinées.

Venez et préparez-vous à bien rigoler !

****

On Monday October 26th, Cinémagique is delighted to be showing you Les Beaux Gosses (French Kissers) at the Cinema du Parc. It's a raunchy sex comedy, abounding in ribald humour, Mack Sennett slapstick and bad taste gags. Director Riad Sattouf (who grew up as a teen in Brittany) explores the ever impenetrable secret teen jungle of provincial Brittany. Author/artist of prodigiously funny adult comic books (La vie secrète des jeunes), Sattouf co-wrote this notable first movie as though he lifted his script right out of his comicbook panels.

Growing up is never easy. We all bumble though pubescence, sooner or later, one way or another. And for better or worse.

Which mebbe explains why coming-of-age movies are our most beloved (IMDb lists 2110 titles), our most bittersweet of genres - they're our instant nostalgia back to that time when, our being teens on the cusp of maturity, we first learned our own cruel life lessons. Ah, yes! We watch and remember our own transition - brat adolescent to emerging adult - our never having a clue what was going down at the time. So, having been there, done that, we smile. Coming-of-age movies are our memory prods, buffing shiny our dross of forgetfulness. And we still pine and probe after that ''simpler time'' of our own long ago innocence.

While these Beaux Gosses 2008 ados are as different from the teens in Blackboard Jungle (1955) - despite their computerese, despite their mediated life from infancy, despite their MTV explicitness, despite their AIDS-awareness, despite their ubiquitous pornography - they come across as sweet innocent naifs as we remember ourselves to have been long long ago. Hervé's a fantasizing, masturbating wiseass charmer (with a passing resemblance to Michael Sera). His world now - as ours then - conspires against him at every turn, makes him navigate perilous passages, forces him to give up thinking like a kid, begin auditioning for his role as adult, overcome a veritable A to Z of hurdles: alienation, boundless possibility, confusion, death, drugs, existentialism, flings, flirtations, gossip, gropings, irresponsible parents, insecurities, instability, libido, lies, low self-esteem, music, petting, philosophical rambles, precocity, psyche, savagery, self-focus, sex, sex, sex, and sex, Get through and you graduate into adulthood.

Iconic coming-of-age movies are a tricky genre to execute, forever locked in their own time-and-place capsule: coded, personal, barely disguised remembrances of a filmmaker's own adolescence. Consider the genre parameters:

No soap opera.
No banality, no high-mindedness, nor sentimentality.
No exploitation nor prurience.
A summation of a generation. Particular and yet universal.

Because they're so hard to pull off, we often first spot the next breakthrough director in his coming-of-age movie. Consider: Truffaut (Les Mistons, Les 400 Coups); Fellini (I Vitelloni, and then later, Amarcord); Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), Francis Ford Coppola (You're A Big Boy Now); Peter Bogdanovich (Last Picture Show). Director John Hughes made a career of his adolescence:(Breakfast Club, Ferrie Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink); Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotapes).

Coming of age movies are not only boy genres. Remember all the spectacular girls we saw come of age on film: Juno; Girl Interrupted; Bend It Like Beckham; To Kill A Mockingbird; Whale Rider; 16 Candles; Rabbit Proof Fence; Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, An Education (last week) and (dare I mention it?), Lolita. Coming of age is also a very Canadian/Québecois subset: J'ai tué ma mère, Les Bons Débarras; John N. Smith's delicious New Waterford Girls; Sandy Wilson's My American Cousin; Duddy Kravitz (Richard Dreyfus came to Montreal right off the set of George Lucas' American Grafitti).

So come, prepared to laugh. At these kids. At what we once were..

peter

****

The Damned United

2009-10-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

...the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat

by Bob Foster

One of the most exciting sporting events I've ever attended was a UEFA Cup qualifying soccer match between Amsterdam Ajax and Bochum in 1997 held in Amsterdam's home stadium. The max 70,000 crowd was like one living being, moving together, screeching together, breathing together. The final score was Ajax 6 to Bochum's 4, a high scoring game, that moved the home crowd to even greater heights of excitement. The atmosphere is difficult to imagine if one has never been to a crucial European soccer match.

The film Damned United takes the excitement of European soccer and brings it into the realm of Shakespearian tragedy while at the same time illustrating the old TV Sports adage of "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat".

The story, based on a creative non-fiction “novel”, is essentially about real life Brian Clough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Clough , one of the greatest soccer coaches ever in England and how after bringing Derby County from the bottom of second division to the top of the first division in the 60s/70s he took over Leeds United from Don Revie (of anything-to-win renown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Revie ) who then became manager of the England national team. Brian's 44 days with Leeds was his "agony of defeat" hiatus that taught him how to deal with life more like an adult (and less like a “braggart out of his depth”) and the importance of excellent friends and help which he had in Peter Taylor - and which makes up the keen yet chaste “bromance” that underlies the whole story. Clough had a big mouth which got him into trouble and apparently he didn’t lose the lip (there is a clip of boxer Mohammad Ali talking about him) but learned how to use it more wisely, perhaps with some help from Taylor. The relationship with Taylor is contrasted against Clough’s rocky relationship with Revie and Derby chairman Longson.

Clough is played by Michael Sheen (David Frost in FROST/NIXON, Tony Blair in THE QUEEN). Taylor is played by Timothy Spall (SECRETS AND LIES and more recently HARRY POTTER). Don Revie is played by look-alike Colm Meaney, with Jim Broadbent (TOPSY TURVY amongst many other superb films) as the Derby chairman Sam Longson.

The title Damned United can refer to the damned period Clough spent with Leeds United but also how the pair of Clough/Taylor were temporarily damned then united then re-united after Clough worked his way through some pettiness to see the bigger picture that life as an adult has to offer. Apparently, there were still some ups and downs to come between the two but they aren’t mentioned in the film.

I liked the prudent and always clear flashbacks used to show how Clough got to his Leeds “damned” disaster and then a final flash forward to show just how much he really did learn.

I highly recommend the film for both soccer/”foootball” aficionados who like “guy” sports flicks though the game shots are few, but more for those who thoroughly appreciate a character study that shows how man can overcome tragic faults and finally become a human hero.

For a wealth of other reviews of the film see http://www.mrqe.com/movies/m100071909 and for cast/crew particulars see http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1226271/

****

...and here's J. Paul Higgins' take of the same film...

...enjoyable, but not quite a triumph

by j. paul higgins

On the surface The Damned United is a sports movie, a dramatization of the real-life career of English football manager Brian Clough from 1968 through 1974. Luckily for those with no real knowledge or interest in soccer, the film focuses on a more universal theme: a man struggling with success and failure in a rapidly evolving society at the dawn of the multi-media age. There are soccer sequences but surprisingly few.

The film starts as Brian Clough - the most successful young football manager in England - arrives to take a new job as the manager of the Leeds United, the top team in the top division. The team has dominated the game for years under the long-time management of Don Revie, who has moved on to lead the national team. On the way to his first day on the job Mr. Clough stops and gives a television interview. He scoffs at the idea that he will have any trouble filling Don Revie's shoes. He also brazenly states that the team may be winners but are also thugs and cheats and not worthy of being called real champions. The players and board of directors have heard about the interview by the time he arrives at work and not surprisingly Mr. Clough's first day on the job does not go very well.

Director Tom Hooper flips back and forth between Mr. Clough's struggles to succeed at Leeds and his earlier remarkable success in bringing Derby, a feeble second division squad from no hopers to the top of their division and then to the top of the first division. The flash backs are illuminating as we see how Mr. Clough's arrogance and ferocious ambition develop but are moderated by assistant manager Peter Taylor, Clough's long-time friend, partner and collaborator. Importantly Taylor did not follow Clough to Leeds and we learn that many people see this a big problem. Also in the flashbacks we see how the rivalry between Clough and Don Revie developed and turned into a personal feud.

The cast is excellent. Clough is portrayed by Michael Sheen (David Frost in Frost/Nixon, Tony Blair in The Queen). Colm Meaney (The Snapper, Gene Hunt in the original version of Life On Mars) plays Don Revie. Peter Taylor is portrayed by Timothy Spall (Beadle in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street). The cast also includes several excellent British character actors.

The movie is very good at evoking the mood of Britain in the late-60s and and early 70s, divided by class and regional bickering but beginning to open to the outside world. Clough as portrayed by Michael Sheen is a fascinating and strangely sympathetic character despite his screaming fits, pettiness and overwhelming arrogance. The plot is intriguing and interesting enough to be enjoyable. And yet ...

In the end I was left with the feeling of a near miss. I think the director was very ambitious, trying to explore the complexity of Clough's personality, the symbiotic relationship between Clough and Taylor and the evolving business of professional sports all without driving away the non-sports fan. For me the Clough and Taylor relationship somehow did not ring true, leaving a nagging hole at the centre of the film. An enjoyable film but not quite a triumph.

j. paul higgins

Damned United (1:40) : is opening at the AMC this Friday: 12:10, 2:45, 5:15, 7:45, 10:10

An Education: Lynn Barber's memoir

2009-10-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

Mavens:

This chronicle is for those who screened An Education Saturday. And those who didn't - but intend to, when An Education opens October 23rd.

Here, from the Times of London, is Lynn Barber's telling memoir of the making of the film, An Education, based on her own memoir of what she calls a 'dark and shameful memory' of her childhood. It tells endless truths on how movies get written, financed,staffed, cast, produced - or don't as the case may be. I thought you might be interested.

peter

Lynn Barber: My age of innocence

At a party the other day someone asked me quite seriously what I thought about the Oscar chances for “my” film, An Education. Well, I said, equally seriously, Carey Mulligan (who plays me) seems a shoo-in for best-actress nomination, and there is also much talk of Alfred Molina (who plays my father) as best supporting actor. I think Rosamund Pike deserves a supporting nomination because she is absolutely hilarious in the film, but it’s a “well-known fact” that comedy never wins Oscars. And of course Nick Hornby deserves an Oscar for best film adaptation. All this uttered with convincing gravity, as if I actually knew what I was talking about. Since when did I become a film expert? How on earth did it happen?

I suppose it all began six years ago when I wrote about my schoolgirl affair with a conman, Simon, an associate of Peter Rachman, the notorious slum landlord. It was 1960; I was 16, living with my parents in Twickenham, when this suave older man in a red Bristol sports car drew up beside me at a bus stop and offered me a lift home. For the next two years I led a strange double life — going to school and swotting for my A-levels during the week, then swanning off with Simon for weekends in Paris, Rome, Amsterdam.

What was extraordinary was that my parents let me — up till then they’d put all their energy into urging me, their only child, to win every possible scholarship and go to Oxford. But they were completely charmed, or conned, by Simon, to the point that they were putting pressure on me to marry him. I don’t want to give away the denouement but I escaped his clutches in the nick of time. I went to Oxford, he went to prison.

It was a story I always meant to write one day, but I thought it could wait till I was retired and my parents were dead. My parents always hated to be reminded of the Simon debacle — they felt even more betrayed by him than I did. But then my husband was diagnosed with myelofibrosis and told he had only two years to live unless he had a bone-marrow transplant. He was only 58, the same age as me, but suddenly death seemed just around the corner. I went up to my study and wrote the story in about two days flat. I have never written anything so easily before or since — it felt as though the story was already fully formed in my head and I just had to type it out.

I say story, and it felt like a story; I was writing it in a voice that was not quite my own. I think it was the voice of my 18-year-old self: there was an arrogance and sureness of tone the present me can only envy. How brilliant I thought I was then! I published the story in Granta magazine because I didn’t want my parents to see it and knew that Nunton, Wilts, where they lived, was a Granta-free zone. Soon afterwards my agent rang to say a film producer called Amanda Posey wanted to meet me with a view to optioning the story. It was the worst possible timing — my husband was in hospital having his bone-marrow transplant and I was virtually living there — but she said she would come to a nearby coffee bar any time I could get away. She came with her co-producer, Finola Dwyer. They seemed bright enough, but not remotely like my notion of film producers, which involved fat cigars and vicuña overcoats. Amanda asked if I wanted to write the film script myself and seemed delighted when I said no — she said she already had a screenwriter in mind. I thought she was mad and went back to the hospital and forgot about her. It was just one more weird incident in those weeks of constant weirdness that ended with my husband dying.

Among the many funeral bouquets was one “From Nick and Amanda”. Total blank. Some time later my agent explained that Amanda Posey was the girlfriend of Nick Hornby (she is now his wife), and he was the screenwriter she had in mind. He had spotted the story in Granta and showed it to Amanda, who showed it to Finola, who agreed it would make a good film. They kept batting names of possible screenwriters between them and Nick kept finding fault with them (“He was jealous!” says Amanda), till eventually he said: “Why don’t I do it?”

Nick seemed to know the characters way beyond what I’d said about them, and to intuit completely what it felt like to be a l6-year-old schoolgirl who was on the one hand very intelligent but on the other hand very ignorant about the world. He even seemed to understand my parents, which is more than I could ever say myself. He asked a lot about period detail: what posters I had on my bedroom wall, what music I listened to. For a ghastly moment I thought he might be planning a soundtrack full of l960s pop hits — that black hole compounded of Cliff Richard, Paul Anka, Liberace, Lonnie Donegan — but Nick said no, he wanted to know what I and my schoolmates really listened to. So I told him the truth: that we were far too pretentious to listen to pop. We listened to jazz at Eel Pie Island and collected records by French chansonniers like Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Juliette Gréco. He evidently took this on board, because it’s reflected in the soundtrack of the film.

I put a clause in the contract that I should have the right to see and comment on (but not alter) every draft Nick wrote. And there were so many drafts over the years — I think eight in all. He fleshed out characters who had been no more than names before and created whole scenes that were not in my story at all. He made me a cellist in the school orchestra and took me to an auction where I bid for a painting by Burne-Jones. He showed a positively eerie understanding of my father, giving him long rants (“Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know”) that are so exactly like the sort of things he might say in real life that

I still have to keep pinching myself to remember Nick Hornby has never actually met Dick Barber. The only bad thing he did was to change Simon’s name to David, which was my husband’s name, and I wish in retrospect I’d put up a fight. While Nick was working on the script, Finola and Amanda were looking for the money to make it. They also started talking to directors and enlisted Beeban Kidron. She was on board for a year and half, and helped Nick develop the script, then she had to jump off-board because she had a prior long-standing commitment to direct Richard Neville’s autobiography, Hippie Hippie Shake, co-scripted by her husband, Lee Hall.

(Big mistake — she made the Neville film but then withdrew her name from the credits.) Nick told me that when Beeban left he was ready to give up. But then Amanda and Finola found Lone Scherfig, and she was passionate about the script. Lone seemed an odd choice, given that she is Danish, but she proved to be exactly right.

Lucy Bevan, the casting director, had already started looking for an actress to play me. They knew it would have to be an unknown, because she was meant to be only 16, but they wanted someone with a bit of experience, and eventually found Carey Mulligan, who had done a memorable episode of Dr Who and played one of the Bennet sisters in Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice. When Nick heard she was 22 he had a fit. “I thought they’d buggered it up because I couldn’t believe there was a 22-year-old girl in contemporary Britain who looks innocent in any way. But when I saw Carey’s screen test, I knew she was completely fine, and when I saw her in her school uniform, I thought, oh my God, she looks 14!”

Nick and Amanda asked their friend Emma Thompson to play my headmistress, and she agreed. In fact, she only appears on screen for about five minutes, but it cheered up the backers no end to have an Oscar-winning “name” on board. They were also pleased to have Peter Sarsgaard, who, though not a great box-office name, is universally admired in the industry. And Rosamund Pike clamoured to play the small part of Helen because “no one ever lets me be funny”.

The drafts of the script came and went; the film option was renewed for a second year, a third, a fourth. Occasionally, Amanda or Nick would get in touch and say that such and such an actor was interested, but it all had a comforting never-never feel as far as I was concerned. And then — shock horror! — in December 2007 they e-mailed to say they would start shooting in March. What? I went into complete meltdown. Until then I’d never actually believed that the film would be made (I had plenty of writer friends who’d sold film options without ever seeing a finished film). I thought my Granta story was just fine as it was; I didn’t want to see actors impersonating my parents and audiences criticising them. My parents by now were in their nineties and living in a retirement home. They wouldn’t actually see the film — my father is blind, and they hadn’t been near a cinema for at least 20 years — but they were bound to hear about it. I kept dithering about how to tell them, until my daughters briskly pointed out that my parents never listened to a word I said anyway. So we made a plan that we would take them out to lunch and at some point I would tell them about the film, and Rosie and Theo would be on standby to break a plate or something to distract them if they asked too many questions. I spent the whole lunch in a fever of nerves, but eventually chose my moment and said: “Someone is making a film about my life. About my teenage years, you know, when I went out with Simon?”

“Oh that’s nice,” they said. “We’ve got a new chiropodist. He’s very good.”

And so the moment passed.

Soon afterwards, the film started shooting in London. I heard all about it from my 18-year-old niece, Freya, who played a “featured extra” (so much better than an extra extra) in the crowd scenes and became a walking encyclopaedia on the progress of the film. She lived through the heartbreak when Orlando Bloom pulled out just a week before shooting began. He was meant to be playing Danny, the second male lead, and it was an incredible coup for Amanda and Finola to have got him, and the backers were thrilled.

“The deal was done, he’d had his medical, his security people were all sorted, his dog was about to be put on a plane from Los Angeles to London,” says Finola, “and then he started wobbling. I was on the phone to him all night.”

Then Nick got a call saying Bloom wanted to ring him about a couple of script changes. “He rang me and said how great he thought the script was and how much he liked my writing and he hoped we could work together on something else but it wouldn’t be this. I couldn’t understand how we’d got from a couple of script changes to this. So I rang Amanda and said, ‘He just told me he wasn’t doing it.’ And she said, ‘Well, what did you say to upset him?’ And I said, ‘Nothing.’ So Amanda rang Bloom’s agent, who said, ‘Oh, Nick’s just got the wrong end of the stick. I’ll get Orlando to ring again.’ So he gets on the phone again, and I’m in the kitchen with Amanda and before I can say a word, he starts, ‘As I was saying, it’s a great script and I wish I could do it but I can’t.’ Amanda could hear then that it wasn’t anything I’d said.”

Finola spent two hours on the phone to Bloom; his agent rang him, his manager, his fellow actors, but he was adamant. It remains a mystery why he dropped out; Finola thinks he just lost confidence. Anyway, he served a useful purpose in keeping the backers happy while they closed the deal.

The Bloom phone calls happened on a Tuesday and Wednesday; on Thursday Amanda and Finola decided, “Okay, we’ve got to move on.” They had already talked to Dominic Cooper (The History Boys, Mamma Mia!) long before Bloom came on board, and his agent, hearing rumours of Bloom’s defection, rang and said, “You know, Dominic still loves that part,” so they did a deal that same Thursday. And he is great in the part, so Orlando Bloom missed his chance, poor possum.

Shooting started in March 2008 and Amanda asked if I would like to watch. I said I wouldn’t mind watching one of the school scenes. (I couldn’t bear to watch the scenes with my parents, but school felt like neutral territory.)

So she said, come to the Japanese school in Acton on Tuesday. Driving over there, I thought: “Why would they set my school days in a Japanese school?” and suddenly realised that it was April Fools’ day. I almost turned back, but when I arrived, I saw it was the old Haberdasher Aske’s girls’ school that we used to play lacrosse against, and it felt completely right. There was only one surreal moment, when I opened a classroom door and found a group of Japanese teachers quietly marking papers.

Wandering round the school, I was absolutely gobsmacked at the care that had been taken to get all the props and period details right. There were school photos along the corridors that were so much like my old school photos I kept looking for myself in them. It smelt like my old school, it felt like my old school, and when the teacher handed essays back to the class, they were in those scuzzy orange exercise books we always used, and I felt that old tremor of anxiety in case I hadn’t got an A.

Andrew McAlpine, the production designer, told me that he and Lone decided to move the action forward a year to 1961, because Britain in 1960 looked exactly the same as Britain in the 1950s — ie, drab — whereas by 1961 there was some glimmer of style and colour on the streets. He also told me that he’d been to look at my old school, Lady Eleanor Holles, but it was unsuitable for filming because the geography didn’t work — they wanted a scene where the girls came streaming out onto the street, but LEH is set behind playing fields, far back from the road.

He also went to look at my old home in Twickenham (an Edwardian terraced house), but said the street had become too smart, and anyway he’d already decided he wanted to use mock-Tudor. Apparently, foreigners are always thrilled by mock-Tudor houses, because they seem uniquely English and quaint, like red London buses. He found a whole mock-Tudor enclave in Ealing, inhabited mainly by Poles, which was perfect for filming. He also found the red Bristol car that Peter Sarsgaard drives and said it would thrill petrolheads all round the world, “because it’s a truly seminal car. They’ll get excited just by the sound of the door shutting”. And he campaigned successfully to have one scene — where I meet Peter Rachman — set at Walthamstow dog track, simply because he wanted to film the place before it closed for ever. It seems odd that he, a New Zealander, and Lone Scherfig, a Dane, should have this tremendous affection for London, but it’s part of what gives the film its charm.

At one point when I was chatting to Amanda outside the school, I noticed a flock of ring-necked parakeets flying overhead and remarked casually: “Of course, that wouldn’t have happened in 1961. Parakeets are a very recent arrival.” Amanda looked aghast: I swear she was wondering whether they should have marksmen on the rooftops to pick off any incoming parakeets, and what would that do to their budget? But I don’t think there are any parakeets in the finished film.

All the film people at the school kept asking if I was excited to be meeting my 16-year-old self, and I had to keep biting my tongue and saying: “Yes, absolutely thrilled.” How daft would you have to be to believe that meeting an actress was the same as meeting your 16-year-old self? But actually I was thrilled when I saw Carey Mulligan playing one of the classroom scenes. I knew she was pretty, but you have to believe that she is enough of a swot to get into Oxford. Anyway, she was perfect, with a sort of tremulous earnestness that reminded me of myself at that age. When she finished the scene, a film publicist brought her over to meet me and insisted that a cameraman record this deeply meaningful encounter “for the DVD”. I think I was meant to burst into tears and hug her or something, but instead I shook hands and said “Well done”, and she said “Thank you”, and we both smiled for the camera. The publicist was disappointed.

Weeks passed. Amanda had told me that they hoped to release the film in March 2009, so I assumed I wouldn’t hear any more till then. But in August I got an e-mail from Finola saying they were having a private screening of the rough cut in Soho that week if I wanted to come. Of course I wanted to come. I went with trepidation but was then absolutely thrilled. The film is a masterpiece!

Seriously. The film has now moved so far from my own life that I don’t really recognise any of it. Alfred Molina as my father is positively heart-rending. Peter Sarsgaard is handsome and sympathetic and only faintly a conman. Even the suburban streets look idyllic. What was once a dark, shameful memory has become sunlit and glamorous thanks to the magic of Nick Hornby, Lone Sherfig and all. The film had its first public showing at the Sundance Film Festival in January and won the audience prize. Distribution rights have been sold to practically every country in the world — Greece and Turkey were the last to go — so people in Bangkok, in Bahrain, in Budapest will be watching my Twickenham childhood. How weird is that?

An Education

2009-10-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

An Education is Duddy Kravitz in Twickenham, located in novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About A Boy, Fever Pitch) domain – an unsentimental coming-of-age comedy - droll, insightful, subversive. It involves upper-lip British restraint, an unreliable storyteller, a cast of characters acting out their sinister ulterior motives. And, as in all Nick Hornby works, at the centre of this tale, is another aimless obsessive male Hornby doofus.

Three themes braid together – an insouciant British smartiepants falls for a cringe-inducing predatory smoothie, old enough to be her dad. At 16, Jenny’s impatient to be all grown up – she wants to smoke, to have a drink, to see Paris - not just singalong with Juliette Greco in her bedroom. Ok, we've known since precocious Cleopatra that teenieboopers suffer from excessive sexual repression, from Daddy-Love. They ache for sex with older guys. And the feeling has always been mutual: besotted geezers involved in over-the-top, socially unacceptable passions with females young enough to be their daughters (Polanski, Letterman). Indeed, Woody (what a nickname) Allen's oeuvre has been one long elegy to this theme since he took nude photographs of Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Ti Previn. And then took up with her.

But wait a second! In An Education, not only does Miss Smartie Pants act of her own volition, she enters into this nascent relationship knowing exactly what she's in it for. She’s making her own declaration of independence. She’s determining her own age of consent, not her parents, nor her teacher nor prissy England. Indeed, she wields more power than her lothario. As a consequence, we, the audience are wedged into the rift between public perception and private truth, voyeurs to one of those can’t-look-away, can’t-bear-to-watch relationships.

The villain of the piece is a Lothario with a don't-mess-with-the-Jews approach to Twickenham. A Duddy Kravitz charmer, he's sleazy in morally ambiguous ways we don't wish him to be: his felonious infectious logic seducing not only the schoolgirl, her parents, his own circle of friends, he's out to seduce us, the audience as well. And he does. It’s not hard imagining a lifetime of betrayals he has absorbed. We don't want him behaving the way he does. Since he's too likeable, too abounding in charms. He fingers Sir Edward Elgar (Land of Hope and Glory) as an antisemite. Then blithely squires his young thing off to some home-schooling of his own devising: an Elgar concert.

The third Theme - bedroom suburb Twickenham (on the Thames, an hour southwest of London) is a smirky villain in its own right: sexist, straight-laced, anti-Semitic, with an enough about you, what about me self-adoration. This is a bombastic Britannia, just before the Pill, before bra burning, before flower power. Carnaby Street, the Beatles and the Stones, Mary Quant, miniskirts and hot pants have not yet arrived. But all are just round the corner.

As in the best of British films, An Education’s casting has a galaxy of stars. Carey Mulligan is suitably adorable, but American actor, Peter Sarsgaard, in the Iago role, steals the movie. Alfred Molina (Chocolat, Frida) plays the father; Emma Thompson (Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility) the starchy headmistress, and Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake), fresh from her Oscar nomination, has a walk-on.

This one will definitely be round, come Oscartime. Don't miss it.

****

An Education est du même romancier, Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About A Boy, Fever Pitch). Une comédie traitant de la période d’adolescence vers celle de l’adulte, drôle, perspicace, subversive. C’est une histoire invraisemblable qui retient les émotions, où chacun y joue un rôle basé sur des motifs ultérieurs inquiétants. Et au sein de chaque histoire, se retrouve l’acteur principal, personnage obsessif et sans but précis.

Trois thèmes s’y entrecroisent – une adolescente quelque peu gaga mais très astucieuse a le béguin pour un enjôleur du double de son âge. Désire se comporter en grande fille – fumer, prendre un verre, voir Paris – et pas seulement chantonner à la Juliette Greco – elle cherche un homme assez vieux qu’il pourrait être son père. Oui, on est d’accord que depuis les temps de la précoce Cléopâtre, les adolescentes souffrent du complexe d’Œdipe. Ils convoitent le sexe avec des hommes plus âgés. Les preuves abondent en ce sens récemment dans les manchettes de journaux de ces cas de passion avec des jeunes femmes pouvant avoir été leur propre fille (Polanski, Letterman). En effet, l’œuvre de Woody Allen fut l’objet d’une longue complainte depuis qu’il a pris des photos de nue de la fille adoptive de Mia Farrow, Soon-Ti Previn, avec laquelle il a ensuite poursuivi une relation.

Mais un instant ! Dans An Education, non seulement Mlle Gaga vole-t-elle de ses propres ailes mais elle entre dans une relation embryonnaire tout en sachant exactement ce qu’elle désire. Elle décide elle-même l’âge de sa majorité et non pas ses parents, ni son professeur ni l’époque de l’ère victorienne d’Angleterre. En effet, elle a plus de pouvoir que son Lothario de séducteur. À quoi pense-t-elle ? à un apprentissage tacite – à la science infuse. Sommes-nous pris entre la perception du public et nos propres croyances ? Ce sont des films de style impossible à ne pas regarder - intolérable à regarder.

Maintenant, il y a les motifs d’antisémitisme britannique. Notre Lothario séducteur est un juif. Il nous l’avoue dès la première rencontre. Il cite le personnage de Sir Edward Elgar (Land of Hope and Glory), musicien compositeur bien-pensant aux idées conservatrices. Puis tout en changeant de propos, il nous amène sur celui de sa propre invention : un concert Elgar. Il parle d’antisémitisme britannique, sans l’ombre d’une émotion. Et puis, c’est un charmeur à la Duddy Kravitz, lequel fut un frauduleux investisseur. Il est méprisable comme on ne voudrait pas qu’il le soit. Il ne veut pas seulement la séduire, mais aussi ses parents, son cercle d’amis, et il est là pour nous séduire, l’auditoire aussi. Et il réussit. C’est un vilain voyou qui comprend que le pompeux impérialisme tombera bientôt aux mains de l’Angleterre. Son comportement nous déplaît. Parce qu’il est trop aimable et charmant et qu’il est Juif. Il ne peut donc pas être une personne anti-sociale, nourrie par sa vengeance à l’idée de ne pas trop se mêler aux Juifs.

Le troisième sujet, chambre banlieusarde à Twickenham (sur la Tamise, à une heure au sud-ouest de Londres) se trouve un personnage suffisant, homogène, droit, anti-sémite sûr de lui. Une attitude où domine les mots assez de toi, parlons donc de moi. On est dans la période d’avant la pilule contraceptive, l’abandon du soutien-gorge, le flower power. Les habitants de Twickenham tiennent mordicus à leurs opinions personnelles parce qu’ils se sentent menacés. Rue Carnaby, les Beatles et les Stones, Mary Quant, les mini-jupes et les hotpants n’ont pas encore fait leur apparition en Angleterre. Mais c’est juste autour du coin de la rue. Une vie sur mesure à Twickenham.

Tout comme dans les meilleurs films de Grande-Bretagne, la distribution d’An Education est une galaxie d’étoiles. L’acteur américain, Peteer Sarsgaard, dans le rôle d’Iago, vole la vedette. Alfred Molina (Chocolat, Frida) incarne le rôle du père, Emma Thompson (Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility), la directrice en chef et Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake), fraîchement nominée aux Oscars, y est figurante.

Celui-ci sera définitivement dans la ronde aux Oscars.

Bon cinéma,
***
John Easterbrooke provided a fascinating link to anyone wanting to know how movies get written:

The following is a link from Script Magazine. It is an interview with Nick Hornby the author and producer of An Education. I though you might find it insightful. Perhaps this link could be posted for other in the group, if you do not think it too late.

http://www.scriptmag.com/interviews/nick-hornby.html

Cairo Time

2009-09-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

A stranger in a strange land

Whenever someone asks me where I 'm from, I say I don't know.

Ruba Nadda

director, Ruba Nadda

Movies are transporting - magic carpets which waft us aloft into captivating domains we would otherwise never visit. I cannot recall, for example, the last movie I saw, set in sensual Cairo. (Raiders of the Lost Ark and Purple Rose of Cairo don't count. Mavens had two suggestions: The English Patient and The Yacoubian Building )

Cairo Time's magic carpet takes us of course to pyramids, the Nile, sukhs, hookah bars, camels and the white desert. But director Ruba Nadda is after something more.

Who Ruba Nadda is, tells us much about what Cairo Time is all about. She was born here in Montreal, grew up in Manitoba, B.C. Several times, her family shuttled back and forth to Damascus, before settling finally in Toronto. She studied filmmaking at NYU, then returned to Toronto, where she has made an array of shorts with provocative titles (Slut (1999); Blue Turning Grey Over You (1999); I Would Suffer Cold Hands for You (1999); I Always Come To You (2001). Cairo Time is her fourth movie.) Nadda is also a prolific poet/writer.

Here's one of her poems:

.................................
my 11 year old sister is on fire
.................................

my 11 year old sister
is on fire

she sits at her desk
and dreams up

of lies to tell her friends
then she

lies in bed and wonders
what it is like

to kiss boys, she tries to
shut the talk shows

in the other room out along with
her mother's soft crying

she trys to memorize lines
so she can write

her poetry the next day
she is a little girl

who has overheard a secret about her
sister and who is now too scared to

close her eyes

she calls
me late

saturday and asks me if it is
true, says ruba, i can't

believe you
i'm on fire

.................................

She says of her own upbringing, Whenever someone asks me where I'm from, I say I don't know.

I guess so.

Growing up Canadian and Arab and female in a peripatetic Syrian-Canadian family, she must indeed have felt a stranger in a strange land.

With Cairo Time, the luminescent Patricia Clarkson, not Ruba Nadda, is the stranger in the strange land - a land within Nadda's comfort zone, but utterly bewildering to the Clarkson character, Juliette, wife of a Canadian diplomat. She encounters a suave Omar Sharif character. They play chess, they float on the Nile, they discuss the superficiality of Canadian women's magazines.

She surrenders her stodgy Canadianness, puts down her her iMac, picks up her hookah, attempts to work through her culture shock – shifting from trying to understand to accepting that she never will. She gets on a Gaza-bound bus, and the Israelis kick her off. She doesn’t get why.

Her husband the Canadian diplomat, running a refugee camp in Gaza, can't meet up. Work, doncha know! He seems no better equipped to deal with his own strangerness in an even more strange land. Gaza.

And so it goes.

Patricia Clarkson & Alexander Siddig

Web Resources:

Before the screening, mavens might log onto some Cairo Time material on the web, which will provide you with background about the filmmakers, the stars and the production:

On our website, my-pov.ca, we've posted the Cairo Time trailer, which reflects Cairo Time's languid lush caramel cinematography.

On YouTube are three enchanting clips from TIFF, invues with Ruba Nadda, Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, the male lead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT36gawbrdo

Also a short documentary for Sabah, Nadda's last movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brl-H9LBab0

Coming this fall!!!

2009-08-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Mavens:

I hope you all have enjoyed a summer of the sneaks, and two in particular, Everlasting Moments and Tetro. Wonderful movies. I have not written in a while, and here's why:

As you know, I wanted to take the summer hiatus to develop a more imaginative brand of movieclub, one building on our experiences of last spring. I wanted to change our website, figure out how to bring in more filmmaker guests, build the membership, find a way to work closer with Quebec distributors and their marketing people. I wanted to change the name as well: my best so far is Le Movieclub, which seems available, and strikes a right note to my ear. What do you think? I also want to introduce more of the terrific films that we missed.

We've also had a series of conversations with lots of people. All suggestions are gratefully received, so if you have ideas, let us know. Nothing has yet been etched in stone, but things are moving, and as soon as I can, I will announce all I know. I'm still targeting us getting back to screening the best of the new movies by mid-September.

For example, I know an increasing number of you are game to review upcoming movies in the press previews. Which is great. But how about this? Instead of just one of us, writing up the movie, how about three, or five, offering different perspectives? We'd publish them all on the site. Or - instead of us just blogging the movie we're screening on the upcoming movie, why not screen & blog every interesting film that opens, and then blog it as well.

Here are some other ideas: electronically, Lynn Verge has introduced me to Gerald Clarke, a Judy Garland biographer who lives in Montreal, and so I want to explore whether we can get a copy of A Star is Born. Then invite Mr. Clarke to come talk to us. This is the 20th anniversary of Space Odyssey 2001, and I'd like to bring Keir Dullea to Montreal to talk of it with us.

To those of you with friends interested in joining us, forward to them this note, have them send me an email, and I'll include them on the mailing list. In a couple of weeks, I'll send out a notice, enabling all those who want in, to get in.

One last reminder: I'm speaking at the Atwater Library's lunch lecture series on September 9th about the movieclub and how we've learned to look at movies differently in the 21st century. Come if you're interested. It's free. And I'd appreciate the support.

In the meantime, scroll down for a teaser to tantilize you: a list I've patched together for my own purposes of possible upcoming movies, slated to open in Montreal this fall. Some don't have dates. Some don't seem to have distributors attached. Ang Lee is making a movie called “Taking Woodstock,” about, you guessed it, Woodstock. Finally, there is James Cameron’s long, long awaited “Avatar.

A caveat: distributor info is always somewhat shaky. Still, one way or another, these movies will all probably get here, one day or another. Biopics of Coco Chanel, Amelia Earhart, Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin and John Keats - how about that?; great directors at work: André Téchiné, Scorsese, the Coen Bros, Ang Lee; a musical based on Fellini's 8 1/2 by the guy who made Chicago; and as always, movie stars: Audrey Tatou, Kevin Kline; Rob't Downey Jr.

If anyone knows an electronic genius grandchild willing to freely donate time to improve our website, all help would be greatly appreciated.

That's about it. As soon as I'm locked down, I'll be back to you.

peter

***
In The Loop

August 21

US President and UK Prime Minister want war. Not everyone agrees. US General Miller doesn't think so and neither does the British Secretary of State, Simon Foster. But, after Simon accidentally backs military action on TV, he has a lot of friends in Washington, DC. If Simon can get in with the right DC people, if his entourage of one can sleep with the right intern, and if they can both stop the Prime Minister's chief spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker rigging the vote at the UN, they can halt the war. If they don't... well, they can always fire their Director of Communications Judy, who they never liked anyway and who's back home dealing with voters with blocked drains and a man who's angry about a collapsing wall.

The jokes are rapid fire - The West Wing mashed with The Office as miscues between American and British governments accelerate the march to a war in the Middle East.

***

Taking Woodstock

August 28

Ang Lee amazes audiences with his incredible range. This time, it's Woodstock. There should be little doubt he’ll pull it off,

***

La Joueuse

September 4

(Metropole) Kevin Kline stars in his first all French-speaking role, with Sandrine Bonnaire and Jennifer Beals in Caroline Bottaro’s drama “Joueuse (Queen to Play).” The story focuses on Bonnaire, a maid captivated by a romantic couple playing chess while staying at the Mediterranean island hotel. A doctor (Kline) whose house she cleans reluctantly becomes her mentor in the game, leading her to a chess tournament and initiating major transformations in her life.

First-time feature director Bottaro adapted the screenplay from Bertina Henrichs’ novel “The Chess Player.”Filming begins Tuesday on the isle of Corsica. Then, shooting proceeds to Paris..
***

The Rebound ? (Cineac)

September 18

I'm not too sure about this one. Cathwrine Zeta- Jones is an up-to-date Mrs. Robinson, seducing a twenty-five year old man. This seems notionally idiotic to me as a movie premise. Mind you, I'm 71. What 25 year old could resist that? Or 71 year old as well?

***

La Fille Du RER (The Girl on the Train)

(Metropole) André Téchiné, starring Catherine Deneuve and Michel Blanc

André Téchiné’s newest film, a combination topical expose and sophisticated melodrama, uses a real-life case where Alice (Emilie Dequenne), a girl from a suburb outside Paris lied about being the victim of a bias attack. Téchiné takes the emotional pulse of hate crimes and finds a love story from the uniquely expansive—and inquiring—point of view.Téchiné is France’s most fascinating contemporary filmmaker. (Pauline s'en va; He belongs to a second generation of critics associated with Cahiers du cinéma who followed Truffaut, Chabrol, Godard and into film-making. Téchiné's elegant and emotionally charged films often delve into the complexities of human condition and emotions.

The first sight of Alice rollerskating through the streets, thick curly hair surrounding her stolid face, presents a “normal” Téchiné youth—complex, enigmatic, hypersensitive to the world. Alice’s place in the universe, and her politically incorrect actions, recall the troubled boy in the 1987 Scene of the Crime where Téchiné evoked the template of Great Expectations to explore how one character’s fortune linked to and revealed a larger, social view of destiny.

***
Coco Before Chanel - September 25

(Vivafilm - Alliance) Starring Audrey Tatou. Directed by Anne Fontaine. Coco Before Chanel is the story of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, a headstrong orphan, who became the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style. The film portrays the formative years of Chanel's life, the years of Chanel spent discovering and inventing herself.

***
The Informant

September 18 (Warners)

We knew that Soderbergh had yet another movie coming out in 2009 (after Ché and The Girlfriend Experience), a big dark comic thriller starring Matt Damon, based on the true story of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history.Kurt Eichenwald's 2000 nonfiction book about price-fixing in the agri-business industry. Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, an executive who works with the FBI to blow the whistle on his corrupt employers and falls prey to his own fraudulent dealings and a wicked bi-polar disorder. In this economy, a wicked, corporate-skewing black comedy could do HUGE business, and Soderbergh's last industry expose, Erin Brockovich, was one of his best.

What was Mark Whitacre thinking? A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Whitacre suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company's multi-national price-fixing to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion. Whitacre agrees to wear a wire and carry a hidden tape recorder in his briefcase, imagining himself as a de facto secret agent. Whitacre's ever-changing account frustrates the agents and threatens the case against ADM as it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is real and what is the product of Whitacre's rambling imagination. Playing at the Toronto Festival.

***
Creation - September 24 (to be confirmed)

What happens when a world-renowned scientist, crushed by the loss of his eldest daughter, conceives a book which will prove the non-existence of God. This is the story of Charles Darwin and his master-work The Origin of Species. It tells of a global revolution played out the confines of a small English village; a passionate marriage torn apart by the most dangerous idea in history; and a theory saved from extinction by the logic of a child.

TV Director, Jon Amiel's newest feature, a film about Charles Darwin, will open the 34th Toronto Film Festival, Sept. 10. This intimate look at Darwin puts a human face on a man whose theory remains controversial to this day. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, the bio-pic stars actor Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly playing his wife 'Emma'. The screenplay by John Collee adapts the book "Annie's Box," written by Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes.
***
The Invention of Lying

September 25 (Warner)

http://www.rickygervais.com/thissideofthetruth.php

The Cast
A lavish profusion of comedic and dramatic talents, including...

Jason Bateman
Jennifer Garner
Rob Lowe
Jonah Hill
Tina Fey
Louis C.K.
Jeffrey Tambor
Patrick Stewart
Christopher Guest
John Hodgman

***
Shutter Island

October 2nd (Paramount)

Martin Scorsese psychological thriller/drama based on a book from Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) starring DiCaprio, Michelle Williams.

***
BIUTIFUL –Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s follow-up to 2006 Best Picture nominee “Babel.” stars Javier Bardem, a criminal confronted by a childhood friend, who also happens to be a police officer. Inarritu’s talent was apparent in “Babel” and his insight into the human condition should only improve with each film.
***
A Serious Man

October 2 Vivafilm

(Alliance) The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel write, direct and produce an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman, a more substantial person than the feckless Larry.

Larry's unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman make new domestic arrangements, his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure. A graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. A beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person; a mensch, a serious man? The Coens dug deep into the local Jewish community here for supporting parts and extras, but even their leads - Richard Kind and Michael Stuhlbarg - are mostly recognizable by face alone.

***
Cairo Time

October 9

(Metropole) Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) is a Canadian magazine editor who arrives in Cairo for a vacation with her long-time husband (Tom McCamus), a UN official working in Gaza. Delayed, her husband asks his friend—a handsome Egyptian named Tareq (Alexander Siddig)—to watch over Juliette. Juliette finds herself falling in love not only with the city but with Tareq. From the surprise of men-only cafes, to the aroma of a hookah pipe, to the expanse of the Nile, the film captures the seductive charm of Cairo.

Canadian Connection: The director and some cast members are Canadian. Go after Clarkson, if possible.

***
Bright Star

September 18 (?).

(TVA) The three-year romance between 19th century poet, John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' untimely death at age 25. Abbie Cornish's performance as Fanny Brawne and Ben Whishaw's performance as the poet John Keats were highly praised out of the Cannes Film Festival. The film depicts the doomed three-year love affair between the two.

Directed and written by New Zealander, Jane Campion (The Piano), it is already being looked at as a serious Oscar contender.

***
Capitalism: A Love Story

October 2

(Alliance) Michael Moore is up to his same old schtick. An anti-capitalist documentary by a rich capitalist. The bankers, the congress, Micchael Moore even, all claim they do it for your own good. Enjoy the show, suckers!Capoitalism is his bulls-eye. Here's how he describes it:

It’s a crime story. But it’s also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it’s also a love story. Only it’s about an abusive relationship.

“It’s not about an individual, like Roger Smith, or a corporation, or even an issue, like health care. This is the big enchilada. This is about the thing that dominates all our lives — the economy. I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make.

“It’s a comedy.”

***
5150 Rue Des Ormes

October 9th

Réalisation : Éric Tessier
Scénarisation : Patrick Senécal avec la participation d’Éric Tessier
Production : Pierre Even, Josée Vallée / Cirrus
Distribution : Marc-André Grondin, Normand D'Amour, Sonia Vachon, Mylène St-Sauveur.

(Vivafilm) Film Quebecois. When Yannick fell off his bike, he knocked at the door of the Beaulieu residence so he could clean the blood off his hands. But Jack Beaulieu and his family had other plans for Ian. Beaulieu is a righteous psychopath and fanatic chess player who wants to rid the world of evil. And even though Ian has done nothing wrong, he is beaten, tortured and tormented before Beaulieu makes him an offer: win at chess and he is free to go. And so Ian is now a pawn in Beaulieu 's game. A game in which he will either lose his mind or his life.
***
Léo Huff

October 16th

(Seville) Sylvan Guy thriller. Not much is known of this from the director of La Liste Noire, a wonderful Qc. thriller. Canadian Connection: Sylvan Guy and some cast members are Canadian. Go after Guy, if possible.
***
Where the Wild Things Are

October 16th

(Warner)Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are," drawing ever closer, the promo swag faucet is starting to flow. The package contained a copy of Sendak's book and a spiffy new poster featuring a very minimalist design.
***
The Road

October 16

(Vivafilm) Based on the 2006 novel upcoming movie adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Cormac McCarthy.A father and his son walk through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and, when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing: just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food–and each other. Actor Viggo Mortensen will mesmerize us in his embodiment of the father. An Education
***
October 23

(Metropole) A Nick Hornby (About A Boy, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity) script. Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina (again!), Emma Thompson, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper. Every journalist at Sundance left raving about Mulligan, and the movie itself to boot. It might be the little indie to look out for.

The story of a teenage girl's coming-of-age set in 1961 London, a city caught between the drab, post-war 1950s and the glam liberated decade to come. Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a brilliantly witty and attractive 16-year-old, stands on the brink of becoming a woman. Just as Jenny's parents (Alfred Molina) and Cara Seymour) long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life: Urbane and witty, David introduces Jenny to a glittering world of classical concerts and late-night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny's girlfriend, the vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike). Carey Mulligan gives off a Breakfast at Tiffanys-esque charm.

***
Amelia

October 23 (?)

Mira Nair (The Namesake, Monsoon Wedding) directs, Hilary Swank shoots for Oscar number three playing legendary aviatrix, Amelia Earhart in the formative stages of her career, her marriage to publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere), her passionate affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), father of author Gore Vidal. Putnam was engaged by society denizen Amy Guest to set up a daring nonstop flight across the Atlantic. When Guest was talked out of becoming the first woman to make the trip, Putnam turned the flight into a media event.
***
Demain Dès Aubes (Tomorrow at Dawn)

October 30

(Metropole) From this year's Cannes Festival. Tensions within historical role players lead to real duels, and more. Mathieu Guibert, a classical pianist undergoing an "existential crisis" -- as his estranged wife-cum-agent, Jeanne calls it He gets drawn into a duel with a guy who takes his alias as a captain way too seriously. Dercourt, once a professional violist, classical music is extensively featured.

***
Oscar et La Dame Rose

nd 2009

Director : Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Coproduction : Cinémaginaire
Cast : Michèle Laroque, Max Von Sydow, Amir, Benoit Brière

A Canadian co-pro - Denise Robert). These are the letters of Oscar, a boy of ten addressed to God, are found by 'Mamie Rose', who visits him in hospital in the pink uniform worn by nurses on the children's ward. The letters describe twelve days in the life of Oscar and are filled with funny, moving characters. These twelve days may be his last, but thanks to Mamie Rose, who forms a close and affectionate bond with Oscar, they are to become legendary.
***
Precious

November 6.

Sundance’s biggest hit this year, presented by Oprah and Tyler Perry and the trailer features uplifting music in spite of the unhappy, painful, empty life. Everyone who’s seen it has done nothing but lavish heaps of praise on it and there’s a good chance that come Oscar season you’ll hear at least some buzz. Watch the movie’s trailer in high-res over at Oprah.com.

Director Lee Daniels tackles "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire" that sets a new standard for cinema of its kind. Precious Jones (Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe) is a high-school girl with nothing working in her favor. She is pregnant with her father's child - for the second time. She can't read or write, and her schoolmates tease her for being fat. Her home life is a horror, ruled by a mother (Mo'Nique) who keeps her imprisoned both emotionally and physically. Precious's instincts tell her one thing: if she's ever going to break from the chains of ignorance, she will have to dig deeply into her own resources. Don't be misled - "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire" is not a film wallowing in the stillness of depression; instead, it vibrates with the kind of energy derived only from anger and hope. The entire cast are amazing; they carry out a firestorm of raw emotion. Daniels has drawn from them inimitable performances that will rivet you to your seat and leave you too shocked to breathe. If you passed Precious on the street, you probably wouldn't notice her. But when her story is revealed, as Daniels does in this courageous film, you are left with an indelible image of a young woman who - with creativity, humor, and ferocity - finds the strength to turn her life around. Winner of the Dramatic Grand Jury and Audience Award Prizes for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
***
The Young Victoria

November 13 2009

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
: Emily Bunt, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson

Directed by Quebecois, Jean-Marc Vallée (maybe we'll get him as our guest), Emily Blunt delivers a stunning performance as Queen Victoria in the turbulent first years of her reign. Rupert Friend (Pride & Prejudice) portrays Prince Albert, the suitor who wins her heart and becomes her partner in this spectacular romance.
***
Nine

November 25

(Alliance) From L to R: Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day Lewis and Kate Hudson

- The last time that director Rob Marshall was paired with a musical - Chicago - it resulted in 13 Oscar nominations. Nine, a lavish movie adaptation of the 1982 Tony-winning musical based on Federico Fellini's classic film 8 1/2. Even if you don't consider Marshall's Chicago experience, you can't ignore the appeal of a script by The Player's Michael Tolkin and a cast that makes your eyes water. ANYTHING starring Daniel Day-Lewis is probably going to be great - he really is probably the best actor of his generation - and the pedigree of his female supporting cast is impeccable. We're most excited to see La Vie en Rose's Marion Cotillard again, and the idea of watching Judi Dench and Sophia Loren belt out showtunes makes Nine almost impossible to ignore or resist.

Daniel Day-Lewis ... Guido Contini
Marion Cotillard ... Luisa Contini
Penelope Cruz ... Carla Albanese
Judi Dench ... Liliane La Fleur
Nicole Kidman ... Claudia Nardi
Kate Hudson ... Stephanie Necrophuros
Sophia Loren ... Mamma
Stacy Ferguson ... Saraghina
***
Love & Savagery

TBD

(Metropole)John N. Smith's story of passion, fate, and the consequences of the two. In 1968, Newfoundland geologist and poet, Michael McCarthy, travels to Ballyvaughan to examine the “Burren” a geological wonder. There he meets Cathleen, a beautiful woman who captures his heart, but because of the path she chose when she was young she cannot allow him to capture hers. Savagery erupts when Michael’s persistence collides with the townspeople’s hostility toward a foreigner’s attempt to intervene with divinity. Cathleen has to choose between a desire that she has recently discovered and a desire that she has felt throughout most of her life. Which will she choose? The love of a man, or the love of God? Can she love both? Is she strong enough to make the right choice?
***
Up in the Air

tbd

From Jason Reitman, director of Juno, comes Up in the Air starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate hatchet man who loves life on the road but is forced to fight for his job when his company downsizes its travel budget.

Most travelers disdain airports, long flights and bland, standardized hotels - not Ryan Bingham. The career transition counselor—spends his time in transit, in the place he calls “Airworld.” He loves it. “Airworld is a nation within a nation,” Ryan says, “with its own language, architecture, mood and even its own currency—the token economy of airline bonus miles that I’ve come to value more than dollars. Inflation doesn’t degrade them. They’re not taxed. They’re private property in its purest form.” Ryan’s chief goal in life is to accumulate one million frequent-flyer miles, something, on a smaller scale, any traveler can appreciate.

Up In the Air has served as a title of seven different movies, going back to 1915.
***
The Boys Are Back

tbd

A moving, wryly confessional Australian tale of fatherhood, that intimately evokes both the fragility and wonders of family life. It follows a witty, wisecracking, action-oriented sportswriter, who, in the wake of his wife's death, finds himself in a sudden, stultifying state of single parenthood. With turbulent emotions swirling just below the surface, Joe Warr throws himself into the only child-rearing philosophy he thinks has a shot at bringing joy back into their lives: "just says yes." Raising two boys - a curious six year-old and a rebel teen from a previous marriage -- in a household devoid of feminine influence, and with an unabashed lack of rules, life becomes exuberant, instinctual, reckless . . . and on the constant verge of disaster. United by unspoken love, conflicted by fierce feelings and in search of a road forward, the three multi-generational boys of the Warr household, father and sons alike, must each find their own way, however tenuous, to grow up. Their story is not just about the transforming power of a family crisis -- but the unavoidable grace of everyday life and love that gets them through. Academy Award® nominee Scott Hicks (Shine) directs based on the acclaimed 2001 memoir by Simon Carr Shot on location in the stunning countryside of South Australia, the film is produced by Greg Brenman ("Billy Elliot") and Tim White ("Ned Kelly"). The executive producers are Peter Bennett-Jones and Clive Owen.
***
Invictus

December 11.

Written by native South African writer Anthony Peckham, based upon the book "Playing the Enemy," by John Carlin and tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team (Matt Damon) to help unite their country. Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

Invictus is sure to be an awards contender, just as most any Eastwood film is lately and Warner Bros. continues to give his features prime award season placement. Taking a look at Eastwood's last six films results in 22 Oscar nominations, which includes seven wins. If you take Gran Torino out of the picture, those 22 nominations are actually credited to only five films. To say I see nominations for Damon and Freeman in the future would be an understatement, not to mention the potential for even more awards

Eastwood is adept at darker, personal stories (Million Dollar Baby” and “Gran Torino)
***
The Tempest

As film director, Julie Taymor does things big. The spellbinding puppetmaster (Mozart's Magic Flute with the Metropolitan Opera + Broadway's The Lion King) has directed three films, every one a spectacle. 1) Titus, her gigantic, bloody take on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, with Jessica Lange and Anthony Hopkins; 2) Frida, the Frida Kahlo biography starring Salma Hayek, a film as amazingly lively and colorful as Kahlo’s work itself. (a svelte 2 hours, 3 minutes); 3) Across the Universe, a literal take on Beatles lyrics.

Now, her filmed version of The Tempest with Helen Mirren (The Queen), Alfred Molina, David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, Tom Conti and Alan Cumming. Prospero is now Prospera, usurped by her brother and sent off with her four-year daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it's a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda, leading to the power struggle between Caliban and Prospera; a struggle not about brawn, but about intellect. Whew.
***
Brothers

December 4

Jim Sheridan's film (In America, In the Name of the Father) about a man who comforts the wife of his brother who leaves for war in Afghanistan, stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey McGuire, three fine young talents in Hollywood.

***
The Lovely Bones - December 11.

(Paramount) Going head-to-head against Clint Eastwood's Invictis. Peter Jackson and the team behind the Lord of the Rings movies - returns with the adaptation of Alice Sebold's sad, sweet bestseller The Lovely Bones, a story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl, raped and murdered, who watches her family (and her killer) from Heaven as they move on following her death. In a tone both emotionally truthful, and darkly humorous, Susie tries to balance vengeance against the love she feels for her family and her need to see them heal; and ultimately comes to understand that family encompasses both the living and the dead.

Hollywood was quick to adapt the novel, but that a director best known for Hobbits and Orcs got the job. However, anyone familiar with Jackson's 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures (a true story of teen obsession and murder starring Kate Winslet) would immediately recognize Jackson as an eerily perfect choice to direct The Lovely Bones. Heavenly Creatures proved that Jackson and Fran Walsh know how to write teenage girls, and the more fantastic elements of the novel couldn't be in better hands. Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz play the parents. Stanley Tucci plays the killer in hiding.

***
Broken Embraces

December 18

(Metropole) Pedro Almodóvar's "Broken Embraces" is a four–way tale of amour–fou, shot in the style of ‘50s American film noir at its most hard–boiled,mixing references to Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place and Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, with Almodóvar fascination with the mystery of creation, guilt, unscrupulous power, the eternal search of fathers for sons, and sons for fathers.

Penelope Cruz, Lluis Homar of Bad Education and Blanca Portilla of Volver join the cast.
***
Agora - December 18 -

A sand and sandals epic, “According to IMDb, an historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave (Max Minghella) who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master (Rachel Weisz), the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria.” Set in Roman Egypt in the fourth century A.D., Rachel Weisz plays astrologer-philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, who fights to save the collected wisdom of the ancient world. Her slave Davus is torn between his love for his mistress and the possibility of gaining his freedom by joining the rising tide of Christianity.
***
December 25

(Warner) Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly. Action/Adventure Mystery. In a dynamic new portrayal of Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous characters, "Sherlock Holmes" sends Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson on their latest challenge. Revealing fighting skills as lethal as his legendary intellect, Holmes will battle as never before to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy the country.

Robert Downey Jr. is a tough, sword-flourishing Holmes, Jude Law as an even tougher, no-nonsense Watson in Guy Ritchie (Mr. Madonna)’s ‘reimagining’ of the ultimate sleuth. Based on Lionel Wigram’s comic book about the consulting detective rather than directly upon Conan Doyle’s books, the film also features Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, the captivating femme fatale introduced in an 1891 Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia.

***

The Queen and I

2009-08-21T12:35:00.001-07:00

The Queen and I

Opening at AMC 21 August, 2009

Here is a review on our behalf of The Queen and I by Sheila Whitzmann

***

On so many levels, this documentary by an Iranian-born filmmaker about her 2yr. association with Farah Diba Pahlavi, the widow of the former Shah of Iranis a wonderful film. If it were only a personal interview with the former Empress of Iran and the life she now lives in Paris and Washington, that would be interesting enough. If it were only a story of how the filmmaker, Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an award-winning Iranian-born woman, gained the right to interview Farah, and the mutual admiration and respect that developed between them, that would be interesting enough. But throw into this mix the fact that Nahid had been a Communist while a young woman in Iran, and had actively fought for the overthrow of the Shah's regime, and we have a stirring tale of two very real and thoughtful women meeting and changing and coming to understand one another.

Farah is the real star of this documentary. She is so full of courage and charm, so intelligent, so approachable and honest, that she is a credit to humanity. And, like in a child's fairy tale, because she was an Empress, everything takes on an added glow. Nahid, too, exorcises some childhood demons and is smart and brave. See this movie. It will stay with you forever.

Tetro

2009-08-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

Tetro

Opening August 14th
Exclusively
at the Cinéma du Parc

Consider Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie Tetro as grand opera – - monster deities, codes of honor, aristocratic hankypank, opulent visuals, hysterical excess, flamboyant melodrama. Of course you know what he's getting at: pageantry, pomp, spectacle: Coppola’s epic films have all examined fratricide and betrayal in its operatic theatricality. His Godfather Trilogy – - organized crime as family-centred saga – - was a place of ruthless, dehumanizing behaviour, of betrayal, of resentments and terrible deceptions - ending on the steps of the Teatro Massimo Opera House in Palermo, after a performance of Cavaleria Rusticana. Rustic chivalry, doncha get it!

His Apocalypse Now - warfare as Imperial delirium - captured the megalomaniacal grandiosity that is America – its blind passions, epic rivalries, insatiable appetites and shattering tragedies. I love the smell of napalm in the morning! glows Robert Duvall, as his helicopter gunships level a Vietnam village, accompanied by Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. So Coppola understands grand opera's descent into darkness that dehumanizes his patriarchs and inspires his greatest monsters: de Niro’s Vito Corleone in Godfather I; Al Pacino’s Michael in all three Godfathers; both Brando’s Don Corleone and his Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. And now we have Tetro: another Coppola patriarch monster resides at the centre of this movie as well, albeit off-camera for the most part. When Tetro was first released Coppola quipped:

The difference between The Godfather and this film is four stabbings, two strangulations, 20 murders by gun, three murders by car explosion and one machine gun murder!

While you really don’t need to have seen Victor Hugo’s satirical play, Le Roi s’amuse (1832), where a monster king seduces a guileless maiden; nor Guiseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851), where the priapic Duke of Mantua seduces Gilda, daughter of the court jester; nor Delibes’ ballet, Coppelia, (1870) where Doctor Coppélius’ life-like dancing doll persuades a village swain to abandon his true heart's desire; nor Jacques Offenbach’s version of the same tale in Tales of Hoffman (1881) – where the malevolent evil scientist Coppélius makes an automaton appear real, Coppola alludes to all of the above: rituals of patriarchal droit de seigneur and diabolical betrayal. Oedipal settlements of scores. Monster king hankypank, doncha know. Tetro focuses less on perfidious Hot-Hunk-Stud Kings than their abuse, the collateral mutilation they inflict on their own family. We glimpse the monster-king/seduced maiden action only briefly in technicolor flashback (Look at me, I have this because I’m entitled transpired 20 years before Tetro begins).

Come to think of it: don’t fuss yourself researching Hugo, Verdi, Delibes and Offenbach research. This is the story of our times. The swaggering patriarch lusting after his must-have trophy-babe is our enduring myth: Bill Clinton, Woody Allen, Silvio Berlusconi, Donald Trump, Nicholas Sarkozy all of whose sexual entitlements go unchallenged: Je suis le roi. The more powerful I am, the more self-assured I become, the easier for me to think: I’m gittin’ myself a princess. Whatever love exists between them, trophy wife is testament to his Deity. God Save our King! Indeed Ségolène Royal once observed on philandering French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, On se croirait revenu sous l'Ancien régime où le roi s'amuse. Ouch! Henry VIII may have concocted this prerogative.

At seventy years of age, Francis Ford Coppola’s panache for risk-taking movie-making still knows few bounds. In the press notes (which I’ve included as a pdf below), Coppola wrote:

Even though the story of TETRO has little to do with the story of my own life, the characters all embody parts of me. I wrote a completely fictitious story that nonetheless drew on memories from my family. It was heavily influenced by those films and plays that I had admired as a theater student and aspiring playwright. As in the theatrical tradition of Tennessee Williams’s Sweet Bird of Youth or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or even in Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, the father figure in Tetro is, in a sense, a “Biblical” father, cruel and domineering, someone who must be ultimately destroyed if his sons are to survive. Since the beginning of time and even within the animal kingdom, we all have been in competition with the most powerful men of the family. My own father wasn't like that, he was kind and inspiring, but because he was brilliant and somewhat vain, it was just a few more steps to turn into a monster.

While one could look to my own family to shed light on the film’s themes, these themes will most likely be of interest to any family, since such rivalries exist in all families. I’ve always believed that if you’re going to go through all the work it takes to make a film, it should be a film that is somewhat revealing about your thoughts and emotions, which are truly who you are.

So let’s take Coppola‘s word when denies/affirms Tetro's autobiographicality. He is, after all, a moviedom patriarch himself. The Coppolas rival the Barrymores as Hollywood aristocracy: filmmaker Sophia his daughter (who will direct Manon Lescaut next year in France); actor Nicholas Cage his nephew; Jason Schwartzman, his sister Talia’s son. At Wikipedia are 18 separate Coppola family profiles compared to 17 for the Barrymores. Check the connectors at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppola_family. He alludes, in his notes, to both Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill whose life meets art meets family meets movie approach he admires. Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill? Hmmmm. Tetro’s thinly veiled savagery is so raw and painful, it’s hard to believe Coppola, the writer, is not making certain parallels. In Tetro, the libertine is an orchestra conductor, the mother a diva. Coppola’s own father, Carmine was an arranger-composer, his mother composed Italian songs. (His Uncle Anton was the conductor.) Indeed, friction between Carmine Coppola and Anton, Coppola has admitted, helped inspire Tetro.

In re-exploring family monsters, Coppola bares scars of his own troubled production embarrassments as well, full of pain, disappointment, failure and betrayal. Think of the mortifying clunkers he’s turned out over the last 30 years - One From the Heart (’82), Rumble Fish and The Outsiders (1983), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

Even though Tetro runs 127 minutes, Puccini-like motifs thread through Tetro; operatic and ballet allusions, Nino Rota music, lurid Technicolor clips from the British ballet soap, The Red Shoes (where the diabolical monster is a ballet impressario), quotes from the movies of Orson Welles, Carol Reed, Roman Polanski, early Fellini, Rob’t Mitchum’s knuckles from Night of the Hunter; Kazan’s On the Waterfront. I certainly could not absorb them all. But no matter. If Tetro does not become a classic right away, it will sometime in the future. Filmed in lustrous black-and-white digital video (Coppola paid for the movie himself), Tetro is a rapture to watch, haunting, languid, unforgettable.

Everlasting Moments

2009-08-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

Mavens:

This glowing recommendation, just in from Evelyn! I concur, having seen the movie earlier this week. Evelyn makes note of a butterfly being released at the end. Sharp mavens might remember the conclusion of 12, where a caged sparrow is also released to its freedom.

peter

***

Hi Peter! Just to let you know that Lynn and I went to see Everlasting Moments at the Cinema du Parc at your suggestion. What a beautiful movie! The pace, the timing, the photography and the acting were just wonderful...after the film ended I just wanted to sit there and wait for another film to start - any movie because I wanted to be transported again into another world. This is what movies are all about. It was long but it carried you away with its timing. You really felt that you were visiting early 20th century life. The children were lovely and Maria exuded a certain innocent charm even if she bore her brute of a husband 7 children. Didn't really feel that the camera freed her from her life but gave her a sense of being, and of accomplishment. She was able to capture people and moments as they really were - a true gift of an artist. Mr. Pederson was also a love for her to dream about as obviously her family came first. She nearly left it all but her sense of responsibility and love of family kept her with her husband/family to the end. I loved it...even the end when she lets the butterfly go free...she knows that she also will soon be free You know, Peter, I always said that if I ever came back to this life I would like to come back as a bird because a bird is so free. He flys the wide expanse of the sky and looks down, chooses where he wants to go or build his home. Like Maria, we are all held back by a sense of responsibility, need, commitment and our own fear of change. That box we live in.The sadness is not that she didn't follow her dream but that she really couldn't - there was no escape. Only the butterfly went free!

The Hurt Locker

2009-07-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

Almost 50 of us attended last night's sneak preview of The Hurt Locker, courtesy of Equinoxe Films. First and foremost, This visceral movie is not for everyone. Some, unable to take it, lurched to the exits when they figured out what was in store. The G&M's Liam Lacey compared it to Georges Clouzot's Wages of Fear (1953). I had the same thought. In both, the audience sits atop a movie, charged with nitroglycerine. But The Hurt Locker will surely show up on almost everyone's top ten list in December. Here's why:

I loved the miniscule director miniatures of the movie: the damaged, certifiably nuts, courageous leading character (what a breakout performance! who is this guy?); the mangy cats, the passive Arab onlookers, the endless ominous street litter (beneath every shard of paper may lurk bomb), the dopey shrink. Mark Boal, the screenwriter, was embedded with a bomb squad in Baghdad.

I loved director, Kathryn Bigelow's immersive cinematic panache: the characters themselves ticking time-bombs; the multi-camera handheld documentary look, the near minimalist presence of music, the ominous off screen thwap-thwaps of choppers, the cries in the night. One of the stars gets offed in the first scene.

I raised this issue after we screened both Hunger and Gomorra, as to whether as citizens of the world we have some responsibility of bearing witness to grim goings on. It's a complex question, one which I never fully answer to my own satisfaction. The Hollywood moguls to this day argue that movies can only be entertainment.

I found The Hurt Locker spellbinding on other levels: we hear news reports of bombs going off in Baghdad markets; of suicide missions in Palestine; of maniacs in the London tubes, but seeing those incidents up close was indelible. If this were 1940, would filmmakers not have a real obligation to make films of the Holocaust? Would we, the audience, not have an obligation to go see them? In the future, I will not see/hear an Iraqi report of a bomb going off in the future without re-imagining horrors from this film.

I was also struck by the brutal nature of much mundane daily bread work: the sheer terrifying stuff some people undertake day after day after day. Coal miners in West Virgina, chicken sexers in South Carolina. We never really get it in news reports, but on film the disconnected Jeremy Renner character day after day, doing bomb disposal, what he's paid for, awed me.

A third note: the sheer incomprehensibility of ground-level war to those poor GI grunts on the ground. They can't identify the enemy, they don't distinguish between Shia and Sunni, they can't comprehend enemy savagery (placing the bomb in the corpse of that kid, rigging one of their own with a time-bomb). The protracted ambush in the desert was extraordinary, grunts firing off round after round into the desert void. And missing most of the time.

America is bedevilled by a presumption of paranoid rationality. Since God exists....since Arabs are evil... since markets are effective... Which leads inevitably to disastrous consequences. Accompanied by its stone-faced absence of any appreciation for irony, self-awareness, humility for the irrational. A certifiably God-fearing, market-loving nut ran America's foreign policy for eight years. And his VP even moreso! Yet, I don't see the Obama/Clintonites acting with much greater sanity when it comes to deploying their men with guns. D'oh!

Amarcord

2009-07-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Fellini on Memory

Memory is a most mysterious element, almost indefinable, that links us to things we don’t even remember having lived. It constantly incites us to stay in contact with dimensions, events, and sensations, that we can’t define, but that we know actually happened.

We need to distinguish between recollection and memory. There are two kinds of memory, one Proustian, the other Platonic. Recollection or remembrance of things past is banal: events can be recalled or they can be invented, as I’ve done in the majority of my films. Memory on the other hand, is like the soul: it lives before birth. Take Plato’s Phaedo and the slave boy for example. Socrates demonstrates that the untaught child knows Euclid and Pythagoras. In that sense, I too was a slave boy: my Socrates was Rossellini and what I knew intuitively was cinema. Child Federico was father to the man. Memory doesn’t express itself through recollection. It’s a mysterious indefinable component urging us to enter into contact with dimensions, events, sensations we can’t name but that we know, however confusedly, existed before us.

An Artist lives in his memory, constantly remembering people, places and situations that never have existed in the context of his life. The obligation to express in focused on the invention of memories/.

I don’t have a memory of personal recollections. It’s simply more natural for me to invent my own, inspired by the memory of lives and events that never existed, but which feeds on them or calls them into existence. I invented everything including my birth. And this invented self is the only true self I see reflected in the mirror of my films. I invented my youth, my family, relationship with women and with life. I have always invented. The irrepressible urge to invent is because I don’t want anything autobiographical in my films.

***

I am a born liar. For me, the things that are the most real are the ones I invented

*****

When I was a teenager, I fell in love with movies by falling in love with the movies of Federico Fellini. This week, I noticed that the Cinema du Parc intended to screen La Strada and Amarcord, two of Fellini's best, later this month. So I couldn't resist drawing them to movie mavens attention.

La Strada (1954) was Fellini's first great film, filled with the kind of stuff he used in movie after movie: the circus, the parade, the Jesus figure suspended against the sky, the trumpet (Nino Rota, borrowing Donizetti), the Chaplinesque waif, the carney figures, the seashore. All of them recur again in Amarcord, made 20 years later. So here are two movies that bookend Fellini at the top of his game, his first great one and his last.

Martin Scorsese, who is behind the La Strada's re-release, recalls in a recent article for the New York Times,

"I was enthralled by the film's resolution, where the power of the spirit overwhelms brute force... essentially a story of redemption rooted in the religious aesthetic. The simplicity of the plot harks back to the medieval morality play and, as Marcus points out, to the tradition of commedia dell'arte, with its stock roles and clownish costumes.

The NYT's Vincent Canby once wrote of Amarcord:

Fellini's most marvelous film... It's an extravagantly funny, sometimes dreamlike evocation of a year in the life of a small Italian coastal town in the nineteen-thirties, not as it literally was, perhaps, but as it is recalled by a director with a superstar's access to the resources of the Italian film industry and a piper's command over our imaginations. When Mr. Fellini is working in peak condition, as he is in Amarcord (the vernacular for "I remember" in Romagna), he somehow brings out the best in us. We become more humane, less stuffy, more appreciative of the profound importance of attitudes that in other circumstances would seem merely eccentric if not lunatic.

Roger Ebert:

"It's also absolutely breathtaking filmmaking. Fellini has ranked for a long time among the five or six greatest directors in the world, and of them all, he's the natural. Ingmar Bergman achieves his greatness through thought and soul-searching, Alfred Hitchcock built his films with meticulous craftsmanship, and Luis Buñuel used his fetishes and fantasies to construct barbed jokes about humanity. But Fellini... well, moviemaking for him seems almost effortless, like breathing, and he can orchestrate the most complicated scenes with purity and ease. He's the Willie Mays of movies.

I also attach a short excerpt, remember my own first encounter with La Strada, from my unpublished memoir. Plus some notes I prepared for the McGill MILR session I moderated on Amarcord this winter

Thank goodness movies can distract us from this soggy summer,

peter

***

From My Life the Movie

I explain to my son these days, ‘I’m a refugee from the 40s.’
‘When was that, Dad?’
‘Shortly after the Shakespearean Age... just before television...’
“OH, right... no TELEVISION when you were a kid?... got it, Dad. Back then, what was that like?’
‘Back when we used sundials…’

So nutty was I about Federico Fellini’s La Strada, I watched it unsubtitled in Toronto's Little Italy, understanding not a word of Italian. Fellini’s wife, Giulietta Masina seeking redemption, a saint working as sinner, a sentimentalist who’s one tough cookie. My bar crowd reminded me of her. She reminded me of them: funny, courageous, sassy low-life, with spunk to thwart the righteous.

Fellini converted me into a movie buff. I became an habitué of a lowlife demi-monde at a time when the drinking age was 21. I greased my hair into a Duck Butt. I wore drapes. I smoked Buckinghams. While pals were clambering after private school fairy princesses, I was falling in love with love, my hormones jouncing like olive oil on a hot skittle. I courted high-energy brainy cool-cat bar babes that got the joke. These wild things were hipsters with their untamed shag, their me-deep uninhibited, fantastical, oft-repeated hardscrabble anecdotes. One was the daughter of Holocaust survivors; another, the abandoned child of Polish Commies deported back to Poland stranding her alone in Canada at 15 years of age; a third, was half-Chinese, a runaway from her South African Baptist God-Squadders.

‘D’ya ever find God’, I once asked her.

‘Not yet, she said, but when I do, I’m plannin’ on givin’ Him a whuppin’ He won’t soon forget’.

Each trip to the York Theatre, a Toronto art house, was a pilgrimage involving elaborate faith, myth and ritual. I snoogled into eroticized screen worlds: South America (Black Orpheus, Wages of Fear), Japan (Woman in the Dunes), France (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), Sweden (Wild Strawberries). Movie parables mind-altered my Methodist values on life and death, female and male, good and evil, Heaven and Hell. Apostates warred against cowardice, avarice, ignorance: High Noon, On the Waterfront, Inherit the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird. As a consequence, I’ve adhered to the Gospel According to St. Cinema for, oh, the last sixty years.

Carefree

2009-06-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Mavens:

Probably our last get-together until the fall was last night's sneak preview of Chéri, starring Michelle Pfeiffer. I say probably, because who knows when access to another sneak preview could come along. Or a film like the Girlfriend Experience, which absolutely commands our animated discussion. Fortunately movies don't take the summer off. In the meantime, I will be posting blogs, when interesting movies come along.

We're getting lots of inquiries about the future of my-pov.ca, mebbe becuz of the sneak previews, so send all curious mavens our way, and we'll get out info to them.

However, I could not wish you all a carefree summer without referring to this immortal clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pw0XRAuO0w) celebrating Fred Astaire, golf and summertime, from the RKO movie, Carefree (1938) with music by Irving Berlin.

So stay tuned. We'll be right back with a bigger better movie club in the fall.

The Girlfriend Experience

2009-06-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

We've been anticipating this Soderbergh movie since Ché, Stephen Soderbergh's first venture into the hi-tech camera Red. Here's his second, as with Ché, cast with mostly amateur actors, a mostly-improvised script, shot very quickly, and using mostly natural light. Like Godard, Soderbergh pushes the envelope of acceptability each time out.

The Girlfriend Experience opens at the AMC on June 26th, after my-pov.ca is in summer hiatus. Enjoy!

Here's J Paul Higgins' review:

***
A fascinating, occasionally infuriating, wonderfully written film. Quite short at 77 minutes, I was riveted; the somewhat abrupt ending left me wanting more. Probably not for everyone however.

The director (Steven Soderbergh) employs sometimes exasperating devices to keep the audience off balance. The chronological sequence is scrambled. The compelling sound track rarely seems appropriate to what’s on the screen, with frenetic drum music over quiet shopping scenes, bass heavy “danger” music at strangest times. (Check out the street drummer Shakerleg in the trailer!) Filmed on a portable high definition video camera, occasionally deliberately shaky, the editing between scenes is often quite abrupt.

The story centers on Chelsea, a high priced escort and her live-in boyfriend Chris, a personal trainer, both very ambitious and finding business slowing down in October 2008 as the economy falters. The story cuts back and forth between the two as they struggle with business challenges (positioning, promotion, prospective business partners, website design, media reviews). Their clients, high-powered business men, blather on about business challenges during the economic downturn, offer investment advice. Careful viewers can obtain quite a decent MBA education from this film.

Chelsea is played by Sasha Grey who, at 21, is a very successful porn star. The Girlfriend Experience is her first mainstream role. Pretty of course with a spectacular body, she doesn’t seem that attractive at first. And her professional reserve and endless business discussions hardly spice things up. But then she grabs you with her eyes, a tweak of her brow, a twist of her mouth, an artful body pose in lingerie ... Ahem. Let’s just say she is quite believable in the role. Despite her professional background, this is not at all an explicit film; there are occasional brief glimpses of nudity and frank discussion, but nothing more.

Chelsea struggles with her relationship with clients. Is it essentially mercantile? Or closer to friendship? Where are boundaries and does setting them not destroy the illusion the client is paying for? How does her Sasha Grey's relationship with clients differ from that with her boyfriend? The writers and director lay out the dilemmas clearly but with subtlety. And I, as a sometime business coach to personal trainers and alternative health practitioners, found The Girlfriend Experience to be absolutely fascinating.

j paul higgins

L'heure d'été (Summer Hours)

2009-06-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ah! Blessed Serendipity! Two luminous unsentimental French films in three bountiful weeks (first One Day, You'll Understand with Jeanne Moreau, now Summer Hours with glam blonde, Juliette Binoche), both family stories, pivoted around a grande dame dowager, willfully preserving secrets of her personal past while disposing of the treasured clutter of bric-a-brac, forever an intricate part of her existence: paintings, tea-sets, ceramics.

I'm a big fan of Olivier Assayas' sensibility (a former reviewer for Les Cahiers due Cinéma). To the NYT, Assayas observed: We don’t want to know what we’re going to do with the cupboard that was in our mother’s living room. We don’t want to deal with the album of family pictures in the chest of drawers.... One day you become owner of those pictures, and you have no idea who these people were, but they are handed to you as somehow precious. Once you start turning the pages, he added, you get lost in the void of that unreachable past.

Yes, that unreachable past.

Because L'heure d'éte, like One Day, You'll Understand, is very French, the players all behave like civilized adults, talking (and listening) in full sentences, providing astute observations on their own circumstances. As John McKay pointed out last week during our post-O'Horten discussion, democracy is an precious value for movie goers. We can all make up our own minds what is going on. And once again here, Summer Hours, like Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, we the audience are viscerally invited in to bear silent witness to intimate family events as they unfold. It's a movie more about characters who inhabit this movie than events that happen to them. Note in that regard, the extraordinary camera work of Eric Gautier, his curious lens becoming our unobtrusive eyes, observing the exquisite decor, the courteous response, the sideways glance.

Summer Hours is also very much a meditation about Art that comes out of real lives: what is beauty and why we surround our lives with beautiful stuff. What the dowager adores, her kids seem prepared to dispose of, her grandkids resent losing. In the closing credits, we discover that Assayas, instead of making movie prop furniture, painting and ceramics, has borrowed the genuine articles from the great museums of Paris. Assaya's initial concept was to explore how art comes from real life and ends up in a museum, he said, as if in a zoo or a mausoleum, and how ultimately that changes the very nature of art.

Ah! French movies! You just gotta love 'em!

The heirs: glorious Juliette Binoche, flanked by Jérémie Renier and Charles Berling

Whatever Works/Chéri

2009-06-06T20:45:00.001-07:00

June 25th, 7 p.m. at the AMC

Mavens:

Thanx again to Brigitte Tanguay of Equinoxe Films, I have an either/or proposition for you. As a post-St-Jean Baptiste celebration, we have 50 tickets for two sneak premieres: either Stephen Frear's Chéri, or Woody Allen's Whatever Works, starring Larry David. I have seen neither, so have no feel for either of them. But sneaks are always great fun. Both, given the names attached, promise to be mainstream entertainment fare. So the first 50 rsvps, gets the ducats. Let me know which movie you prefer. If we have extras, I'll alert you to the possibilities of bringing a friend:

Whatever works sounds vaguely like Woody Allen from the recent creepy Woody Allen period: Larry David (one of my favorite funny guys) plays an aging curmudgeon who loves Fred Astaire, classical music and views the universe with disdain. (Does this plotline sound familiar?) And, oh yeah, the creepy bald guy is once again fall-down irresistible to some gorgeous young thing (Evan Rachel Wood). Variety observed:

Though stuffed with witty one-liners and wondrously convoluted tirades, this far-fetched, deliberately artificial game of musical chairs -- in which mismatched characters encircle, attract and repel each other -- feels forced, often losing itself in excess verbiage. Still, the David/Allen hybrid makes for a fascinating beast, of interest to acolytes of both comedians...

Chéri reunites the director (Frears), writer (Christopher Hampton) and star (Pfeiffer) of Dangerous Liaisons for another lavishly costumed exploration of French sexual naughtiness and aristocratic ennui during La Belle Epoque, this time, with a short story by Colette (Gigi) - romance between an experienced aging courtesan and a spoiled brat. Stephen Frears is one of those transatlantic British directors, who first came to prominence with the TV movie, My Beautiful Launderette. He is now best known in North America for period costume dramas like Cheri: Dangerous Liaisons, Mary Reilly.

Box Office magazine gave it ****:

The 50-year-old Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend make a credible pairing, with the young man adopting almost feminine wiles in his machinations with the opposite sex.....Hampton’s lines, many of which come directly from Colette, are a joy to hear—barbed and acerbic witticisms that speak volumes such as Bates’s delicious putdown of Lea when she notes that “when the skin is a little less firm, it holds perfume so much better.” Frears himself provides the linking narration that he delivered with equal wit and wisdom. It is all beautifully costumed and set—items that should not be taken for granted—and the supporting cast more than pass muster, especially Harriet Walter and Frances Tomelty.

O'Horten

2009-06-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

Oh! stands for both odd and Odd, the first name of Horten, a pipe-smoking Norwegian train engineer on the point of retirement after 42 years, riding the straight and narrow. Odd is an odd choice for a movie central character, given movies rarely feature retired characters, despite the fact, retired are among the most avid of movie goers. Moreover Odd's plot arc, trading in one identity (hermetic Scandanavian life-style) for another (bewildered golden ager, liberated with much too much time on his hands), is a future shock ego-crusher. Odd, fortunately, seems to have little ego.

So Odd Horten, in retirement, has no clue where to start living the rest of his life, since he has no friends, no hobbies, no colleagues. Director, Bent Hamer (Do all Norwegian names pun in English?) clearly has an affectionate absurdist take on Odd's life and times. Odd gets stuck in the oddest of situations: in the bedroom of a young boy; on an airport runway, smoking his pipe; in a pool with skinny dipping kids. And his new life discovers a cadence all its own, open to whatever whimsy wends his way. Surreal eccentrics pop up, disporting funky charms: his Alzheimer mom, once a ski-jumping champion; a psychic diplomat able to drive his Citroen blindfolded through icy streets of Oslo; an executive sliding down icy Oslo hill on his briefcase.

So O'Horten is a road movie of sorts - as Odd travels into his future. John Candy and Steve Martin (back when he was hilarious) collaborated on Planes, Trains and Automobiles 20 years ago. Bent Hamer goes further with all manner of idiosyncratic Norwegian conveyances, Odd travels on streetcars, buses, sailboats and finally ski jumps! And as a consequence, we get to look around glorious Norway - something no movie within memory has ever offered. (Unsurprisingly, Norway looks like Northern Alberta). And O'Horten feels like Jacques Tati, or those bittersweet deadpan Czech movies that Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel and Jan Kadar snuck out to the West in 1960s.

Oh! in this case, also stands for original, off-beat and Buster Keaton odd.

Every Little Step

2009-06-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Every Little Step, a fascinating and deeply moving evocation of a long ago time (the mid 1970s) - both documentary and musical - seemed dubious as a my-pov.ca candidate. Not that I have anything against musicals (nor documentaries), but going in, in my mind, a Star Search/American Idol survival of the fittest 'reality show' did not seem exactly my cup of tea. I was wrong (again). Every Little Step performers are the polar opposite of dorky amateurs chasing after fame and fortune on TV reality shows. Broadway hoofers - low-pay, intense self-confidence, unbelievable athleticism - are a spectacular species of entertainer. Every Little Step explores exactly what dancers will do for love.The original Chorus Line was a mix of Show biz (cattle calls, workshops, callbacks) and 1970s real life (gay-rights, sexual revolutions, group therapy). And Richard Attenborough's stagey 1985 Chorus Line captured much of the energy of the original show.

The Broadway Musical, as a genre, only lasted from say, the 1927 Kern/Hammerstein Showboat through the early sixties. Then, was done in by the Rock n' Roll revolution, the Brit Invasion (Cats, Les Miz) and Uncle Walt's Magic Kingdom. Broadway is now but a tourist's low-rent Las Vegas with a serious identity crisis. I won't go on. However, in the Broadway Musical twilight (1975), choreographer Michael Bennett and producer Joe Papp, produced Chorus Line, premised on anonymous chorus line, being the real Broadway stars. Hundreds of dancers from across the world descended on the Great White Way, each auditioning for one of 22 prized roles in the chorus of this show.

Alas, those heady times - Broadway musicals and devil-may-care sexual fecklessness are long gone. Every Little Step mirrors Broadway reality, introducing us to the behind-the-scenes chorus kids, telling us their life stories as they audition for parts that are real-life versions of a show that itself features the original cast's life stories. A house of mirrors, then. This doc traces the audition process of the 2006 Broadway revival of Chorus Line as three thousand dancers (lined up in the rain) are whittled down through a Darwinian survival of the fittest to 17. Every Little Step honours the original Michael Bennett vision. It celebrates Marvin Hamlisch's songs. So bring your box of Kleenex, this is a heartbreak and vulnerability weeper. Dancers clearly love their work more than most entertainers. They get paid a pittance, their chance of being cast is minimal, they require Olympian athleticism

Every Little Step is combination documentary/musical. And it, like the anonymous hoofer-gypsies it features - alas!- won't last long. Nevertheless, this is a sublime feel-good treat, engrossing and intense.

peter

One Day You'll Understand

2009-05-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

First of all, who would/could resist a movie starring Jeanne Moreau? All our lives, those eyes have enchanted us (Les Amants, Liaisons Dangereuses, Quatre Cent Coups, La Notte, Jules et Jim, Diary of a Chambermaid, M. Klein, La Femme Nikita) and here she is, now 81 and 134 movies later, still alive and kicking. One Day You'll Understand, a cinematic adaptation of French author, Jérôme Clément’s autobiographical homage to his mother, deals with the near impossibility of children ever recuperating the irrecoverable past of their parents, let along coming to terms with it. In this movie (just called Plus Tard in France), Jérôme Clément’s maternal grandparents, Vichy France, Klaus Barbie and the Holocaust are the irrecuperable past. Clément’s paternal family were French Catholics; his mother's were Russian Jews.

Situated at the centre of this intelligent meditation, Jeanne Moreau, knowing what fate visited upon her, knowing what barbarities were visited upon her parents, has composed a fiction of her past, having never shared past truths with either her children (and now her grandchildren). The trial of Klaus Barbie, butcher of Lyon, provokes her change. None has an escape from their past. On Yom Kippur, she takes her grandchildren to synagogue. Later, you'll understand, she reassures her son.

Because I'm in the process of reading The Holocaust is Over, We Must Rise from its Ashes, by Israeli Avraham Burg, j'accuse Holocaust representations have been much on my mind. After screening Shoah in 1985, Claude Lanzman's eight-plus hours of interviewee memory (which ran 8 h 20 min.) I felt then as I feel now: I understand everything I will ever understand about cinematic representation of the Holocaust. And yet Holocaust indictment entertainment keeps spewing forth. Last holiday season, we got a spate of them, : I Served the King of England, Waltz With Bashir, Defiance, Adam Resurrected, Valkyrie, The Reader (I'm supposed to feel for an Auschwitz guard?), Counterfeiters. They provoke in me such guilt, sentimentality, sorrow, anger. They also strike me critic-immune, the most unctuous, claiming moral high ground and the mantle of all that is good and righteous to fend off cinematic mediocrity. Some (La Vita e Bella) are egregiously mawkish. Many pile it on with gratuitous violence.

Among critics, (Jewish, for the most part), there's a lot of Holocaust crankiness out there. Enough already. One wrote:the more bad Holocaust films you make, the more Holocaust clichés you employ, the more the Holocaust itself becomes a cliché. One Catskills wit cracked: There's No Business Like Shoah Business. IMDB lists 461 titles in the holocaust subset. There are even unseemly Top Ten Holocaust/Nazi movies lists. Here's my problem: exploiting unfathomable mass horror in the hopes of either making a buck or earning some gravitas recognition seems mighty unseemly.

In One Day You'll Understand, Israeli Director Amos Gitai seeks a dialog between past and future, between unknowable collective memory (Moreau) and uncomprehending present-day France, haunted by its past (Hippolyte Girardot). With the imminent disappearance off the stage of the last direct witnesses to the horrors (gone, as though they never existed). Buried secrets, Amos Gitai argues, must be entrusted to the artists: filmmakers, novelists, painters. His observations are astute, restrained, interior, contained.

Cherry Blossoms

2009-05-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

Life is such a disappointment.
Yes.

Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story

Cherry Blossoms, scheduled to open here March 6th, was pushed for the last couple of months for reasons I have never learned. No matter. I was in no hurry. Finally it's arrived, a movie I have not seen and yet feel I know, as a distant cousin. Urbane children of an elderly rural couple find little time in their harried lives for parents they no longer relate to: quest for children's personal fulfillment blowing the parents apart. I've seen this movie before.

I've always been fascinated by movie provenance - be they remakes, sequels, prequels, spinoffs or plagiarisms. On March 18th, I blogged an item on Hollywood begats (read it here: http://peterspovblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/redux-begats.html). With The Soloist, I wrote last week on the series of L.A.Times newspaper columns which spawned a book, several documentary items and then the movie. Each dealing, in its own medium with the awesome mystery that is schizophrenia.

We all enjoyed comparing the themes, approaches, and performances of 12, the Russian movie remake of Sidney Lumet's 1957 Twelve Angry Men. Cherry Blossoms has yet another Hansel unt Gretl trail of provenance behind it: in 1937, in the heart of the depression, Leo McCarey directed Make Way for Tomorrow, a little known Hollywood gem many consider the greatest ever made about the plight of the elderly: when an elderly couple lose their home, their five ungrateful children, now grown-up and married, are far too self-absorbed to care for their parents.

Talk about provenance: Make Way for Tomorrow came from a play, which in turn was adapted from a novel. Here's the lead from the NYT movie review of 1937 : Leo McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow has three qualities rarely encountered in the cinema: humanity, honesty, and warmth. These precious attributes, nurtured and developed by the best script Vina Delmar has written, by Mr. McCarey's brilliant direction, and by the superb performances of Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, and the rest, have produced an extraordinarily fine motion picture, one that may be counted upon to bid for a place among the "ten best" of 1937.
Orson Welles reportedly said that it would make a stone cry. Documentairan Errol Morris quipped: the most depressing movie ever made, providing reassurance that everything will definitely end badly.

I remember vaguely seeing Make Way for Tomorrow on television decades ago and thinking it very old fashioned. Now, I'd give my eye teeth to rescreen it with fresh eyes. I've searched without success for a dvd or vhs. As far as I can see, Make Way for Tomorrow has been dropped down the oubliette of technological memory. Prints exist but we have no access to them, discarded much the way the elderly occasionally are when they're no longer of much use to their kids. Not surprisingly, while it flopped at the box office then, Make Way for Tomorrow lives on in cinemaniac memory. Nevertheless, you can bet Hollywood isn't actively optionning a remake today. When he won the Oscar that year, for a Cary Grant/Irene Dunne divorce comedy The Awful Truth, McCarey quipped: "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture."

But somebody else, Swiss director Doris Dörrie has. She calls it Cherry Blossoms.

Which brings us to Yasujiro Ozu's 1951 Tokyo Story, modeled on McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (which Ozu claimed he never saw.) Ozu sets his wretched offspring story in post-WW II Japanese reconstruction. An old couple living in the port city of Onomichi take their first trip to Tokyo, visit their married (ungrateful) children: a doctor and a beautician—both somewhat put out by their parents' visit. Endless critics and filmmakers speak of Tokyo Story in complete awe and admiration. It's available both at Boîte Noire and the Fort Movieland.

Doris Dörrie's Cherry Blossoms (just over 2 hours long), then takes two classics, an homage to both McCarey and Ozu masterpieces while making her own movie. I have not yet seen Cherry Blossoms, nor feel any urgent need to do so. While this film and social mores are different (American becomes Japanese becomes Swiss), I anticipate yet another touching portrait of awkward love and understanding for ghastly offspring that leaving me both elated and devastated..

Movies get us looking at our world through different optics: when when the same movie gets translated into three separate decades: the 1930s Hollywood movie becomes the 1950s Japan story 21st century becomes the 2009 Switzerland production, we pick up cultural themes and variations that can't help but be evocative.

May 1st Cinebulletin

2009-05-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Cannes Film Festival starts next week (May 13-24). They have a smart (in English) website, so bookmark this page: http://www.festival-cannes.com/en.html. Movies we know nothing about today, we'll be screening in the next year.

Book Review - The Soloist - Finding fascinating the various iterations of the same story (movie, newspaper columns, TV documentaries), yesterday I bought, and consumed at one sitting the Steve Lopez book, The Soloist, the underpinning of the movie and a reworking in narrative form of his LA Times columns. It's a quick easy read, and while argumentative, very persuasive.
I'm ashamed that in a region of unprecedented wealth, the destitute and the sick have been shoved into this human corral. I'm frustrated by my inability to do more for Nathaniel. If I can't help him, how can I help the others. ...and .....He lives in two distant constellations, this man who fends off rats on skid row and holds forth at Disney Hall, mingling easily with members of the orchestra...From paranoia to poetry, sirens to violins, madness to genius, Nathaniel's life is opera.
($13.86 @ Chapters; $3.96 @ Amazon).

Cinephiles should visit our website (http://www.my-pov.ca/), screen the newly posted The Soloist trailer Scott has posted, and then screen, on YouTube(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7ovt3vSFi8), a 4:00 memorable documentary clip of a birthday party journalist Steve Lopez organized for Nathaniel Anthony Ayers in the basement of his newspaper.

Farla, having seen The Soloist, reminds me of the healing-force-of-music parallels between this week's film and Shine, the elegant 1996 Australian movie about pianist, David Helfgott. Both deal with the conundrum posed by creativity: gifted, scarred musicians, whose lives can go so awry. Steve Lopez makes the same point in his book:
Nathaniel's sound is the baring of his soul, and when he closes his eyes, it's as if he's come to a clearing in a forest and found relief under an open sky.
In Shine, Rachmaninoff costars with Geoffrey Rush. In The Soloist, it's Beethoven.

Nicole went to see Ghost of Girlfriends Past (100 min) for us. Here's what she found:
Connor Mead, (Mathew McConaughey) ,more philandering bachelor than glamour photographer, heads from New York City to his childhood home in Newport, Rhode Island to serve as best man at his younger brother’s wedding.“Not the best man to pick for your best man” The publicity reads: And they were right! Uncle Wayne, (Michael Douglas) the Hugh Heffner ghost, with matching depth, is out to show his shallow nephew that he has lost his way “…like the Tin Man, born without a heart.” What wisdom!Uncle Wayne calls upon the ghost of many past girlfriends to lend a hand in teaching his shallow nephew a lesson about life and love.
Beautiful childhood friend Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner), still vulnerable to Connor’s charm, is on a mission. She has the incredible task of making the weekend long festivities work smoothly.. Well educated, self confident, friend of the bride and groom. Of course, what wedding would be complete without a wicked tongued divorced mother-of-the bride, a drill sergeant Marine Corps father of the bride? Throw in a wedding rehearsal dinner party that goes awry, some predictable slapstick, bridesmaids disillusioned by socially inept ushers and eager to be out there on the make and you have the general ingredients of: Ghost of Girlfriends Past. This film is for young romantic comedy lovers. I am not one of them!
Our thanks to J. Paul Higgins, who provided notes on Tyson, after attending the press screening on our behalf:
Strangely compelling movie, “strangely” because I’m not a boxing fan and for the most part the movie consists of close cut scenes of Mike Tyson speaking interspersed with archival fight footage. There is no narration. And yet the time passed quickly and I was fully engaged.This is not a technical boxing film; focuses more on the mental framework of a fighter than the physical training or techniques. The boxing footage is taken from broadcasts of his fights but in generally seems dispassionate and not excessively brutal given the subject matter. Mike Tyson is not a very sympathetic character; he started life as a pre-teen mugger, became famous as an alleged wife abuser, was convicted and imprisoned for rape, was famous as a brutal and aggressive boxer and most famous for biting an opponent on the ear twice during a fight. Tyson does not shrink from any of the controversy, addressing all the low points. Some mistakes he admits to, others he denies, others are blamed on his young age or drug taking. The film effectively cuts between archival interviews of a young, brash Tyson and film of today’s battered and brutal looking man with a facial tattoo. He is an uneducated but an intelligent and thoughtful speaker and the director catches him in a range of emotions, from tears to angry defiance. Overall the film presents a middle aged man trying to come to terms with his past and self-consciously working to become his version of a better man.

I'm proposing some major improvements to the future operations of my-pov.ca, finishing off a document I'll circulate next week

The Soloist - Monday, May 4th - 5:15 p.m.

The Soloist

2009-04-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

I had not looked forward to seeing The Soloist, precisely because a) the The Soloist's damn misleading trailers, playing since October (an almost guaranteed indicator of a turkey) sold it as feel-good sappy white journalist helps deranged black guy buddy- flick b) I dread Hollywood buddy-illness redemption weepers. However, like Sunshine Cleaning, The Soloist is not what its trailers represent itself to be: it's a story of friendship, Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles newspaper columnist, writing about and then befriending Nathaniel Ayers, a mentally disturbed homeless guy.

Walking as I do about Montreal, homeless people now seem everywhere. Watching The Soloist, I kept being reminded of cynical Bill Murray in Groundhog Day - unable to save a homeless guy - forced to accept things as they are. And like Bill Murray, I think there must be answers to this scourge yet I have no idea what is those answers should be, and fear that whatever is done, will never be enough. If you can't convince most of them they're sick, let alone steer them into public housing, then what?

Yet, I'm unwilling to let go, each time confronted by my own massive confused disarray. Freezing, rotting, they don't seem romantic nor creative to me. They seem scary, provoking my fear of random psychotic violence. And I'm afraid to take responsibility for my own thoughts. I fear their great unknown, so I arc around or away from them on my way into Second Cup. I cross Sherbrooke to avoid them on my way to McGill.

I'll be fascinated to hear your responses to this movie. After watching The Soloist, we'll have lots to talk about.

***

The Soloist has had several fascinating incarnations; first it was a Los Angeles Times column, then a series of columns; then a book. Before it came out as a movie, it was also an item on CBS' 60 Minutes.

....Here are links to all of them: a Hansel and Gretel Reese's Pieces trail of provenance back to the movie's creative genesis. Each present a different perspective on this extraordinary friendship, and are all worth sampling before screening the movie:

Steve Lopez's original LA Times columns. (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez28-2008dec28,0,2059096.column): [Mr. Ayers] once told me he preferred experiencing life to seeing it reflected in a mirror. ... After reading the book, though, he thanked me. He said it wasn't easy to read, but he felt that he needed to. As for the movie, he said he had no desire to see it, in part because the very thought of two-dimensional images on a screen is spooky to him. Lopez controled the contents of both his column and his book. With the movie, Lopez lost control over the portrayal of both Nathaniel Ayers and himself.

A David Carr NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/movies/19carr.html?emc=eta1) is a basic backgrounder, introducing us to Lopez, the journalist, the actors and the filmmakers charged with mutating Lopez' collection of non-fiction newspaper articles into a coherent movie.

Then, there's a quite remarkable 60 Minutes documentary item on the Lopez-Ayers friendship that evolved between these two men. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/22/60minutes/main4882450.shtml. You'll meet the real Steve Lopez and the real Nathaniel Ayres on whom the movie is based: both much older than their dopplegangers, Rob't Downey and Jamie Foxx. So what!

Stephanie Zacherek, movie critic for Salon (http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2009/04/24/soloist/index.html,) makes a telling accusatory point: how the movie's craftily edited trailers utterly and deliberately misled the audience into believing:
...the movie is one of those uplifting friendship stories guaranteed to elicit one or two obligatory tears before sending everybody home feeling good. That's what the guys who edited that trailer want you to think: Movie advertising is never about nuance, but movies often are. She got that right.

Creative Liberties

We've discussed movie makers creative liberties in the past: how movies vary from perceived reality.The movie version of The Soloist has many variances, which clearly irritate several in-the-know cognoscenti, especially movie reviewers. For example, the movie Steve Lopez is not divorced in real life, his former wife is not his editor

Cinephiles know my view on carping over creative liberties: It's a movie. Get over it!!!!

60 - 90,000 Destitute Angelenos

More distressing however....in the back of almost every Soloist skidrow shot (and often in the foreground) is this community of real homeless - 60 - 90,000 destitute, desolate souls loitering just behind the Disney/Frank Gehry splendid concert hall. In the 60 Minutes piece, Casey Horan, who runs an agency providing shelter for the mentally ill, notes more homeless reside in LA than San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, New York and Seattle combined. Whew!

Here, movie-making and reality get skewed, overlapping, wierder than any reinvented columns mutated into scripts. As in Che, Gomorra and Sin Nombre, Soloist on camera mean streets are populated with real marginalized homeless. So, in front of the camera is an actor , Jamie Foxx playing a character whose fragile hold on reality is never a sure thing. Filling in the background are the genuine articles. We the audience, sitting in air-conditioned comfort, are witnessing chaos; we are able to determine that Robert Downey Jr. is certainly not Steve Lopez. But we're utterly incapable of determining whether that weird guy, twirling in front of the Jamie Foxx, is nuts or just acting.