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Cassandra's Dream
- After a brief
retreat to comedy with last year's Scoop,
writer/director Woody Allen returns to the taut Hitchcokian
thriller genre seen previously in Match
Point. Ewan
McGregor and Colin Farrell play a pair of middle class London
dreamers – one wants money so he can chase a better class of
tail; the other wants mpre cheese to chase inside straights –
who are each up to their necks in the deep stuff.
You get the impression this sort of thing happens at
least semi-frequently, which is usually when wealthy Uncle
Howard (Tom Wilkinson) turns up to bail the boys out of trouble.
When
Howard asks his nephews for a rather unusual return favor, the
mood of Dream shifts to the macabre, which, obviously, is something that still
seems a bit odd coming from Woody, at least when deprived of
chuckles. But he
handles the change of pace well, offering decent levels of
tension that are, frankly, better than most attempts (especially
from the slew of recent American slasher flicks).
Strong performances, especially from the never-better
Farrell. This might
be the first time I’ve watched him and not been completely
distracted by that big black caterpillar above his eyes.
Import Export
- Fans of Ulrich Seidl and his famous static shots
will feel right at home with this ultra-grim offering, which
follows two young Europeans who (sort of, literally) cross paths
while traveling outside their home countries in an attempt to
find employment. Olga (Ekateryna Rak) is a single mom and a nurse in Ukraine,
and instead of making ends meet by working on an x-rated online
webcam like her pals, she heads off to Austria and gets a
nursing home gig…as part of the janitorial staff.
Meanwhile, Pauli (Paul Hofmann) is a Viennese security
guard who can’t find work – he starts working in Ukraine
with his louse of a father.
At 135 minutes, you really
have to be in the right mood to watch this and not be deeply
bothered by what you see. And
that, I suppose, means it’s a success.
Mister Lonely
- Harmony Korine, in
the eight years since releasing the Dogme-approved julien donkey-boy,
has mostly been hanging out with David Blaine.
“What,” you might think, “might that do to the enfant
terrible’s sense of cinematic style?”
It’s subdued a bit, and not nearly as nauseating.
And I’m not sure I mean either of those things as a
compliment.
Armed
with Michael Winterbottom cinematographer Marcel Zyskind,
Korine’s latest focuses on an American Michael Jackson
impersonator (played by the decidedly non-American Diego Luna)
living a lonely existence in Paris until he meets a Marilyn
Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) who invites him back to an
all-impersonator commune in the Scottish Highlands (complete
with the likes of the Three Stooges, Abe Lincoln, James Dean, a
Little Red Riding Hood played by Korine’s wife, and a Shirley
Temple played by Morton’s daughter).
Oh, yeah – and Werner Herzog flies a plane and pushes
nuns out to see if they’ll survive the fall.
Did someone just say this was subdued?
It is, believe it or not, and it’s Korine’s most
accomplished work by far. That
doesn’t mean it’s better, but it means he’s growing as a
filmmaker.
Angel
- Speaking of enfant
terrible, how about François Ozon’s nearly Disney-ish
flick about a poor working class girl named Angel (Romola Garai)
who follows her dreams and ends up becoming the most popular
fiction writer in all of England. At
least that’s what it looks like from the outside – Ozon
instead crafts the anti-Disney story about a self-centered,
unsophisticated brat who treats everyone badly just because she
can crank out chick lit with a surprising lack of effort.
At first, you think Angel might be flat-out crazy, or
maybe the victim of a blow to the head, as surely, someone this
clueless does not deserve the attention and riches lavished upon
her. And when you
realize it’s not a joke, the film becomes even more enjoyable.
The dialogue is a little flat and wonky (it’s Ozon’s
first stab at an English language picture), and the running time
is a bit heavy, but I still enjoyed the movie, if not only to
work out how I would make a Garai Potato Head (Zooey’s eyes;
Drew’s mouth). Plays
much better in these days of the celebutard.
Nothing Is
Private - It’s
difficult to come away with an honest impression of the
directorial debut from American
Beauty writer/Six
Feet Under creator Alan Ball because watching the film is
akin to being hit with a blunt object for just over two hours.
Subtle, Private
is not. Ball adapts
Alicia Erian’s novel about a 13-year-old
half-American/half-Lebanese girl’s horrible adventures in a
suburban Texas cul-de-sac during the opening strains of Gulf War
I. Jasira (Summer Bishil, who was 18 during filming) is slapped
around by her father (Peter Macidissi) for dressing
inappropriately, suffers through some embarrassing firsts
(menstruation/masturbation), and that’s before her Army
Reservist neighbor (Aaron Eckhart) comes over and digitally pops
her cherry. Light
in tone, Private is
not. Every time the
doorbell rings at Jasira’s house, her dad shouts, “Now
what!” and you’ll be thinking the exact same thing – how
many more unspeakable things can happen to this kid?
The
material here isn’t darker than Beauty
or even Under.
It’s just that Ball as a director doesn’t know how to
handle it quite as stylishly as a Sam Mendes or a Michael Cuesta
or a Jeremy Podeswa or a Daniel Minahan or I could go on
forever. At times, Private almost feels like a failed attempt at making a Todd Solondz
film. If there’s
a message, I didn’t get it.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t dig the flick,
especially the performance from Macidissi, who Under
fans might recognize as Olivier the artist.
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